ACROSS THE NAVAJO DESERT 57 



they do wrong. They trust her so fully that 

 they will speak to her without reserve about 

 those intimate things of the soul which they 

 will never even hint at if they suspect want of 

 sympathy or fear ridicule. She has collected 

 some absorbingly interesting reproductions of 

 the Navajo sand drawings, picture representa- 

 tions of the old mythological tales; they would 

 be almost worthless unless she wrote out the 

 interpretation, told her by the medicine-man, 

 for the hieroglyphics themselves would be 

 meaningless without such translation. Accord- 

 ing to their own creed, the Navajos are very 

 devout, and pray continually to the gods of 

 their belief. Some of these prayers are very 

 beautiful; others differ but little from forms of 

 mere devil-worship, of propitiation of the pow- 

 ers of possible evil. Mrs. Wetherill was good 

 enough to write out for me, in the original and 

 in English translation, a prayer of each type — 

 a prayer to the God of the Dawn and the God- 

 dess of Evening Light, and a prayer to the great 

 Spirit Bear. They run as follows: 



Prayer to the Dawn 



"Hi-yol-cank sil-kin Natany, 

 Tee gee hozhone nas-shad, 

 Sit-sigie hozhone nas-shad 

 She-kayge hozhone nas-shad. 



