1893.] Archeology and Ethnology. 73 
these animals which destroyed the Navajos, but the Navajos were 
nearly all killed before this time. These boys grew up to be very 
large, had bows and arrows, and they used to run off. One day these 
boys asked their mother who their father was. She replied. “ The 
cactus and the water.” But the oldest boy said, “I do not believe 
this.” Then the mother said, “ The sun is your father, but he lives a 
long way off.” 
ORIGIN oF THE YAY-Br-Cuys. 
The father of the Red Yaybichy was the sun. The father of the 
White Yaybichy was the water. The Mysterious Maiden‘ conceived 
from the sun and bore the Red Yaybichy. She conceived from the 
water and bore the White Yaybichy. 
This Mysterious Maiden was out picking up wood, and was going to 
put it on her back, when the sun came up to her, dressed in turquois, 
beads, feathers, and fine skins. He told this maiden to be by herself 
that night, and he would come to her. 
The Mysterious Maiden went home and told her father what the sun 
had said. The sun came and talked with her, but she did not know 
it; but she heard a noise going out from the hogan (house) where she 
stayed. She saw this man (the sun) four days afterward, and told her 
father that this was the same man she saw while picking up the wood. 
She saw the sun abusing himself at daylight, and this made fleas and 
mosquitos. 
In four days, these two sons were born to the Mysterious Maiden, 
and in four days more, these sons went up to visit their father. 
The younger son had a cedar bow, and the older son had a piñon 
bow. They started toward the east to see their father. 
The Black Yaybichy met them there and told them to go back. He 
told them that there were oceans and cañons and deserts and cactus fields 
and great fires and great wolves and great snakes and great bears that 
would destroy them, and said, “ Your father lives a long way off.” 
3For a description of the Yaybichy Dance of the Navajo Indians see pages 435-436 
of the Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology for 1883-84, by Dr. Washington 
Mathews, U. 5. A., under the direction of Major J. W»? Powell, director of U. S. 
Geological Survey. 
_ The Yaybichy medicine-men are the leading medicine-men of the Navajo tribe, 
and play an important part in all their religious ceremonies and fetichistic mysteries. 
4The same maiden referred to in the Legend of the Mysterious Maiden. 
