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7

Sandpainting Ceremonies

The Problem of Naming the Yé'ii

The Navajo language has three names to refer to the gods—yé'ii, hashch'ééh, diné dighinii. In usage these names overlap quite easily. Some yé'ii are hashch'ééh, and some hashch'ééh are diné dighinii (Holy People). The name yé'ii is mostly reserved for those gods who appear in ceremonials in the form of masked human impersonators.

On the fifth, sixth, and seventh mornings of the Coyoteway ceremonial, during the sandpainting ceremonies, a masked yé'ii- impersonator appears. What is the name of the god whom he impersonates? This question is directly linked to the identity of three other yé'ii figures who appear on the eighth morning. The second figure of this group is identical with the single yé'ii of the three preceding days. Our discussion may therefore focus on the identities of the entire triad.

The name of the first yé'ii figure on that culminating eighth morning is beyond doubt. He is the yé'iibicheii, grandfather and leader of all the Navajo gods. As an authentic hunter deity he wears a buckskin over his shoulders and carries a fawn skin pouch. In the middle of his face, however, is painted the mark of Pueblo Indian influence—a maize plant. Impersonated by a man, he appears on the eighth morning to bless the patient, the other yé'ii-impersonators, and the sandpainting. As an outward symbol of his blessings he sprinkles pollen.

The second yé'ii in our Coyoteway ceremonial is also impersonated by a man. His blue mask and his apparel are identical with those of the

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yé'ii figure of the preceding three sandpainting ceremonies. When he appears together with the other two gods on the eighth day, his actions match those of the preceding days—despite the fact that on the last day, in our ceremonial, a different man played the role. The only added function on the eighth day involves his carrying a stuffed Blue Coyote (gray fox). His overall appearance and costume correspond to those of the anthropomorphic lead figures in the sandpainting of the same day.

The third yé'ii is impersonated by a woman. She wears a blue mask, identical to that of the second yé'ii. While her male counterpart carries a stuffed Coyote, she carries a basket containing ears of maize, with eagle tail feathers radiating from it. The same basket can be found depicted in the hands of all the anthropomorphic follower-yé'ii in the sandpainting of the eighth day. Both the second and the third yé'ii-impersonators are thus, via stuffed animal and basket, clearly identical with the yé'ii figures in the fourth sandpainting. On this point all the participants agree.

Of the two blue-masked figures the third in the triad is easiest to name. All our participants, and all the written sources, agree that she is hashch'ééh bi'áád, the Female God. Luke Cook identified her more precisely as a daughter of the Talking-god. Man With Palomino Horse referred to her as Talking-god's Female.

This leaves only the problem concerning the identity of the second yé'ii-impersonator. And here we must divide the information we have with regard to specific informants and sources. Luke Cook, who interpreted all yé'ii figures in the sandpaintings as anthropomorphic Coyote People, consistently identified the second yé'ii-impersonator with Coyote-carrying Coyotes in the underworld. The blue mask, and the stuffed "blue fox" in his hands, links this deity with the south. Accordingly, the second yé'ii is Blue Coyote from the underworld's south. On three successive days he appears in the microcosm of the sandpainting without his animal manifestation. On the last day he is depicted in the sandpainting in both his human and his animal forms. He appears impersonated, each day exactly as the sandpainters have portrayed and invited him in their sandpainting. If this interpretation is carried to its logical conclusion, then the third yé'ii-impersonator is not merely a Female God, but Blue Coyote Woman from the underworld's south.

However, Man With Palomino Horse understands his work a little differently. The yé'ii figures in the sandpaintings represent simply anthropomorphic gods—not necessarily anthropomorphic Coyote People. The god-impersonators who appear in the sandpainting ceremonies are simply yé'ii, nothing more. The second figure in the triad just happens to be the yé'ii who carries Coyote. He is a god who by way

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of the stuffed gray fox "makes use of" Coyote as one would make use of a tool. In answer to my direct question about the gender of the second and third impersonators, our Coyoteway singer produced some rather puzzling news: both are Female Gods. I am convinced that every reader who examines the photographic evidence will agree with me that the second yé'ii is impersonated by a male. Seeing my disbelief clearly written on my face, the singer struggled for a more congenial answer: the first is the Talking-god, the second is the Calling-god, and the third is the Female Cod. This made sense. A blue-masked yé'ii belongs to the south, and Calling-god is indeed the best candidate for claiming this mask. Talking-god and Calling-god frequently appear together. All seems to be well with this last emphatic explanation by the practitioner—except that the known masks of Calling-god in the Navajo repertoire do not match the mask of our second yé'ii. If the masks that are used in the most elaborate "yé'iibicheii ceremonial," the Night Chant, can be used for comparison, then the mask of our second impersonator is indeed that of a female deity.

It is doubtful whether our Coyoteway singer will ever be able to come forth with more definite explanations. His yé'ii figures, whether male or female, have no precise counterparts in the Coyoteway myth as he knows it. Rather, it seems that for him the yé'ii-impersonations are additions to the ceremonial procedures; also, it seems that they are dictated more by tradition or by competition with other "yé'iibicheii" ceremonials than by rational necessity. Moreover, his reduction of the animal manifestations of Coyote to the level of tools is in disagreement with the Coyote mysticism expressed throughout the ceremonial in rituals and songs. It appears that our priest has projected into his present answers his own latent ambitions for taking control. To some extent, by performing Coyoteway, he himself has begun using Coyote as a tool. This portrait of the singer may well be exaggerated. Nevertheless, his patient, who was about to be initiated as a novice, still experienced the presence of Coyote mystically, after the manner of shamanic possession by some greater-than-human divine being. Luke Cook has been participating in Coyoteway ceremonials too long for having his understanding of them taken lightly.

By surveying the literary sources one gets the impression that perhaps in Coyoteway, at least since the time when it was being performed with sandpaintings and with yé'ii-impersonators, the ambiguity about its divine actors has always been present. Father Berard Haile (1947, p. 39) voiced the same complaint even with regard to the better-known yé'ii figures of the Nightway ceremonial. Thus, if we should ask our Coyoteway singer again whether the second impersonator always wore the same type of mask, we can easily predict his

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answer. Whether he knows better or not, he would have to answer yes. As long as he performs the ceremonial he will have to claim that everything he does is true to tradition and to the original instructions of the gods.

Before leaving the identity of the second yé'ii in the triad for the reader to decide, we must consult the written sources. They are scarce indeed. In 1910 the Franciscan Fathers wrote in their Ethnologic Dictionary (p. 392): "In the Coyote dance, which is now extinct, three personators of Talking-god, the Fringed Mouth, and a Female God appeared. It is said that the Fringed Mouth danced carrying a live kit-fox in his hands. This was done inside the hogan." Father Berard Haile (1947, p. 65) tells us that in the Nightway ceremonial the Fringed Mouth is named after "a fluff of blue fox" which encircles his mouth.

In the same report Father Berard also identifies the yé'ii-persons of the Coyoteway ceremonial (p. 77): On the last day of the ceremonial three yé'ii appear, Talking-god and two Female Gods. "One of the female yé'ii carries a mą'ii—blue fox—which is prepared with care so that it resembles a live one. This he applies to the patient to sanctify him. The other (female) yé'ii carries a basket with cornmeal that he applies to the patient as in Nightway. In Nightway he (this female yé'ii) carries a white and yellow ear of corn that he applies to the patient. According to its legend the three yé'ii (Talking-god and two Female Gods) appeared at the Coyoteway ceremonial. Hence singers of this chantway own these masks and do not borrow them from Nightway." Tséyi'nii (1934), in the second Coyoteway myth reprinted (Chapter 10, paragraph 4), also mentions two Female Gods in connection with the Talking-god.

Then, Mary Wheelwright, in 1931, obtained a Coyoteway myth from yoo' hataałii who had learned it from hastiin neez (reprinted in Chapter 9). From this version we learn that "on the last night the patient stands on a buckskin holding ground meal in a basket and three gods, Talking-god, Coyote, and Female God come to the patient and Female God holds a shell with cornpollen in it and four eagle tail feathers radiating from the center." This last portion of information is the more interesting if we consider that our Man With Palomino Horse derives the sandpainting portion of his ceremonial—thus presumably also matters pertaining to yé'ii-impersonations—from hastiin neez also.

Thus, according to our available data, our second yé'ii can be as many as five different kinds of divine beings: Fringed Mouth, a second Female God, Coyote, a Female Coyote, or Calling-god. Knowing the context in which the name of Calling-god was given, I discount this possibility from the outset.

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Fringed Mouth is a candidate for very early versions of Coyoteway, especially because the fluff that is present around his mouth comes from the "blue fox." While this association of the Coyote Carrier with the stuffed gray fox could have brought Fringed Mouth into the Coyoteway ceremonial at an early date, another line of explanation appears at least plausible. On the ninth night of each Nightway ceremonial "Talking-god, Fringed Mouth, and Humpback, approach the hogan. The patient goes outside to face them and here Fringed Mouth motions over him from all sides and accompanies these motions with his call... (this) may be considered the finale of 'sanctification' ceremonies of Nightway" (Haile 1947, p. 72). A similar such triad of yé'ii -impersonators may have been adopted by Coyoteway singers at a very early date, but the reference by the Franciscan Fathers to Fringed Mouth as the second yé'ii in Coyoteway can also rest on a limited functional parallel. The Coyote Carrier in the finale of Coyoteway functions in a similar manner as Fringed Mouth in the finale of Nightway. For interpreting the version of Coyoteway that we have here at hand, the participation of Fringed Mouth cannot be assumed. No informant now living mentions him.

We must puzzle now over the first claim of Man With Palomino Horse, that both our second and third impersonators represent Female Gods. This claim is supported from three directions. In the first place, the mask of the second is identical with the mask of the third. Secondly, Father Berard as quoted above, and assumedly from a reliable source, tells us that Coyoteway calls for a Talking-god and two Female God impersonations. Thirdly, tséyi'nii in his myth, given in Chapter 10, paragraph 4, mentions two Female Gods together with the Talking-god.

But, if this is true, why are not both Female Gods impersonated by women? The answer to this question, too, is illuminated by looking to Nightway practice for precedents. Washington Matthews (1902, p. 17f) reported the occasional presence of up to six different Female God impersonators in Nightway. In most cases the goddesses are impersonated by a boy or a man of low stature. He wears an ornate skirt around the hips and a belt ornamented with silver from which a fox skin dangles behind. All this matches our second figure in Coyoteway very well. Washington Matthews continues with saying, that on the last night of Nightway the character of Female God is sometimes assumed by women. The female impersonators are fully clothed in Navajo woman's dress. That Nightway practice can be taken as prototype for the Coyoteway yé'ii-impersonations is suggested already by a fact mentioned earlier in the Haile quotation (1947, p. 77)—the ears of maize in the basket of our third impersonator in Coyoteway are a

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recent borrowing from Nightway. Sufficient information is thus available to accept our singer's first answer: The second and third impersonations in our ceremonial are both Female Gods.

Now only the most difficult question remains to be asked. If both are Female Gods, to what species of beings do they belong? Are they anthropomorphic gods? Are they goddesses of the hunt after the fashion of hashch'ééh oołt'oh in Nightway? Or are they intended to represent Female Coyotes? Navajo gods still today participate in the mythological stratum of prehuman flux—they are not restricted to certain anthropomorphic, theriomorphic, or occupational manifestations; they can equally well hide and show themselves in the shimmering lights of dawn, midday, and sunset. Total invisibility is also in their power. Nevertheless, in a Coyoteway healing ceremonial, where for nine nights the songs of Coyote People are chanted, the most likely female deities present—it would seem—could be Coyotes.

Whatever degree of uncertainty about the identities of the yé'ii characters in our ceremonial the singer communicated to me, it is outweighed by the impressions that he left on his apprentice. Luke Cook knew that all, impersonators and sandpainting figures in our ceremonial—apart from the Talking-god—are Coyotes. This state of affairs bestows full credence on some data which elsewhere has been obtained from a certain "Big Mustache." Big Mustache is the same as "Many Whiskers," the man whom our practitioner has identified as his grandfather and teacher. In 1929 this old Coyoteway singer gave to Laura Armer the same sandpaintings that our singer received from hastiin neez. Better yet, he identified all his sandpainting figures as Coyote Girls. (See Chapter 12—Sandpainting Reproductions, Sandpaintings 2 through 5 by Big Mustache.)

The presence of female masks in the Coyoteway ceremonial is quite reasonable if credence is given to an episode in the yoo' hataałii and hastiin neez version of the myth reprinted in Chapter 9. The first Coyoteway singer who ventured into the underworld has married two Coyote Girls from each of the four directions—exactly the number of yé'ii needed for the sandpaintings. Marriage, in this context, signifies a mystic union between a shaman and the divine Coyote People from whom he receives his powers. Marriage implies that the partners are members of the same species. Judged by their color, our blue-masked and white-painted female Coyotes belong either to the blue south or to the white east. Our second and third yé'ii-impersonators are Coyote Girls either from the underworld's east or south!

This place in the book is suited as well as any for briefly summarizing Coyoteway theology. How many Coyote gods are there? The

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answer to this question depends on the context in which the question is asked.

While Fire Ceremonies are in progress, the singer recognizes twelve Coyote People; twelve are contacted by way of prayersticks and prayers: four "Shouting Coyotes," four Coyotes simply identified by their directional colors, together with Hidden Boy, White Dawn Girl, Flint Hill Boy, and Water Girl.

Later references, in songs, to the Adulterous Coyote and the Staggering Coyote seem to have no specific connection with any of the twelve. These names appear to be designations of Coyote in general. Many morality stories about these Coyotes are being told today among the Navajos. What our practitioner emphasized repeatedly, however, is that he is dealing with the same Coyote. The answer here is that there is only one Coyote. This assertion is supported by inclusion of his song about the sliding lizards (Song 74)—an episode usually attributed to the staggering or trotting Coyote.

There is still another way of looking at Coyote People numerically. At a meeting when we discussed with our Coyoteway singer the cause and remedy of Coyote illness, he flatly pronounced that there are altogether two Coyotes. The bad Coyote causes illness, the good Coyote heals. A similar dualism is delineated by tséyi'nii in Chapter 10, paragraphs 3 and 4: bad Coyote People from the lower world cause illness; the good Coyote People down there provided the Coyoteway healing ceremonial. There is a slight hint in the ceremonial that Adulterous Coyote is the same as the Bad One. In Songs 78 and 79 the fact is celebrated that "the song he sings does not affect me." But then, immediately in Song 80 the same Adulterous Coyote "makes the Medicine." Considering the debate in my own Hebrew-Christian tradition, about whether the almighty God causes only good things to happen or whether he is also responsible for what has come to be attributed to the Devil, I felt that I should not burden Man With Palomino Horse with redundant questions. Faced with the presence of overpowering evil, every kind of theist is sooner or later tempted, by the easy solution of an ethical dualism, to subtract something from the scope of the god on whom he depends.

Coyoteway theology is made easier if we return to the simplified world of the sandpainting. Not twelve Coyotes, or two or one, but eight Coyote Girls are present and accounted for. The bad Coyote is not mentioned at all in that context—unless one should count here the appearance of a Coyote Witch-person in tséyi'nii's Coyoteway myth (Chapter 10, paragraph 3). The objective of the ceremony is to obtain health and power to heal. For this purpose the eight Coyote Girls, who through marriage empowered the first Coyoteway shaman, are

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sufficient. If additional blessings are needed in the ceremonial from outside the jurisdiction of the Coyote People, the Talking-god, grandfather and chief of the Navajo pantheon, guarantees these with his bodily appearance on the eighth morning. The occasional references in prayer and songs to Calling-god present the latter as a helper, or possibly as an extension, of the Talking-god.

Significant is the form and appearance of the Coyote People in the underworld. They are anthropomorphic beings who dress themselves in Coyote skins only when they are leaving their homes. I have explained the nature of traditional hunter gods in relation to "prehuman flux" (Luckert 1975). In the beginning all "people" were able to exchange their appearances like clothes. When eventually humankind and many animals became fixed permanently in their present shapes, the gods remained in a state of prehuman flux. It was therefore not necessary for the first Coyoteway shaman to learn his ceremonial from animal-shaped Coyote manifestations; he learned it from their anthropomorphic and divine prototypes in the underworld. Anthropomorphs can talk. As manifestations of logos they are quite capable of revealing their powerful songs and rational instructions for the ceremonial. It is this same universal human search for the divine logos by which also the white Talking-god of the east has been discovered as the chief of the Navajo pantheon. The logic of this development is clear: if the substratum of human existence is not personal or anthropomorphically intelligible, then what is man?

In structure and form Coyoteway differs from Nightway and other ceremonials at some points. Leland Wyman has informed me that in chantways that he has attended the sweat-emetic rite has always preceded the offering rite. He also explained that three additional ritual procedures are standard parts in most other five and nine-night ceremonials; these are (1) the consecration of the hogan on the first night before unraveling by applying cornmeal on the roof beams and by putting oak twigs in the rafters in the four cardinal directions; (2) setting out plumed wands on a little mound east of the hogan before dawn on days when sandpaintings are made; and (3) figure painting and token tying on the last day before the sandpainting rite.

The first of these procedures, I must admit, could possibly have been overlooked by me while I was getting my gear ready—though I doubt this. Then, branches from various bushes, including yucca leaves for the drumstick, were indeed stored in the rafters by the door beginning with noontime after the rites on the third morning. No special purpose was ascribed to this aside from storing and unthawing for later gear making. The second of these "standard procedures" was

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perhaps omitted in our ceremonial because of the deep snow and the blizzard conditions which prevailed outside. The third of these procedures could have been performed on the last day inside the hogan while I was recording from the outside. This seems very unlikely, though, because the patient has told us repeatedly what went on inside and what he remembered to have been the complete ritual sequence.

That the present nine-night Coyoteway sequence and performance is a kind of modified adaptation from Nightway seems to have emerged clearly from the foregoing discussions. But since Nightway performances themselves seem to be capable of varying with regard to the identity of god-impersonators from one to the next, it should come as no surprise when Matthews and Tozzer (Tozzer 1909, pp. 314-16) have also reported two different Nightway sequences. Since presently we do not have enough historical information about these and other variations, it would be premature to speculate about whether, at a given point in time and place, a Coyoteway shaman has been induced to visit the underworld under the tutelage of a certain Nightway practitioner.

The One-yé'ii Ceremony

THE SANDPAINTINGS

In a Navajo sandpainting nothing is actually painted; instead, colored sands and powders are trickled from between the fingers on a smooth patch of ordinary brown sand.

In the afternoon, before our first sandpainting is to be made, Luke Cook, his youngest son, and I, drive to an outcropping of varicolored sandstone, about five miles of smooth snow from the ceremonial hogan. Pieces of different color are chipped from the boulders. Then back home, red, yellow, and white powders are obtained by grinding rocks of these colors. Black is made of charcoal. A grayish "blue" is obtained by mixing white with black.

Sandpaintings are made on the fifth, sixth, seventh, and eighth mornings of the Coyoteway ceremonial. The first three sandpaintings are prepared for the lone appearance of Blue Coyote Girl. The fourth sandpainting, on the eighth morning, is made in preparation for the visit of the yé'iibicheii (the Talking-god) and two Coyote Girls.

Shortly before sunrise the fireplace is moved to one side. Ordinarily it would be taken outside, but freezing weather and heavy snowstorms keep coming at regular intervals throughout the nine days. Without any heat at all the fingers of the sandpainters would stiffen and so become unable to trickle the required fine lines and even patches of colored sands.

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A large patch of sand is leveled at the center of the hogan. Directly below the smoke-hole a bowl is inserted and filled with water. This bowl represents the hole of emergence at the center of the world. According to Pueblo-influenced Navajo mythology, the human race emerged there at the beginning of time; the water in the bowl suggests the flood that has threatened to overtake the people after their emergence.(1) This hole of emergence, placed at the center of the hogan, becomes the center of the mini-world or microcosm that is about to be constructed around it.

Healing in the great expanse of the wide world is extremely difficult. Not even the most able practitioner would claim that he can oversee and respond to all possible situations and power configurations in the entire world. A controllable environment, a sandpainted microcosm, is therefore constructed. The world is reduced symbolically to the presences of the most essential agents of power for the purpose at hand. The range of possible situations and contingencies can so be overseen and can, to some measure, be even controlled. To understand this nearly scientific procedure it must be understood, however, that symbolic representations in traditional Navajo thought participate with their essences in the subject matter that they represent. Symbolic representations are always extensions of a greater reality.

The production of a sandpainting should perhaps be defined as a "folk-art." All participants help in producing it. The practitioner decides and supervises the structure of the design by constantly appealing to tradition and to sketches that he produces from his satchel. He himself covers the water-filled bowl, or hole of emergence, with kétłoh powder, the rub-on medicine that has been used since the first Unraveling ceremony. Charcoal powder is sprinkled on top of this. Then the entire spot of hidden moisture is circled, first with white, then with yellow and black rims.

Using a straightedge, a sandpainter then produces a white-framed red-and-blue rainbow to the west, south, and east of the hole of emergence. A corresponding black-and-white pattern north of the center is made to represent sunrays or "roots of sunlight." Utmost concentration is required for producing uniform designs and lines.

Then, corresponding to the four directions, white yé'ii figures—Coyote Girls—are painted in the east. Blue Ones are painted in the south. Yellow Ones in the west, and Black Ones in the north. The color of their bodies identifies their directional associations. All the while the singer supervises and rarely touches the colored sands himself. Instead,
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(1) For more information on this subject, see Karl W. Luckert, Olmec Religion, University of Oklahoma Press, 1976.

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The shamanic hero, that is, the first human to learn the Coyote-way ceremonial, journeyed into the underworld and found there the four kinds of Coyote People. He visited White Coyotes to the east, Blue Coyotes to the south, Yellow Ones to the west, and Black Ones to the north of the underworld's center. Coyote power was transmitted to the shamanic hero by a process of marriage—he became one of the Coyote People. He married two girls from among each of the four types of Coyote People. It would be difficult to do anything more thoroughly or to accomplish something more completely. According to the myth, after he taught the ceremonial to earth-surface apprentices he returned to his eight Coyote wives in the underworld.

From the foregoing explanation it would follow that the most important figures in the sandpaintings, in the healing and initiation effort, are the Coyote Girls. To begin with, the bodies of the two yé'ii-persons in any one direction are given the color that is appropriate for that direction. Eventually, however, the follower-yé'ii figures in the south, west, and north are given white body colorings on top of their original colors. So, for instance, the second yé'ii figure to the north, who can be seen in an earlier illustration as having a black dress, is now given a top coat of white. This extra labor is not a corrective for an earlier mistake—it is done so, consistently, in all four sandpaintings. And the singer sees to it that no step in the proper sequence was left out. What is the significance of this peculiar work sequence?

For quite some time, while I suspected pairs of a male and a female yé'ii for each direction, I labored under the impression that the additional white dresses signify femininity. Now that it is clear that all radial anthropomorphic sandpainting figures in this ceremonial represent Coyote Girls, an earlier statement of Luke Cook suddenly solves the problem much better. The follower- yé'ii figures who are given white dresses, together with the follower figure in the east that is white already, are daughters of the Talking-god. They must be dressed to match their father's appearance; he is the anthropomorphic white chief of the Navajo pantheon, in the east. Later we shall see that in live drama the female impersonator of one of these follower-yé'ii also wears a white dress. And so it seems, historically speaking, that the dresses of the follower-yé'ii figures from south, west, and north in the sandpainting were changed to white at the moment in history when the female impersonator was introduced, alongside the already white painted lead-yé'ii, to participate in the sacred mystery play.

Four horizontal red stripes on a blue ground color are standard neck markings on all anthropomorphic yé'ii figures. Two white strings and an eagle feather are always painted on their heads. Six eagle feathers are attached to the headgear and drape down the backs of all

…the second yé'ii figure to the north, who can be seen in an earlier illustration
(page 133) as having a black dress, is now given a top coat of white.

And the singer sees to it that no step in the proper sequence is left out.

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the figures. Cords hanging from the elbows and hands of the yé'ii, traditional sleeve holders, are also standard features, together with the ears of corn in each of their hands. On the other hand, designs on their skirts are left entirely to the imagination of the individual sandpainter. Then finally, each directional region or home of the Coyote Girls is separated from the adjoining region by a maize plant. White maize grows in the southeast. Blue maize is represented in the southwest, yellow maize in the northwest, and black maize in the northeast—always in front of the lead-yé'ii of the same color.

The sandpainting on the sixth morning differs from the previous one only in that no bowl is used at the center. A blue round patch of similar size is painted in its place. One man always starts to establish the center. For completing the remainder of the sandpainting teamwork is the rule. The Rainbow-person is the last to be finished. He arches from his head in the northeast to his feet in the southeast. The opening to the entire microcosm is in the east—as is the entrance door to every Navajo hogan. The white Talking-god, chief of gods, rules from that direction.

On the seventh morning two features deviate from the sandpainting of the day before. The blue hole of emergence is given a rectangular

...kétłoh bowl and zaa'nit shell are placed in readiness.

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THE CEREMONY

Compared with the length of time it takes to prepare the sandpainting, the duration of the yé'ii ceremony seems rather short. Everything is finished by the time the singer has chanted three songs. But, regardless of the brief time needed, this ceremony is pregnant with meaning. So, for instance, what the practitioner has given to the patient during the first four days, the kétłoh and zaa'nił medicines, are now administered by no lesser being than a Coyote Girl from the underworld—impersonated by a white-painted and blue-masked man. The ceremony is performed identically on the fifth, sixth, and seventh mornings of the ceremonial. Photographs in this report are from the first and second performances.

The ceremony begins when the practitioner places Standing-up Prayersticks in a circle. With these the microcosm of the sandpainting is sanctified and surrounded by a wall of prayer power. After kétłoh bowl, zaa'nił shell, and badger foot are in their proper places, the singer sprinkles pollen—first on the hole of emergence, then on the figures in the east, then on those in the west, next on those in the south, and finally on those in the north. Even the small rainbows around the central hole receive his attention. At last the all-surrounding rainbow is blessed from feet to head. Then, from a basket held by the patient, the singer sprinkles cornmeal—on all the sandpainting figures in the same sequence as with pollen. The patient, who is to be initiated, repeats the meal sprinkling after the example of his tutor.

These procedures endow the sandpainting with power of life. The sacred microcosm radiates its divine life essence and unites surface-world with underworld. Like attracts like, and before long a masked Coyote-person from the underworld appears.

The practitioner, however, rather than singing a song about a Coyote Girl's ascent to the surface-world—as would seem proper— sings about the original shaman's descent and arrival in the underworld of the Coyote People. This can only mean that presently this ceremony is being reenacted also in the underworld—or at least, that we relive here the original underworld ceremony. Whether we are ready for it or not, as participants in this ceremony we are all invited to "come down" with the original shaman, and with the patient, to the source of Coyote power;

86, 95,101. Song, Fifth Through Eighth Mornings

From the Hogans I came down, from the Hogans I came down,
From the Hogans I came down, from the Hogans I came down.

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...the singer sprinkles pollen—first the hole of emergence, then the figures in the east...

Even the small rainbows around the central hole receive his attention.

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