1886.] Some Deities and Demons of the Navajos. 843. 
brief sketch of their toils must suffice here. They took two ears 
of corn, one yellow and one white, the former was to become the 
female of the new couple and the latter the male, and it is in 
memory of this event, they say, that white corn is called male 
corn and yellow corn is called female corn to this day among the 
Navajos. The gods laid these ears on a large dish of pure tur- 
quoise, and covered them with embroidered blankets of different 
colors, and with sacred buckskins, 7. e., the skins of deer not 
slain by weapons but pursued to exhaustion and then smothered, 
They were laid with their points towards the east; but before 
they were laid down they were handed round from one god to 
another and each god turned them in a different direction, and 
this is the reason the Navajos to-day never dwell in one locality 
long, but wander from place to place. 
From time to time the benevolent god Has-chay'-el-thee peeped 
under the covering to see how the incubation progressed, and 
when the ears of corn had assumed the shape of man, the wind- 
god entered under the blankets to give them life. He went in at 
the mouth and came out at the tips of the fingers. “ Do you not 
believe this ?” said an old shaman to me. “ Look then at the tips 
of your fingers and there you will see Wiyol Bithin, the trail of the 
wind.” A double helical line is with the Navajos and other 
tribes a symbol of the whirlwind, and this symbol is impressed on 
the palmar aspect of the terminal joint of every human finger— 
Satisfactory evidence to the Navajo philosopher that the wind- 
god, when he gave the breath of life to man, made his exit 
through the finger-tips. It was the gods of the white rock crys- 
tal, who live in Jemez mountain, that furnished these new beings 
with mind, and the goddess of the grasshoppers gave them 
Voices. Then they rose, but at this moment a dark cloud de- 
Scended from the heavens and covered them as a garment. 
This pair became the ancestors of the 7sedyinkini, or people of 
the dark cliff house, the oldest gens of the present Navajo 
nation. The story tellers say that they are thus called because 
the ears of corn of which they were made were taken by the 
gods from certain dark cliffs. But the archzologists will be more 
inclined perhaps to think that the myth refers to some remnants 
of the ancient inhabitants of the cliff houses of Arizona, enslaved 
Or otherwise adopted by the conquering Navajos. The myths 
_, ©Ontain several other accounts of the making ot men, sometimes 
