134 



THE NAVAJO SHOEMAKER. 







o 



The shoes worn in this dance are stuffed with grass and tied on the 

 feet, the dancers, as they swing their legs, make marks on the sand like 

 the trail of a snake. The refrain at the end of each line of their song 

 is this phrase — Ho-z6bi— which is sung as the marks are made with the 



toe or heel. 



The shoes are each marked with a foot print designating the right 

 ami left. The other curious figure represents a double lobed pouch for- 

 merly worn by t lie " song -men."' These (lance shoes derive their peculiar 



form, I have been told, from those 

 worn in early days at this snake or 

 wind dance. 



These were of an entire bunch 

 of yucca for each foot, the stems 

 bound together at the sharp lips 

 and braided in the center with 

 cross strands, which is very prob- 

 able. But it seemed very interest- 

 ing that we should find among the 

 Navajoes what I fancy must be 

 nearly a counterpart of the fash- 

 ionable shoe worn in the days of 

 Edward IV. Fig. 4, called Tsa-kia 

 (white awl), is used by the women 

 in basket-making. A similar one, 

 called Tzin tsa (bone awl), is used 

 in sewing skin bottles and coarse 

 stitches of any skin work. The 

 iron awl, pec-tsa, (Fig. 5) is a very 

 rough specimen of their metal awls 

 tor they have many made with 

 -real nicety from long knife blades rubbed down till they are slender, 

 and as sharp as cambric needles. The awl I send is the one all the 

 specimens are sewed with. 



I also inclose two needles, the iron one (tig. <>) "pee be nakan," the 

 wooden one "tsin be nakan" (tig. 7) made from a twig of rose-bush or 

 rather a shrub belonging to the rose family. They are used in sewing 

 the selvage and corner tassels on saddle blankets, etc. 



Myths (Xavajo Shoe). 



According to my apprehension of Navajo geogony this earth is not 

 a solid, but a cubical shell, inclosing four other, and perhaps many 

 more, successive shells, but the history of only four of these within 

 the outer shell on which we now live are commonly known. The 

 persons who existed on one of these spheres in earlier times, were 

 all genii or deities. Animals had, however, been created. They were 

 made from clay by Pe-go tclti. Also, a family of four brothers were 



Figs. 1-7. Awls ami needles. 



