The San Francisco call., 1910-11-06
THE NAVAJO


Corners OF Our Country" They avow-
edly rely only upon their hands. edu-
Gated to surprising cleverness by te-
dious years of practice. and upon va
rious ingenious machines and accesso-
ries. Perhaps this frankness, how
ever, is partly due to the fact that any
supernatural pretense would be
laughed at by their intelligent audi
tors; and II we were all prepared to
accept them as real magcians / am not
at all sure that they would not will
ingly pose as such.
With the aboriginal wizard there is
no such stimulus to frankness. If his
audiences, have eyes incomparably less
easy to be befooled than ours, their
intellectual vision is less acute. To
outdo even those matchlessly observant
eyes he has only to be matchlessly
adroit and when the eyes are once
overmatched his auditors are ready to
accept any explanation he may choose
to give. He therefore claims super
natural powers, given him by those
above; and my studies convince me
that he himself believes this as fully
as do any of his people-so easy is it
for us all, in time, to impose upon our
selves even more than upon others.
Superstition is the corner stone of all
the strange aboriginal religions. Every
thing which the Indian does not abso-
lutely understand he attributes to
supernatural cause and to personified
one.' The rainbow is the bow of the
gods; the lightning, their arrows; the
thunder, their drum; the sun their
shield. The vesy animals are invested
with supernatural attributes, according
to their power to injure man or to do
him good. In such a system as this a
man who can do or appear to do what
others cannot is naturally regarded as
having superhuman gifts. in short, he
is a wizard. The chief influence and
authority with all aboriginal tribes lie
in their medicine men, and these are
always magicians. They have gained
their aScendency by their power to do
wonderful and inexplicable things; and
this tendency is maintained in the
hands of small. secret class, which
never dies out since 1t is continually
recruited by the adoption of boys into
the order. to which their lives are
henceforth absolutely devoted. The
life of medicine man is a fearfully
hard one The manual practice alone
which~is necessary to acquire that mar
velous legerdemain is almost the task
Of a lifetime; and there are countless
enormous fasts and other self -denials,
which are so rigorous that these magi-
clans seldom attain the great age which
is common among their people. With
the Indian magicians as with ours con-
juring is the means of livelihood, but
in different and indirect way. They
neither charge an admittance fee nor
take up collection, but receive less
direct returns from the faith of their
fellow aborigines that they are pre-
cious to The Trues, and that their
favor should be cultivated by presents
The jugglers of India. of whom we read
so much. will exhibit their marvellous
tricks to any one for consideration;
but no money in the world would tempt
our Indian juggler to admit stranger
to the place where he was performing
his wonders To him, as to his people,
it is matter not of money but of re-
ligion.
The aboriginal magicians with whom
/ am best acquainted are the medicine
men of the Navajo and Pueblo Indians
in New Mexico, and astounding per-
formers they are Tt is impossible TO
say which are the more dextrous
though the Navajos have one trick
which / have never seen equaled by
the worlds most famous prestidigi-
tators II these stern bronze conjurers
had the civilized notion OF making
money by exhibiting themselves they
could amass fortunes. They have none
Of the cabinets. mirrors, false bottomed
cases, or other appliances OF our stage
wizards; and they lack the greatest
aid of the latter-the convenient sleeves
and pockets. Their tricks are done in
bare room, with a hard clay floor
under which are no springs or wires
with no accessories whatever
The principal occasions OF Pueblo and
Navajo magic are at the medicine MAX
ings. when the people gather to see
the shamans (medicine men) heal sick
ness. foretell the year or give thanks
to The Trues for it's prosperity, and
perform other rites belonging to such
ceremonials. These medicine makings
among the Pueblos are held in one Of
the medicine houses. great room sa-
cred TO the shamans and never to be
profaned by any other use. There is
one just behind the Indian house in
which l live. The Navajos hold them
in the medicine hoganda-a large con-
ical hut, equally devoted to this sole
purpose.
After the preliminary prayers to
Those Above. the dispersion of evil spir