Part 5

There is no one to play with me, only the lambs and the baby goats and they like each other better than me, I think.

I am alone.

PLAYMATES

But look!!

There are butterflies, small white butterflies above the flower plants of purple iris.

I sit among the iris.

I hear the whispering of white wings flying.

I think they like my velvet blouse.

I think they like my long black hair because they come to me and to the purple iris, those small white butterflies.

A little fat chipmunk in a brown striped blanket comes close to me.

He sits on his feet.

He holds his hands out.

He wrinkles his nose and looks at me.

I give him bread.

He holds it in his hands and with little quick bites stores it away in his fat brown cheeks.

Funny little chipmunk in his brown striped blanket with storerooms in his face!

Gray squirrels with bushy tails run up and down the trees.

They chatter to me.

They make me laugh.

I pull my skirts around me and follow the squirrels.

Now I know where they live.

Now I know where I can find piñon nuts this autumn.

I feel the warmth of Sun-Bearer's shield against my back.

And on my face I feel cool fingers of rain-cloud shadows.

With my hands on the warm earth beside me, almost, I can feel things growing.

Why did I think I was alone?

POSSESSIONS

I am making a song to sing to myself.

It is about my possessions.

I have a woven hair tie.

I have a woven belt.

My mother made them for me.

My mother gave them to me.

They are my possessions.

I have silver rings on my fingers.

I have silver bracelets on my arms.

My father made them for me.

My father gave them to me.

They are my possessions.

Soft things and hard things I have for my possessions.

A song, a song, I am singing a song about them.

STORM

A storm wind comes to stop my song.

It comes through the trees with the strength of anger.

It sways me forward.

It sways me backward.

It turns me when I am walking.

Black clouds gather to blanket the thunder.

Zig-zag lightning cuts the clouds in two.

My sheep crowd near me.

With soft words I speak to them. I tell them not to be afraid for I am here.

LIGHTNING

Lightning darts like an arrow, an arrow of fire, from an unseen bow.

It darts in flame from the gray sky to the gray earth.

It strikes a tree.

Lightning strikes a tree.

My sheep, my sheep, I must save my sheep from this evil around them.

I must save them, my sheep, my poor frightened sheep.

FIRE

Fire runs up the tall tree trunk and into the branches.

The tree is on fire.

The tree is aflame.

It blazes.

It crackles.

It burns.

The sheep look to me to protect them.

My poor frightened sheep, I do not know which way to take them.

RAIN

But wait!

The sky is opening.

Rain comes through.

Male rain comes through, comes down in sheets of water, pours down in sheets of water drenching the flames of the burning tree.

My mother comes running between the trees.

She is frightened for the sheep and for me.

I tell her all things are good.

Lightning did not touch the sheep.

Male rain saved the trees from fire.

Male rain saved us from forest fire.

Now male rain has gone down into the valley.

Female rain follows with soft footsteps.

Flowers turn upward

Leaves turn upward lifting their hands to catch the gentle rain.

It is good.

The rain is good.

I open my hands to catch the gentle rain.

EVENING

Sun-Bearer parts the clouds and looks down on the rain.

He turns each raindrop into a silver bead.

He turns each rainstreak into a silver necklace.

He makes a rainbow path for the gods across the sky.

I go among the sheep, the huddled, wet sheep.

I sing to them.

I sing to the sheep, a song, a song, a song about my possessions, my ceremonial goods.

I have a little buckskin bag filled with things, with things.

My grandfather filled it for me.

My grandfather gave it to me.

Wherever I go I carry my little buckskin bag to keep me safe, to keep my feet on the Trail of Beauty.

A song, a song, I am singing a song to my sheep.

Just now on the home trail, a young deer, a beautiful young deer, stood in the bushes and looked at me.

His eyes were big and dark and full of questions.

A song, a song, I am singing a song on the home trail.

I have a necklace of turquoise and coral.

I have a necklace of white shell and coral.

My grandmother traded for them.

My grandmother gave them to me.

They are possessions.

I have turquoise in my ears, silver bells on my belt fringe.

My uncle made them for me.

My uncle gave them to me.

They are my possessions.

A song, a song, I am singing a song to my sheep.

My father has five kinds of possessions.

He has hard goods and soft goods, ceremonial goods and land and game.

But I am little.

I do not have five kinds.

I have three.

I made a song about them to sing the sheep home.

At last we reach the home camp.

The sheep are safe in their corral.

I am safe with my mother.

Summer shade is at my back.

In front of me is my mother's fire.

I am dry and warm.

Good food is cooking.

My mother sings, and all around me there is beauty.

SUPPER

My father and my uncle ride up from the Trading Post, the Red Rock Trading Post down near the winter hogan.

Long before I heard them I could feel them coming.

Long before I saw them I could hear them singing.

Now they ride into the firelight, my father and my uncle.

My father brought salt and baking powder and lard for my mother from the Trading Post.

He brought candy for me.

My father brought news, much news.

Things he had seen, things that were told to him at the Trading Post.

He brought them back for us to hear.

Then we washed our hands.

We sat away from the fire.

My mother placed the evening food before us.

When we had eaten my father gave thanks to the Holy Ones.

We washed our hands again.

My uncle put new wood upon the fire.

Then the best part of the day began.

My father and my uncle talked.

TALKING

My father said in ten days would be the time for dipping the sheep.

He and my uncle would help my mother and me drive the sheep to the dipping.

Sheep must be dipped in medicine-water.

There is no pollen.

There is no Holy Song.

There is no Trail of Beauty in this medicine water.

But my father says it is good for the sheep.

Sheep get lice hidden in their thick wool.

Lice make the sheep unhappy.

Lice make the sheep bite their wool.

Lice are bad for sheep.

Dipping the sheep in medicine-water kills the lice.

Ticks are bad for sheep.

Ticks live on the sheep's good blood.

Ticks make the sheep thin and weak.

If the sheep are robbed of their good blood they cannot stand the cold of winter.

They cannot stand the heat of summer.

They sicken.

Their wool is not good.

Dipping the sheep in medicine-water kills the lice and the ticks.

It is good for the sheep.

My mother does not like dipping because she does not understand why the sheep are dipped.

But my father talks to her.

He tells her about lice and ticks.

He tells her too that she is quickest and best of all the women at dipping her sheep in the medicine-water.

SHEEP DIPPING

All the people with their sheep and goats and horses and wagons and children and dogs go to the dipping.

There is much dust and work and singing and eating at dipping time.

I like it.

Sheep do not like dipping.

They do not like to take a bath in the medicine-water even though it is good for them.

When grandfather goat gets dipped he is angry, very angry.

He does not like to get his whiskers wet.

Tomorrow, first thing, I will tell old goat, old goat, that in ten days Washington will wash his whiskers.

My father talks of other things besides the dipping.

His voice goes on and on like wind in trees, like water running, like soft rain falling, like drum beats pounding, talk, talk, talking.

BEDTIME

After a time my mother and I unroll our blankets.

We go to bed beneath the cottonwood shade.

I have my own prayer to the night.

I whisper it, whisper it, but only the night wind hears.

The horses move within the shadows.

My father sings.

It is night.

The sheep move within the circle of branches.

My mother sleeps.

It is night.

THE STAR SONG

Softly my father sings the Star Song to the stars and me.

"When the world was being made, being made, when the gods were placing stars, the stars, the stars in patterns in the sky, coyote stole the star bag, coyote spilled the stars out in the sky, helter skelter in the sky, when the world was being made."

Softly my father sings it, the Star Song, to the stars and me.

Darkness covers me.

Beauty covers me.

My mother is near.

My father is near.

The sheep are safe.

The words of the Holy Song come to me, "On top of the mountain I found the gods."

It is night.

It is night.

Happiness comes to me.

I sleep.

THE ARTIST

The artist, Hoke Denetsosie, is a full-blood Navaho boy of twenty years, born and raised near Tuba City in the western part of the reservation. He was a student at the Tuba school, and transferred to Phoenix Indian School for high school work. Hoke has been drawing for a number of years, during which time he has had little instruction. He finds the landscape of his native country a source of never-tiring interest. Prior to undertaking the problem of illustrating this series of stories, Hoke had done no work in black and white, but has developed his technique as he has proceeded.

When Hoke was invited to prepare the illustrations for these stories, he was given the manuscripts to read, and then talked over with the author the things she had in mind in writing the various episodes of the story. By the variety of the story, many problems of illustration were encountered which an artist might avoid for many years if simply drawing in response to his own interest. Hoke has had full freedom in the solution of these problems, often preparing several sketches for a single episode, and then selecting between them for the final drawing. Some of the drawings have been frankly experimental—showing a snow scene in the simple black and white technique developed by Hoke, for example; or distinguishing between night and day. The style is the artist's own, and is neither the flat stylized drawing of many Pueblo artists, nor the minutely shaded drawing of the white man. The artist was chosen because he possesses a sure skill and inquiring mind. It is believed that his present pictures will illuminate the text, and give pleasure to many; and that he may have before him an artistic future. He has the following brief statement to make about his own work:

"I shall always remember the day when I received the first manuscript of the Little Herder series. The only instructions and suggestions I received before I began were; 'Here are the manuscripts, let's see what you can do with them.'

"So not knowing the first thing about the fundamentals and principles of illustration the work really launched several months of extensive experimentation, the result of which was the black and white technique finally achieved. The use of simple black and white technique was employed because it is more readily understandable for a child.

"The nature of the stories, being concerned with Navaho life, called for illustration genuine in every sense of the word. I had to observe and incorporate in pictures those characteristics which serve to distinguish the Navaho from other tribes. Further, the setting of the pictures had to change to express local changes as the family moved from place to place. The domestic animals raised by the Navaho had to be shown in a proper setting just as one sees them on the reservation. The sheep could not be shown grazing in a pasture, nor the horses in a stable, because such things are not Navaho.

"In other words the ideas were represented in an earnest attempt to express as far as possible the author's feelings, but without hindering the illustrator's freedom."

TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES

1. Silently corrected simple spelling, grammar, and typographical errors. 2. Retained anachronistic and non-standard spellings as printed.