1885.] Mythic Dry-Paintings of the Navajos. 939 
sheep, and went in pursuit. Four times he waylaid them and 
tried to shoot them, but each time when he drew his arrow to the 
head it would not leave the string. Then he knew the sheep to 
be divinities in disguise. He approached them; they threw off 
their sheep-skin coverings and revealed themselves as the géaskidt 
or gods of plenty. They bore Sho to their home, admitted him 
to their sacred rites, taught him all their mysteries, and sent him 
back to his people that he might teach the mysteries to man. All 
his adventures and visions are embodied in the myths and rites 
of the £/edjt-hathal. When his mission was done he was taken 
back by the gods to dwell among them forever. 
The form of the gdaskidi appears several times in the pictures. 
It is represented as having sheep’s horns on the head, wearing a 
crown of black clouds garnished with lightning and fringed with 
sunbeams, bearing on the back a great sack made of the black 
thunder-cloud (said to be filled with all sorts of edible seeds and 
fruits), and leaning on a staff to indicate that the sack of plenty 
isa heavy burthen. Various other important characters of the 
Navajo mythology appear in these pictures. 
One of the Yezdichai paintings delineates a very singular vision 
or revelation of the prophet So. It is called the ¢szznadle, or 
whirling sticks. On one occasion Sho was led by the gods to the 
shores of a dark lake, on the borders of whick grew four stalks 
of sacred corn, each of a different color. In the center of the 
lake lay two logs, crossing one another at right angles; near the 
two extremities of each sat a pair of Yeis, male and female, making 
eight in all. On the shore of the lake stood four more Yers, three 
of whom had staves, by means of which they kept the logs 
whirling around with a constant motion, while the Yes sitting on 
the logs sang songs which are still preserved in the multitudinous 
chants of this rite under the name of fstznadle-bigin, or songs of 
the whirling sticks. All the circumstances of this strange scene 
are duly symbolized in the painting. 
The two other pictures represent scenes in the dance of the 
Yeibichai, as Sho witnessed it among the gods, and with some- 
modifications they would make fair representations of the dance 
as it is enacted by the Navajos to-day. The pictures are beauti- 
ful, and appear of high interest when their symbolism is explained; * 
but I have not space to describe them, and, as before stated, they 
are too intricate to be suitably illustrated here. 
