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1898-99. | PRIMITIVE NATURE STUDY. 323 
the stone knife and the talking feather in his hand, turns around as the 
sun moves and says: “Woman chieftain, my grandson is restored to me. 
Seek not to find him; say not a word. We start back with my grand- 
son ; he is restored to me.” They then go back to the middle of the 
lodge, to the edge of the lodge, through the entry of the lodge, the war 
gods, one with his black wand before, the other with his blue wand behind 
him ; back through the chambers of the mountains, past the red hawk, 
the red coyote, the red serpent and the red bear. They cross the red 
rivers, they climb up through the white mist, yellow mist, blue mist and 
black mist, through the white cloud, the yellow cloud, the blue cloud and 
black cloud, to the house of white water, whose door is of daylight. 
Rainbows run in every direction and make the house shine with bright 
colors. They finally come to the medicine lodge, where the ceremonies 
and dances are conducted by gods, in the shape of the powers of 
nature, radiating white streaks, beautifully decorated with necklaces 
made of turquoise, coral and rare shells, embroidered dresses and many 
beautiful things. 
“The poetry contained in this mountain chant is most remarkable and 
equals in some respect the poetry of Dante himself. The imagery is 
drawn from the mountain scenery, is filled with bright colors, and 
contains pictures of all the wild things of nature, strangely blended with 
thoughts of the supernatural beings. 
“This wonderful chant is symbolized by the sand paintings which form 
an important part in one of the secret ceremonies of the Navajos.” 
Another great promoter of nature-lore among primitive peoples, equal 
often in power and effectiveness, is to be found in the secret societies in 
general, where rites and ceremonies, songs and sayings, abound in 
evidences of nature-observation and nature-feeling. 
Dr. Washington Matthews, in his account of “ Navajo Gambling 
Songs,” says of those connected with the game of Készfce, played only 
during the dark winter nights : “One old man, in reply to my question 
as to the number of songs sung in this game, replied that there were 
four thousand. Of course, this was an exaggeration, and intended to be 
understood as such; but the statement was designed to convey some 
idea of the great number that existed. Another Indian, an inveterate 
old gambler, who had made Kész¢cé ‘the study of his life, said that there 
was not a thing that walked or flew or crept or crawled in all the world 
(as known to the Navajos, of course) that had not at least one appropriate 
song in the game, and that many had more than one song. He further 
