OCR Text |
Show WILD LIFE IN ARIZONA. 251 is it?") and proceed to the words for bread or meat, fire and water, viz: chinneahgo, knuh and toh. The language is extremely nasal, equally guttural, and abounds in sibilants and triple consonants, many sounds having no equivalent in English. In every band are some Mexicans, captured young and adopted by the tribe ; and a few Spanish words are in common use, but so changed in the pronunciation as to make them new. Thus Americano becomes Melicano; azucar, (" sugar ") tsu-collo; scrape, (" blanket") selap, and ombre (" man") ombly ; for no Indian or Chinaman can pronounce the r. Their social customs and adornments have a singular resemblance to those of the . Japanese. They treat their women as well as most white nations. Men do the out- door work, women that of the household. The latter are very communicative, humorous and mirthful, and nothing seems to amuse them so much as my attempts at their language, at which they listen and laugh by the hour. ' They say that a woman first taught them how to weave blankets and make water- jars, for which cause it is a point of honor with a Navajo never to strike a woman. In my visits I frequently heard them speak of En- now- lo- kyh, some-times joined with the word el- soo- see, and as I stooped to enter a hogan, could sometimes hear the head of the family call to order with " Hah- koh ! El- soo- see En- noic- lo- kyh ! " Learning that this was my Navajo name, I sought the interpreter, highly flattered at my noble title, to learn its meaning. A broad grin adorned his features as he informed me that the two words, translated literally, meant " Slim- man- with- a-white- eye." Feeling this to be somewhat personal, and inferentially abusive, I had him explain somewhat of my business to them and construct a name indicative of my profession ; and henceforth I hope to become historical among the Navajoes by an unpronounceable word of six syllables, meaning in English " Big Quill." When a commu-nication is twice translated, it triples the ambiguity; and that is the method employed with them: one interpreter speaks English and Spanish, the other Spanish and Navajo. I made my remarks in the plainest, most terse English I could command, which the American translated into the florid Castilian ; this, in turn, the Mexican rendered in the hissing, complicated phrases and cumbrous polysyllables of the aboriginal tongue. It was but seventy miles to the ruins on the De Chaco, and I had arranged to visit them with Navajo guides, when one of the party which had gone to San Juan arrived, completely' exhausted, and announced that Agent Miller had been murdered, and all their horses stolen but one ; that he had started immediately with that, and the rest |