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Show 274 WESTERN WILDS. wish an unusually fine article, furnish both " chain" and " filling," but those entirely of Navajo make are very . fine. One will outlast a life- time ; and though rolled in the mud, or daubed with grease for months or years, till every vestige of color seems gone, when washed with the soap- weed ( mole cactus) the bright native colors come out as beautiful as ever. They also manufacture, with beads and silk threads obtained from the traders, very beautiful neck- ties, ribbons, garters, cuffs and other ornaments. More interesting to me than any of their handicraft, is the unwearying patience they display in all their work, and their zeal and quickness to learn in every thing which may im-prove their condition. Officers and agents universally tell me that Navajoes work alongside of any employes they can get, and do full work. They dig ditches and make embankments with great skill, handling the spade as well as any Irishman. Surely such a people are capable of civilization. Mrs. Charity Menaul, teacher at Defiance, reported considerable progress among the Navajoes under her charge. I found the older people curious to learn about our customs, and very communicative as to their own, though like all barbarians a little reticent as to their theology. Their religion, or superstition, is vague ; there is a differ-ence on minor points between the bands, though some ideas are com-mon. Chinday, the devil, is a more important personage in their system than Whylohay, the god; as, like the Mormons and many other white schismatics, they charge all they don't like in other people to the direct personal agency of the devil. About the only use, in fact, of their god, is to lay plans to outwit the devil. Their moral code is extremely vague : whatever is good for the tribe is in general right; whatever is not pro bono publico is wrong. Cowards after death will become coyotes, while braves will continue men in a better country. Women will change to fish for awhile, and afterwards to something else. But they don't trouble themselves much about the next world. If they had plenty in this, they would consider them-selves in luck. On minor points there are as many sects as in Boston. The general belief is this: there is one Great Spirit; under him each people has its own god. The god of the Melicanoes is very good to them ; they have corn and horses, blankets and much chinneahgo. But it is use-less for Navajoes to pray to him. Each cares for his own. The coy-ote will not take up the children of the rattlesnake ; the eagle will not give his meat to the young hawks. It is light, it is nature. |