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Show 24 II. ANAA, DZIXK'I, HOZHONEE'JI he said. "Also, Toad and Big Snake have shot stones into your knees, back, and other joints. They did this because you drank at their spring." Then a full Mountain Way ceremony was held for her. They dug a trench and put the mountain medicines into it. They burned branches from the sumac and the different berries, and they laid Elder Sister, wrapped in buckskin, on the ashes to sweat out the evil. Prayersticks were made for the Mountain People she had visited. In the evening, they applied the unravelings (woltaad) to her limbs. Cinctures of fir branches were tied to her shoulders and wrists. Then Monster Slayer cut the branches off with his flint knife. This symbolized her freedom from bondage to the pain in her joints. A shelter like a bear's den was built, and she was placed in it. While she waited in darkness, suddenly a bear-like figure dressed in masses of evergreen leaped towards her. This shocked her into unconsciousness, from which she had to be restored by Talking God. While runners were sent out to gather people for the last night's fire dance, the singers prepared sandpaintings. They used the Bear's Den sandpainting for the shock rite, and other paint- On the second morning of this Red Ant Way Ceremony, the painting of Blue Horned Toad is being made and a small hoop is being prepared for the purification rite. A W.R. Heick photograph, from LelandC. Wyman, The Red Antway of the Navaho (Santa Fe: Museum of Navajo Ceremonial Art, copyright 1965), p. 269 reprinted by permission of the Wheelwright Museum. ' ' " |