848 Some Deities and Demons of the Navajos. {October, 
a term applied to all those supernatural beings who once de- 
voured and harassed mankind. Mezga means to kill by violence, 
to slay, and thus we have Nagaynezgant, Slayer of the Alien 
Gods, a name which has its very close analogue in that of Jack 
the Giant Killer. His mission in life was to destroy these alien 
gods, which he did with a few exceptions, notable among which 
were the gods of cold, hunger and old age. These creatures 
pleaded so well for their lives; and demonstrated so well to the 
hero that they were not unmixed evils, that they were spared to 
still torment man. As a specimen of the Navajo way of reason- 
ing, I will relate his adventure with Sakaz’-estsan’, the Cold- 
woman : 
When he returned from his adventure with Old-age, he said to 
his mother, “Tell me where the Cold-woman dwells,” she did 
not answer him; four times he repeated the question, when she 
replied, “ You have done enough, my son. Seek to slay no more.” 
But the wind-god whispered in his ear, “ She dwells on the sum- 
mit of Depentsa” (the San Juan mountains). So he set forth and 
traveled to the north and wandered around over the highest peaks 
of the mountains until he, at length, encountered a wrinkled old 7 
woman sitting nearly naked on a bed of snow. She had neither 
food, fire nor shelter, her eyes streamed tears, she shivered con- 
stantly and her teeth chattered so that she could scarcely talk. 
He knew at once that she was Sakaz-estsan. A vast crowd of snow- 
buntings flitted around her. These were the couriers whom she 
was accustomed to send forth to announce the coming of storms. 
They were the spies who told her what was going en in the outer 
world. As he approached her he said, “ I have come ona cruel 
errand. I have come to kill you that man may suffer no mors 
torture from you, or die at your hands.” “You may kill me if 
you will,” she chattered, “ but man will be worse off when fam 
d than he is now; for when I die it will be always hot, and = 
land will dry up, and the springs will cease to flow, and men Wi" 
-die of heat and thirst. You will do better if you let me live. 
So he lowered the arm he had raised to kill her, and reflected 4 
= moment. “Grandmother, you speak the truth,” he said at late 
“you shall live,’ and he returned to his mother’s dwelling with- 
ets tephy: À ' 
His journeys in which he failed to listen to the voice of 
vever, much more numerous than those in which 
mercy ' 
her 
