ls
came up into this world; diligent search was unrewarded until two of the
searchers looked down through the hole and espied her sitting beside a
stream in the lower world combing her hair. Four days later death came to
these searchers, so that now the Navaho will go to any extreme to avoid
coming into contact with spirits of the dead, _tsi{~COMBINING BREVE~}ndi_, which they
believe travel anywhere and everywhere at will, often doing evil, but
never good. The body is prepared for burial previous to death, and is
never touched afterward if it can be avoided.

To the end that the spirit may begin aright its journey to the afterworld,
the body is taken out of the hogan through an opening specially made in
the wall on the northern side, for the doorway always faces the east. The
immediate relatives of the deceased avoid looking at the corpse if
possible. Friends of the family or distant relations usually take charge
of the burial. A couple of men dig a grave on a hillside and carry the
body there wrapped in blankets. No monument is erected to mark the spot.
Before the body is taken out, the hogan is vacated and all necessary
utensils are carried away. The two men who bury the remains of the former
occupant carefully obliterate with a cedar bough all footprints that the
relations of the deceased may have made in the hogan, in order to conceal
from the departed spirit the direction in which they went should it return
to do them harm. The premises are completely abandoned and the house often
burned. Never will a Navaho occupy a _tsi{~COMBINING BREVE~}ndi hogan_, and when travelling
at night he will take a roundabout trail in order to avoid one. Formerly
horses were killed at the grave. So recently as 1906 a horse was
sacrificed within sight of a Catholic mission on the reservation, that its
spirit might accompany that of a dead woman to the afterworld. This horse
was the property of the woman, and her husband, fearing to retain it, yet
not daring to kill it himself, called upon another to do so.

HISTORY

Although raiders and plunderers since known to history, the Navaho cannot
be designated a warring tribe, for however courageous they may be, their
lack of political integrity has ever been an obstacle to military
organization. They never have had a tribal chief, properly so called,
while their many leading men could never command more than a small
following. Manuelito, who was acclaimed head-chief in 1855 at the
co