³ It is recognized of course that these headings are abstractions which, if pressed very far, do violence to the intricate interdependence of essentially all bits of behavior. This whole paper indeed constitutes a demonstration from the data on one society that these categories overlap. But the abstractions are commonly used, are convenient, and are hardly misleading if treated purely heuristically.

⁴ American Anthropologist, vol. 40, 1938, pp. 359–370.

⁵ Just because it is so unusual, so “dangerous” for a man to sing over his own wife, such a ceremonial is thought of as unusually potent. When, therefore, a singer's wife is seriously or chronically ill and other singers have treated her without success, her own husband may, as a last desperate attempt, agree to conduct a ceremonial himself.

⁶ One is reminded of the fact that curing societies in many pueblos add to their membership the individuals whom they treat. Dr. Elsie Clews Parsons has called my attention to the fact that at Zuñi marriage with ceremonial fathers and their families is forbidden.

⁷ At the time of writing this paper I had not seen Hill's data (Hill, Willard W., The Agricultural and Hunting Methods of the Navaho Indians, Yale University Publications in Anthropology: 18, 1938, pp. 100–101Google Scholar) on the teacher-learner relationship in hunting ceremonials. In general, these data seem to accord very well with the conclusions reached here. See also Franc Newcomb and Gladys Reichard, Sandpaintings of the Navajo Shooting Chant (New York, 1937), pp. 8–9.

⁸ Numbers referring to informants are the same as those used in Leland C. Wyman and Clyde Kluckhohn (Navaho Classification of Their Song Ceremonials, Memoirs, American Anthropological Association, No. 50, 1938), and as will be used in subsequent publications.

⁹ The numerals refer to the list in Gladys Beichard (Social Life of the Navajo Indians, New York, 1928) and are used to avoid expensive type-setting of phonetic characters. The differentiation of clans rather than their names would seem to be in point here, and the interested specialist can check very readily. This work of Reichard's also contains (p. 146) some useful data on the learning of ceremonials.

¹⁰ This is called be·zdiγin do·leł bini·γé “for the purpose of making him holy.”

¹¹ One informant (2) stated that, where there were male and female versions of a ceremonial, the prospective singer ought to have both sung over him, even though he planned to sing but the one himself.

¹² The material presented thus far is so representative of the practice and theory of learning and acceptance that hereafter I shall mention only important divergences from these patterns. The only general qualification to be made is that in the case of learning “blackenings” (portions of Evil Way ceremonials in which the patient's body is blackened) or other excerpts from ceremonials the practice is that the teacher conducts the ceremonial over the learner but once. (Statements as to the theory here involved were conflicting, being mainly apparent rationalizations after the fact.)

Father Berard Haile (Origin Legend of the Navaho Enemy Way, Yale University Publications in Anthropology: 17, 1938) makes some interesting general remarks on the learning of ceremonials (pp. 12–14).

¹³ Future statements that no fee was paid are to be understood as “no fee other than that for the ceremonial or ceremonials conducted by teacher over learner.”

¹⁴ “Some people can learn the songs, some can't. Finally my maternal uncle took a dry ear of corn, and every time he sings one song he takes off a kernel and puts it in a cup. Then he got an unmarried girl who was related to me to grind these kernels up into mush. He put this in a medicine basket and let it cool. Then he sung and while he was singing he put some of that mush in my mouth. He did this four times while he sang a special song. Then he made me eat the rest of the mush as fast as I could with all five fingers. After that I didn't have much more trouble.”

¹⁵ A “singer” is a practitioner who knows at least one five-night chant. A “curer” knows only portions of one or more chants.

¹⁶ Jaciano is, strictly speaking, a singer rather than a curer, but, since he moved to the Alamo-Puerticito area ten years ago (returning to the Ramah Region only occasionally to conduct ceremonials), it is convenient to consider him here.

¹⁷ Julio is the youngest of the three brothers mentioned but is past fifty.

¹⁸ Dick Pino (1) commented upon this: “A year ago I was singing Shooting Way, Female Branch over at Sam's place. That boy, he was there but he got scared and started to shake. He went out and went away. He got worse during the night — got stiff, his arms bent in, his hands shut tight, his legs twisted. Two men went over and brought him back inside where I was singing. They put him beside Gayadito's son whom I was singing over. Then he got better. … People who start singing that way without studying with a singer and paying him, they always get sick. If they don't get sick right away, they get sick when they get older and have to straighten that up themselves. The best way is to learn from a singer the right way.” (Acho has sung but once in his life and is not even called a curer.)

¹⁹ In the tabulation I have included two cases (based on a member of this group who died five years ago) not discussed in the text.

²⁰ Defined as any putatively biological relationship to which the informant called attention.

²¹ The statistical inadequacy of the numbers is largely compensated for by the clearness of the trend. And the conclusions are, in a general way, confirmed by statements reflecting the native ideology. To questions of this sort, “From whom should a Navaho learn a ceremonial?” replies followed this general pattern, “From anyone. Usually from a relative or a friend.” Data are inadequate to judge whether the learner most often bases his choice upon relationship to a possible teacher or upon interest in a particular ceremonial, but my impression is that the former prevails more frequently.

²² After the ceremonial has been learned, the new singer does stand, of course, to his teacher in a relationship which is highly special but does seem to be roughly comparable to that obtaining between clansmen.

²³ In all cases which my data cover — and this uniformity is not contradicted by any other facts in my possession.

²⁴ On this general question cf. Grenville Goodwin, The White Mountain Apache Religion (American Anthropologist, Vol. 40, 1938), p. 37Google Scholar and passim. In the lore of Navaho chants there are but a few hints of direct contact with the supernatural of the shamanistic type. Hill (op. cit., p. 74) in discussing the Rain Chant gives one of the most striking of these: “During a ceremony, the individuals in a hogan were supposed to sit and think hard, stare straight ahead, and be very quiet. If the chanter were performing the ceremony in the right manner some one of the audience would get a vision pertaining to the chanter and his objective. This would be a sign that the ceremony was being properly conducted and that it would be successful.”

²⁵ None of the singers in this society practise divination also. Of the seventeen curers only two do motion-in-the-hand, and of these one has diagnosed but once in two years and the other has carried on but a single ceremonial during this time and is but barely recognized as a curer. It seems fairly clear that a different temperamental selection operates for the two occupations. I have also a decided impression that the community feels that both professions ought not to be practised by the same person.

²⁶ This and all other translations are exactly as rendered by my interpreters, Dave Skeet (12) and Frank Pino (31), except that I have translated certain technical words (names of ceremonials and the like) which they left in Navaho.

²⁷ For descriptions of hand-trembling divination see Wyman, Leland C., Navaho Diagnosticians (American Anthropologist, Vol. 38, 1936, pp. 236–247Google Scholar).

²⁸ Cf. Wyman, 1936 (op. cit.), pp. 239, 243.

²⁹ A number of informants (13, 2, 1, 6, 15) stated or inferred that Hand Trembling Way ceremonials were the cure par excellence for “hand-trembling sickness.” This theory is, I suspect, of comparatively recent origin. But ideological association between the rite of divination and the ceremonial is also evidenced by the circumstance that (at least in the Ramah and Danoff-Two Wells areas) singers of Hand Trembling Way do not sing other ceremonials, although in far the greater number of cases in these areas a singer who knows a whole ceremonial also conducts parts at least of others. (Systematic enquiry during the summer of 1938 among a large number of informants in various parts of the Navaho country revealed only a single case — near Pine Springs — of a singer of Hand Trembling Way who sung other full ceremonials. Certainly a trend toward a uniformity is indicated here, although no informant seemed aware of it as a matter of theory.)

³⁰ Mainly close familial relationship. But there is some evidence that, other things being equal, a diagnostician or singer in the same clan as the patient is preferred to an outsider.

³¹ Actually, the practice of a number of curers is practically limited to their own family groups. They are not sufficiently recognized for outsiders to have any confidence in them.

³² Of the two local singers most in demand, Dick Pino (1) is a member of the clan (37) most numerous in the area, but Jake (2) belongs to a clan (22) which has but fifteen representatives in this area. Of the five practitioners most frequently called in from the outside three are from the first and third most populous clans (37 and 35) in the area, the fourth is from Clan 22, the fifth from Clan 20 which has but three representatives here.

³³ This factor is more difficult than the others to document with full precision. Documentation consists in the first place in the fact that (with only three exceptions, each of which was a case of critical or persistent illness) the very expensive outside singers have been imported by the few families in this region who are really prosperous economically. In the second place, numerous statements of this order provide documentation:

Richard Pino (34): “The Antonios ought to have an Enemy Way for the people. Everybody knows that. But they're too stingy.”

Sam (4): “Balthazar had a Night Way down at Cerro Alto five years ago. And everybody in that outfit has been bragging about it ever since.”

Antonio's wife (36): “That singer we got from Crownpoint to do Shooting Way, Male Branch for me knew so much he had to have five men help him. Nobody else around here could have paid him.”

Still another point should be mentioned. It appears to be generally accepted as part of Navaho theory that the more that is paid for a ceremonial, the more effective it is likely to be.

³⁴ A minor form of economic reciprocity between members of a clan exists in this custom whereby a traveling stranger in Navaho culture always seeks hospitality from a member of his own clan.

³⁵ Professional engagements in his own area prevented immediate acceptance, but it was arranged that he should return in about six weeks. I have, incidentally, data on ceremonials being arranged for a longer period than this in advance. Particularly in the case of singers from the outside, advantage is often taken of the presence of a singer in one's own immediate vicinity to ask him to come back “after shearing” or “after the lambs have been sold,” for example. I know of cases where an outside singer has collected several such somewhat indefinite advance requests. More than once when such a singer has returned (without the invitation being renewed at the actual time by the sending of an intermediary), at least one of the families involved have greeted him with some such statement as this: “We aren't quite ready for you yet. Come back again in about two weeks.” On the other hand, when such a postponement occurs, it is likely (in my observation) that some other family which have been considering having a ceremonial for one of their members will give the singer an opportunity to fill in this idle time (often at something less than his usual fee!).

³⁶ There is abundant evidence that, from time to time, different outside singers become locally fashionable. Then a case goes badly and they cease to be invited. (It is too often forgotten that the Navaho expect results — or at all events not bad results — from their singers. A singer who consistently has failures loses his practice. Of course, a considerable degree of rationalization of failure is part of the system. It is my impression that the limit of toleration of rationalization is markedly less for the singer from outside.) On the other hand, at least two outside singers have apparently enjoyed a sustained popularity in this area for twenty years or more.

³⁷ The carriers of the culture are not necessarily fully conscious of the preferred alternatives.

³⁸ This is a matter which I did not specifically investigate in the field, but in connection with other topics I noted eight instances in which a kind of informal family council vetoed the recommendations of a diagnostician and either called in another diagnostician or made their own independent selection of singer or ceremonial or both.

³⁹ My data here consist of direct observations by myself and co-workers at forty-seven full ceremonials.

⁴⁰ Similarly, a singer will occasionally turn over to those whom he has trained (particularly if they be his own children or maternal nephews) the carrying out of the ‘repeats’ of his ceremonials. The patient cannot properly get someone else to finish the cycle of four, if the original singer is still alive. But that the singer is privileged to transfer the responsibility to a non-pupil, non-relative is shown in that Jake has twice done this to Dick, on the ground that “he could help the sick person more.” In these cases, in addition to the routine calico and baskets, Dick was paid a share of the original fees by Jake.

⁴¹ In this paper I follow the practice used in Wyman and Kluckhohn (op. cit): any general statement such as this may be assumed to rest on a minimum of four independent testimonies, not contradicted by any member of the group. Where a statement is documented by less than four informants or where there are discrepancies, names or numbers of informants have been cited.

⁴² It is particularly interesting that this ceremony is singled out in view of the fact that in many pueblos (especially in the west) “the head is bathed in yucca suds by a person who stands in some special social or ceremonial relation to the subject” (usually, Dr. Parsons writes me, the father's sister or the ceremonial father's sister — not a member of the person's clan nor of his household). For calling my attention to another parallel in this connection I must thank Dr. A. H. Gayton: commonly in Central California the person who assists receives, as here, the basket as a perquisite.

⁴³ In the case of singers or ceremonials new to the region, “curiosity” enters as an additional factor of importance. Perhaps one should also mention friendship, but (often with the exception of a single close friend among younger people) one's friends in this Navaho society are usually selected from among one's kinfolk and neighbors.

⁴⁴ I am indebted to my friend, Dr. Leland C. Wyman, for first directing my attention to this last-named uniformity. Cf. also Newcomb and Reichard (op. cit.), pp. 9–10. On the whole question of the social personality of the singer see the section of this work entitled “Chant and Chanter.”

⁴⁵ If there be anything in these generalizations, they would explain in large part a fact which more than one observer has commented upon: singers in Navaho society, while seldom terribly poor, are not in general as well-off as might be anticipated in view of the substantial increments to their income. In this group, Dick (1) and Jake (2) both have an extraordinary number of economic dependents, and the former is actually poor by the standards of the community.

⁴⁶ Dr. Wyman very kindly allows me to quote his written comments on these two suggestions: “Although I have no statements from the Navaho on these two points, my own observations bear them out. For instance — one or two singers whom I know as rather reserved and not inclined to have much to do with me, have been very friendly and jocular when I appeared at a hogan where they were singing. In general, members of the patient's family are much more likely than the singer to object to the presence of whites. And yet it is the singer who will be blamed if anything goes wrong. I have a general impression that one can often ‘break the ice’ with a singer who is difficult to know more easily at a ceremonial where he is singing than elsewhere.”

⁴⁷ If poor parents have a son who is regarded as being unusually alert and as having a good memory friends will often say “You ought to have your boy learn so and so's chant. Then, later on, he'd be able to help you all out. He would give you a lot of the things that people gave him for singing for them.”

⁴⁸ In the main, however, it seems to me that this analysis bears out Dr. Parsons’ generalization “Navaho clanship is dissociated with Navaho ceremonialism.” E. C. Parsons’ (The House-Clan Complex of the Pueblos in Essays Presented to A. L. Kroeber, Berkeley, 1936, p. 229). There are, nevertheless, a few evidences of connection. For example, in Enemy Way we are told that a person from the patient's clan is usually chosen to go after the scalp “because he will do it free of charge.” (Father Berard Haile, op. cit., p. 219.)