1886. | Some Deities and Demons of the Navajos. 849 
lented, and, had I space to relate them, the reader would hear of 
many myths with which he is already familiar in tales of our own 
antiquity and in the folk-lore of modern Europeans. Many char- 
acters with whom he has become acquainted in the pages of 
Grimm he would meet again, but dressed in buckskin and dis- 
guised in paint and feathers. 
The ancestral prairie wolf, the apotheosized coyote, is an im- 
portant figure in their mythology, as he is in the mythologies of 
all our aborigines to whom the coyote was known, and in their 
earlier fabulous ages, particularly when the Navajos dwelt in the 
lower worlds, he was a potent god. Closely allied to the fox in 
nature, he has so many mythic similarities to the reynard of 
European folk-lore, that we can not but suspect that our own dis- 
tant ancestors once worshiped the fox-god. In Arizona, as in 
Europe, he always appears as a cunning, deceitful mischief- 
maker. . 
It was the Coyote who brought about the expulsion of the 
people from the lower world. He stole the young of Ziéholtsodt, 
“ie sea-monster, and the latter in revenge, or in order to rescue 
the lost ones, caused the great floods which drove all up to the 
Surface of this earth. It is Coyote who is responsible for the 
Present irregular position of the stars. He usually had the laugh 
on his side as the result of his trickeries, but he was not always 
So fortunate. 
Once he went out hunting with his father-in-law, and they 
rested at night on the top of a rugged mountain where they lit 
their camp-fire and cooked some meat for supper. As they were 
lying down to sleep Coyote said to his companion, “ This hill is 
called the Hill of the Burned Moccasins.” As the old man had 
never heard of this extraordinary name before, he could not help 
Wondering at it until the wind-god whispered in his ear, “ Change 
your moccasins ;” so before he fell asleep he took the Coyote’s 
Moccasins and put them under his own head, while he put his 
Moccasins in place of the Coyote’s. Late in the night the Coyote 
Tose softly, took the moccasins from under the old man’s head 
and buried them in the hot embers. When they woke in the 
‘Morning the old man pretended to look in vain for his lost moc- 
casins, “ Ah!” said Coyote, “You have forgotten that this is the 
Hill of the Burned Moccasins.” “ Oh! there they are under 
_ Your head,” said the elder; “I thank you, my son-in-law, for 
