Pliny Goddard - Myths and Tales from the White Mountain Apache

Before sundown on the fourth day the horses whinnied. They went to their horses and saddled them. They rode around among the camps until sundown and then rode them to a flat where four canyons came together. They hung a white saddle blanket toward the east, a black one to the south, a yellow one to the west, and a blue one to the north. Their fly told them to hang the blankets in four places, making an enclosure of them. After four days they were to come and would find conditions different. He charged the boys not to miss doing just as their father had told them. They went back to the camp carrying the saddles, bridles, halters, and ropes. After two days had passed their fly flew away. He returned, reporting that there were many horses filling the place where the four canyons came together. The next day he reported that the horses were so thick one could walk on their backs. The next day (the fourth), about sunrise, the two boys went there with their ropes in their hands. When they came to the eastern canyon it was full of white horses, the southern one was full of black horses, the western was full of yellow horses, and the northern canyon with blue (gray) horses.

They took down all the saddle blankets and piled them together. With valleys in four directions full of horses they did not know their former horses from the others. They considered how they might distinguish them. The horses were milling around near where a blanket hung. They were all mingled together with the colors mixed. The men approached the horses but they stopped before they got to them. They extended their hands with pollen on the palms and the horses whinneyed. Then two horses trotted up to them and licked the pollen from the hands of their owners who caught them while they did it. 21 21 The use of pollen for sacred purposes is a very important feature among the Athapascan of the Southwest. It is always preferred to the cornmeal used by the Pueblo peoples.

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Told by a White Mountain Apache called Noze, at Rice, Arizona, in January. 1910. Noze was a native of Cedar Creek and came to the San Carlos Reservation when it was organized. He was for a long time the chief of a considerable band which in 1910 had greatly dwindled. He died some time between 1910 and the next visit in 1914.

This mountain was said to be called tsidalanasi and to stand by the ocean at the south. This is a remarkable statement as east would have been expected and as is so stated in fact in a following paragraph.

This makes the boys brothers in our use of the word. They are always so called in the Navajo account according to which their mothers were sisters. Matthews, 105.

At the center of the sky.

And therefore the boys were not seen by the Sun.

The sacred numbers are 4, 12, and 32.

This method of making the journey has not been encountered before in this connection, but is an incident in a European story secured from the San Carlos, p. 82, above. The usual account includes a series of obstacles some of which resemble the incidents of a European story. See p. 116 Конец ознакомительного фрагмента. Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес». Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес. Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом. below.

Clouds according to the Navajo account, Matthews, 111; and below, p. 117 Конец ознакомительного фрагмента. Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес». Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес. Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом. .

Thus far the myth seems chiefly to deal with the adolescence ceremony of the boys. The San Carlos account brings in the Sun's father and brothers of the Sun's father as performers of this ceremony, while the Navajo account mentions the daughters of the Sun. See p. 11 above, and Matthews, 112.

Other versions make this the second naming of the elder brother. His boyhood name was “Whitehead,” p. 31. Still other names are known to the Navajo. Matthews, 263-264.

To know by name things or animals hitherto unknown is often mentioned as a great feat. P. 24.

It is seldom that the Apache conception of animism is so plainly stated. Songs however abound in the designation of objects as “living.”

When a youth went through an adolescence ceremony he did it with a definite career in mind. The normal myth of this type put the emphasis on the weapons secured and feats of warlike prowess in killing the monsters; that is, the warrior idea is uppermost. This version stresses the acquisition of horses and probably is a specialized myth for those who wish to be successful in acquiring and breeding horses.

The house of the Sun with the stable and corral, the furniture of the house, and many other references indicate the home of a European and such seems to be the conception.

The two wives of the Sun are often mentioned. The Navajo account has Esdzanadlehi go to the west where the sun visits her daily. Here and there, especially in the songs, the Moon is coupled with the Sun, and is feminine in sex. That the Moon and the Earth should both be called the “Woman who renews herself” is interesting. These conceptions are generally vague and implied rather than expressed.

Earth, literally “There on the earth.”

The narrator said those mentioned at the beginning of the narrative were not real people but just like shadows. The other versions have only the one family existing at this time.