The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Little Navajo Herder, by Ann Clark This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. Title: The Little Navajo Herder Author: Ann Clark Illustrator: Hoke Denetsosie Release Date: June 12, 2016 [EBook #52311] Language: English Character set encoding: UTF-8 *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LITTLE NAVAJO HERDER *** Produced by Richard Tonsing, Juliet Sutherland and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR Oscar L. Chapman, Secretary UNITED STATES INDIAN SERVICE Dillon S. Myer, Commissioner EDUCATION DIVISION Willard W. Beatty, Chief Authorized by Congress Printing Department Haskell Institute Price .25 September, 1951—5M LITTLE NAVAJO HERDER ANN CLARK [Illustration] Illustrated by HOKE DENETSOSIE UNITED STATES INDIAN SERVICE HASKELL INSTITUTE—LAWRENCE, KANSAS LITTLE NAVAJO HERDER In Little Navajo Herder, we have brought together in one volume the pictured story of a year in the life of a little Navajo girl, which originally appeared in four separate books. In the first edition, which was prepared for classroom use in Federal Indian schools, the stories appeared in both English and Navajo. However, the popularity of Little Herder was not limited to the child readers of her own tribe. She has found her way into the hearts of Indian children throughout the nation. The universality of her appeal is indicated by increasing interest in her story by non-Indian children in home and school. Selections from her books have found their way into dozens of anthologies. This popularity with those who read only English has dictated this single volume edition in English. Again the delightful drawings by Hoke Denetsosie, a full-blood Navajo artist, are used. Little Navajo Herder bids fair to find a permanent place in children's literature, as has Mrs. Clark's earlier volume on Pueblo life—"In My Mother's House." This book is illustrated by a Pueblo artist, Velerio Herrera, and is published by Viking Press. Other Indian stories by Mrs. Clark have been published by the Indian Service for use in Indian schools. A complete list may be obtained from Haskell Institute, Lawrence, Kansas. IN AUTUMN [Illustration] IN AUTUMN Page Home Land 3 The Hogan 4 Night Corral 5 The Cornfield 6 My Mother 7 My Father 8 Possessions 9 The Horses 10 The Sheep 11 The Goats 12 The Lambs 13 The Trading Post 14 Selling 15 The Silversmith 17 Turquoise 18 It Is Dry 19 Sorting the Wool 20 Cleaning the Wool 21 Carding the Wool 22 Spinning 23 Autumn 25 Dyeing 27 Weaving 29 Learning To Weave 30 Flood 32 Sun 33 Herding 34 [Illustration] HOME LAND The land around my mother's hogan is big. It is still. It has walls of red rocks. And way, far off the sky comes down to touch the sands. Blue sky is above me. Yellow sand is beneath me. The sheep are around me. My mother's hogan is near. [Illustration] THE HOGAN My mother's hogan is round and earth-color. Its floor is smooth and hard. It has a friendly fire and an open door. It is my home. I live happily in my mother's hogan. [Illustration] NIGHT CORRAL The night corral is fenced with poles. It is the home for the sheep and the goats when darkness comes to my mother's land. [Illustration] THE CORNFIELD The cornfield is fenced with poles. My mother works in the cornfield. My father works in the cornfield. While they are working I walk among the corn plants. I sing to the tall tasseled corn. In the middle of all these known things stands my mother's hogan with its open door. [Illustration] MY MOTHER My mother is sun browned color. Her eyes are dark. Her hair shines black. My mother is good to look at, but I like her hands the best. They are beautiful. They are strong and quick at working, but when they touch my hands they are slow moving and gentle. [Illustration] MY FATHER My father is tall. He is strong. He is brave. He hunts and he rides and he sings. He coaxes the corn and the squash plants to grow out of the sand-dry earth. My father has magic in his finger tips. He can turn flat pieces of silver into things of beauty. Sometimes I hide in the wide folds of my mother's skirts and look out at my father. POSSESSIONS I have black hair. I have white teeth. My hands are brown with many fingers. My feet are brown with many toes. My arms are brown and strong. My legs are brown and swift. I have two eyes. They show me how things look. I have two ears. They bring sounds to stay with me for a little while. I have two names, a War Name for just me to know but not to use, and a nickname for everyone to use for every day. But with all these things I still am only one little girl. Isn't it strange? [Illustration] THE HORSES I see my father's horses running in the wind. I feel little standing here when the wind and the horses run by. [Illustration] THE SHEEP Of all the kinds of sheep, Navaho sheep give the best wool for weaving. My mother says that is why they are Navaho sheep, because they know best the needs of The People. [Illustration] THE GOATS Goats have long whiskers. They have long faces. They have long legs. Goats are funny, I think. [Illustration] THE LAMBS Now that it is autumn, the lambs that were babies in the spring, have grown. They are almost as tall as their mothers. My father takes the lambs in his wagon to the trading post. He takes them to sell to the trader. [Illustration] THE TRADING POST Hosteen White Man has the trading post. He has hard things on the shelf. He has soft things on the wall. And in a jar he has red stick candy that he keeps just for me. Hosteen White Man at the trading post is such a good man. Sometimes, I forget he is not one of The People. [Illustration] SELLING In his wagon my father drives to the trading post. He takes the lambs and he takes me, too. He wants me to know about selling. He tells me that sometimes he trades the lambs, and sometimes he gives them in payment for a debt. This time he will sell them to the trader. When we get to the trading post the trader looks at the lambs. Then he tells my father how much he will pay. I wonder if the lambs like to have my father sell them to the trader. My father sells the lambs for hard round money to Hosteen White Man at the trading post. Then he chooses cans of food to put into his wagon, and he gives Hosteen White Man some of the round hard money back again. My father calls this selling, but I think it is a game they play together, Hosteen White Man and my father at the trading post. My father likes this game of selling. He did not tell me, but, someway, I know that he likes it. [Illustration] THE SILVERSMITH My father sits before his forge melting bars of silver and turning them into silver raindrops and silver cloud designs. Somehow, my father has caught the wind within his bellows and when he lets it go its breath turns the silver to red earth color. Its breath cools the silver until it is hard like something made of gray water and then turned to stone. Today my father sang as he worked at making a bracelet for my arm. His song flowed into the silver circle making it a circle of song. TURQUOISE Turquoise is sky. Turquoise is still water. Turquoise is color-blue and color-green that someone somewhere has caught and turned to stone. Sometimes, turquoise is trapped in silver, and sometimes, in small beads running along a white string like beauty following a straight trail. [Illustration] IT IS DRY My father says over and over, "It is dry. It is too dry." My father means there has been no rain to fill the rain pools for the thirsty sheep. [Illustration] SORTING THE WOOL I am helping my mother sort the wool. This pile we will keep to spin into yarn for weaving because its strands are long and unbroken. This pile we will sell to the trader. Its strands are broken and short. The trader will buy it, but he will not pay as much as if it were all long. I wish that all our wool was of long, unbroken strands. I like to sort the wool. It is good to feel its softness, like making words for something my heart has always known. [Illustration] CLEANING THE WOOL I go with my mother to beat the wool. We get the little sticks and burrs out of it. We put the wool on a flat rock. We beat the wool with yucca sticks. I have a little yucca stick like my mother's big one. It takes my mother and me a long time to clean the wool. [Illustration] CARDING THE WOOL I sit with my mother under the juniper tree. I watch her card wool with her towcards. My mother's towcards are flat pieces of wood with strong handles and with wire teeth. My mother buys her towcards from the trader at the trading post. With her towcards she pulls the wool thin. She stretches it in white sheets like snow mist in winter. She bunches it in soft rolls like white clouds in summer. Under my mother's towcards the gray wool turns white. The matted wool turns fluffy and soft, and light as baby eagle down. I like to sit with my mother under the juniper tree. I like to watch her card the wool with her towcards. [Illustration] SPINNING My mother's spindle is a slender stick on a hardwood whorl. Under her fingers it spins like a dancer, winding itself in twisted yarn. Under her fingers it twists the wool into straight beauty like a trail of pollen, like a trail of song. My hands are not strong enough to card, very well. My fingers are not swift enough to spin, very well. But my heart knows perfectly how it is done. [Illustration] [Illustration] AUTUMN Now that autumn is here, the flowers and the plants give themselves to us for winter will not need them. The pumpkins are rusty color with brown and green patches. They are ripe. Ripe is such a good word. I like to say it. All the plants are ripe and beautiful with color now that autumn is here. Soon my mother will go to the mountains to gather plants for dyes, and plants for food, and plants for medicine. If I were bigger she would take me with her. She does take me when we go to places near the hogan. After heavy frost my father will go to the mountains to gather the pinyons. This year he will go without us. He will go with some other men in a truck that belongs to the trader. My mother does not like this. She thinks my father should take us with him when he goes for pinyons. [Illustration] DYEING With flower plants and bark and roots and minerals and water and fire, my mother changes the colors of her yarns. My mother puts the dye plants into the dye kettle over the fire. Slowly the water in the kettle changes its color. My mother puts white yarn into this dye water. She boils it over the fire. She stirs it with a stick. It bubbles and bubbles. It gives a good smell like plants after rain. For a little time my mother boils the yarn in the dye water, and then she takes it out again. It is no longer white. It has changed color. In this way my mother changes the colors of her yarns to look like brown earth in morning or yellow sand at mid-day. She changes the colors of her yarns to look like black cliffs at sunset, or black like the night, and black like the dark clouds of male rain. I help to gather the flowers and the bark and the roots and the minerals. I help to carry the water from the rain pool by the red rocks. I help to make the fire with little twigs. I look and look. I see the water and the plants. I see the yarn in the water but I do not see the magic that I think my mother must use to change her yarns to colors. When I tell this to my mother, she laughs at me. She says she has no magic in her dye kettle. She says the plants in her dye kettle are the things which give colors to her yarns. So now, I have learned a new thing. [Illustration] WEAVING When my mother sits on her sheepskin, weaving a blanket on her loom I think it is like a song. The warp threads are the drum beats, strong sounds underneath. The colored yarns are the singing words weaving through the drum beats. When the blanket is finished it is like a finished song. The warp and the drum beats, the colored wools and the singing words are forgotten. Only the pattern of color and of sound is left. [Illustration] LEARNING TO WEAVE My mother took me in her arms. We sat together at her loom. She took my hands to guide them along the weaving way. She showed them how to weave. We did not weave straight across the loom. That is not our way. We wove with one color for a little way up. And then with another color for a little way up. We kept the edges straight. We wove not too tight and not too loose and pounded it down, pounded it down, pounded it. But when I told my father, "See, I wove this blanket," my mother spoke sharply. "We do not say things that are not true," she told me. I hid my face away from the sharp words of my mother, but soon my mother's hand came gently to touch my hair. [Illustration] FLOOD Rain comes hard and black. It fills the arroyos with yellow water running in anger. Great pieces of sand bank on the sides of the arroyos slide into the water with little tired noises and are lost for always. The rain pools fill with water, rain water, fresh and clean and cold. [Illustration] SUN Sun comes now to comfort the land that the rain has frightened. My father says, "Sun takes the rain water from the thirsty land back to the sky too soon." But my mother and I, we are glad the sun comes soon. Sun does not mean to rob the land of water. Sun means only to warm it again. [Illustration] HERDING Today I go with my mother. I go with her to drive the sheep for I must learn to tend the flock. It is my work. The way is long. The sand is hot. The arroyos are deep. It takes many steps to keep up with my mother. It takes many steps to keep up with the sheep. My mother waits for me. My mother takes my hand. She calls me Little Herder of the Sheep. And so we walk across the sand. We walk till the day is done, till the sun goes and the stars are almost ready to come. We walk across the sand. We walk to the water hole when day is at the middle. We walk to the night corral when day is at the close, the sheep, my mother and my mother's Little Herder. Before the hogan fire, when night has come, my father sings, my mother whispers, "Come sit beside me Little Herder." I like that name. From now till always I want to be my mother's Little Herder. IN WINTER [Illustration] IN WINTER Page Snow 39 There Is No Food 41 The Dogs Are Hungry 43 Melting Snow Water 44 Night 47 Story Telling 48 It-Is-Twisted 50 Pawn 51 Morning 53 Shoveling the Snow 54 Cat's Cradles 55 Father Comes Back 56 Supper 58 Sleep 59 Morning Sun 60 Going to the Sing 61 The Sing 63 The Betting 66 The Race 68 Going Home 70 [Illustration] SNOW My mother's land is white with snow. The sandwash and the waterhole, the dry grass patches and the cornfield hide away under the white blanket, under the snow blanket that covers the land. The air is filled with falling snow, thick snow, soft snow falling, falling. Beautiful Mountain and the red rock canyons hide their faces in snow clouds. The wind cries. It piles the snow in drift banks against the poles of the sheep corral. It pushes against the door of my mother's hogan, and it cries. The wind cries out there in the snow and the cold. My mother's hogan is cold. Snow blows down the smoke hole. Water drops on the fire. The wet wood smokes and keeps its flames to itself. The sun has not shown his face to tell us what time of day it is. I do not like to ask my mother, "Is it noon now?" or "Is it almost night?" because she might think I wanted it to be time to eat. She might think I wanted food. [Illustration] THERE IS NO FOOD There is no food. There is no flour nor cornmeal to make into bread. There is no coffee that my mother could boil for us to drink. There is no food. The corn my father planted in his field is gone. We ate it. There was so little. The corn pile in the storehouse was not high enough to last for long. It is gone. Now all of it is gone. There is no food. There is food at the Trading Post in sacks and in boxes, in bins and in cans on the shelf. There is food at the Trading Post, but the Trading Post is far away and snowdrifts and snow clouds are heavy between. There is food at the Trading Post but my father has nothing left of the hard, round money that he must give to the Trader for the food. There is no food here in my mother's hogan. When it is time to eat, we talk of other things, but not of hunger. This thing called hunger is a pain that sits inside me. At first it was little, but now it grows bigger and bigger. It hurts me to be hungry. [Illustration] THE DOGS ARE HUNGRY The dogs are hungry, too. They crowd in the hogan. The black one is not sleeping now. He lies with his head on his paws and looks at nothing. The yellow one whimpers. He has worked hard, but there is no food. The gray shadow dog stays outside close to the tree trunk making no sound asking for nothing. I think she knows nobody wants her. [Illustration] MELTING SNOW WATER The sheep are wet and cold. They are hungry, too. If the snow keeps falling, it will be bad for the sheep. Perhaps that is why the wind cries. Perhaps the wind is sorry for the sheep. That is what I think. My mother talks to my father. Together they go out to shovel snow. The ruffles on my mother's skirts make pretty marks on the top of the snow whiteness. My mother and my father shovel a round place clean of snow out near the sheep corral. They will build a fire to melt snow into water to give to the sheep. It takes much wood to make a fire to melt snow into water, but if the sheep have water to drink they do not hunger so much. When the round place is clear of snow, my mother comes into the hogan for dry wood to make the outdoor fire. She picks a stick from our small pile beside the fire. She picks another until she has a little armful. My mother picks them up slowly for our pile is so small. My father comes into the hogan. He stamps his feet. Little hills of dirty snow melt slowly by them on the hogan floor. It takes a lot of snow in my mother's washtub to melt enough water for the sheep. When my mother comes again into the hogan she is tired. Her poor face is dark with cold. I put my arms around my mother's knees. It is the only way I know to show her that I am sorry she is cold. [Illustration] [Illustration] NIGHT Night is slow in coming, but at last it comes moving through the snowstorm. Coyotes howl, far away. Nearby the wind cries. The wet wood smokes. Snow water drips down through the smoke hole. [Illustration] STORY TELLING Then my father tells us stories. Long stories made up of many words. His words have power. They have strength. They seem to hold me. They seem to warm me. They seem to feed me. My father's words, they comfort me. His words have power. My father tells The Star Story. "When the world was being made, being made." My father tells us, "When the Gods were placing stars, the stars, the stars in patterns in the sky, coyote stole the star bag." Coyote spilled the stars out in the sky, helter skelter in the sky, when the world was being made. Softly my father tells it, the story of the stars. Outside, the wind and the night push against my mother's hogan door. Outside, big flakes of snow fall thickly, fall softly, fall steadily. Inside, snow water drips down the smoke hole and the words of my father's voice drop softly into the quiet of my mother's hogan. [Illustration] "IT-IS-TWISTED" The Star Story made my mother think of the string game, "It-Is-Twisted." She said that the Spider People gave it to us to use in winter evenings. My mother showed us how to make the game. She made Twin-Stars and Many-Stars, Big-Star and Horned-Star with pieces of string. [Illustration] PAWN Just now, I heard myself saying, "I want some bread." My father is not talking now. He is looking at me. My mother is looking at me. They do not know it was not I, but this hunger pain inside me that said those words, "I want some bread." They do not know that, and I do not know how to tell them. My father sits still. He sits quietly. He is thinking. My mother looks down at her hands where they are resting in the folds of her skirt. Outside, the wind cries the wind cries to my thinking. Slowly my father takes his concho belt from about his waist. Slowly his fingers touch the belt, counting, counting, counting the conchos. Slowly my mother takes her coral string from about her neck. She looks at it. She looks at it. Slowly she puts it back again around her neck. Then my mother takes from her finger her largest turquoise ring. My father puts his concho belt upon the floor. My mother puts her turquoise ring upon the floor. The concho belt and the turquoise ring make a splash of color in the gray-lighted hogan. He will pawn them because our food is getting low. The concho belt and the turquoise ring are for pawn. They are for pawn. Pawn to the Trader for food. Pawn to the Trader that we may eat. Our hard goods, our possessions we give them for salt and for flour. They are for pawn. Who knows when we can buy them back. The snow water drops from the smoke hole like tears. The wind cries. Quickly my father sings a funny song to make laughter come to my mother and me. MORNING The wind lies still. It has not gone away I know, for I can feel it lying there outside hiding in the snow. The wind lies still behind the snowdrifts, but sometimes it starts up with a low cry, then falls again to hide. Cold bends over the land. The white feathers of snow fall slower and slower. My mother and my father get up early. My mother will kill a sheep so my father can eat something before he starts for the Trading Post. My father waits for my mother to butcher the sheep and to cook a piece for his breakfast. Then my father finds his horse. He ties an empty flour sack behind his saddle. He wraps his blanket about him and leaning his body against the storm he rides to the Trading Post. My father rides into the snow-filled world. His blanket and his horse are the only colors moving through the white. Snow comes into my heart filling it with cold when I see my father ride away. [Illustration] SHOVELING SNOW For a little while I sit in the hogan thinking of my father riding along the snowy trail to the Trading Post. Snow stops falling. Cold blows its blue breath across the white. I help my mother shovel snow. We make a path to the sheep corral and to my grandmother's hogan. The snow, so soft to feel, is hard to shovel. The cold slaps at my face. It traps my hands and my feet in icy feeling. My mother takes me into the hogan. She rubs my face and hands and my feet with snow. Soon little hot pains come to play with my cold fingers and my cold toes. Soon the icy feeling goes away. [Illustration] CAT'S CRADLES The day moves slowly. My father does not come back along the trail. It is far to the Trading Post. The snow is deep. I think of my father and his concho belt. I look at my mother's finger. One finger looks bare without its turquoise ring. I pull my sleeve down over my bracelet. Perhaps I should have given it to my father. My grandmother comes to see us. She brings a piece of bread for me and for my mother to eat with our meat. She brings a piece of string. She shows me how to make Cat's Cradles. She shows me how to make "It-Is-Twisted." We make Bird's-Nest and Butterflies and Coyotes-Running-Apart with the piece of string. [Illustration] FATHER COMES BACK We hear my father singing as he rides along the snowy trail. My grandmother goes to her hogan and my mother and I, we stand together, laughing. We stand together outside our door, happy because my father comes back again. Behind my father's saddle is tied the flour sack filled with food. It is not empty now, but a sack of bumps and bumps, and heavy looking. In front of him my father carries a dry wood box that the Trader gave him. My mother takes the sack of food. I take the dry wood box. My father takes the saddle from his horse. We go into the hogan with our bundles in our arms. My mother breaks the box with her foot. She breaks the pieces across her knee. She feeds them to the fire. The dry wood box makes the fire flame dance in the hogan fire. My mother puts meat to cook. She mixes flour and water, a little ball of lard, a little pinch of salt in our round tin bowl. She takes some out and pats it flat, and pats it round, and pats it thin, and throws it in a kettle full of boiling fat. This hunger pain inside me is bigger now than I am. It is the smell of cooking food that makes it grow, I think. Soon the fried bread in the hot fat swells big and brown. Soon the meat in the stew pot makes bubbling noises. Coffee boils smelling strong and good. The hunger pain is now so big I cannot understand Why I do not see it. [Illustration] SUPPER Now we are eating the good food. We eat slowly. We eat a long time. The hunger pain is gone. It went somewhere, but I do not know when, it left so quickly. My father tells us that the wife of Tall-Man's brother suffers from something. She is sick. My father tells us that tomorrow there will be a Sing for this woman who has sickness. We will go, he says, if the sun shines tomorrow. We will go to the hogan of the wife of Tall-Man's brother. [Illustration] SLEEP Now that I am warm and have no pain and feel well fed with my mother's good cooking, I feel sleepy and glad. Lying on my blanket bed on the floor of the hogan, I say to myself over and over, "If the sun shines tomorrow we will go to the Sing." [Illustration] MORNING SUN Last night went quickly with sleeping. It is tomorrow now. I open my eyes to a beautiful world of sun and snow. Everywhere I look the snow shines as if someone had sprinkled it with broken bits of stars. My father says, "snow is good for the land. When the sun melts it the thirsty sand drinks in the snow water." Grass patches show again. They look fresh and clean. The goats hurry about eating all they can. Even the sheep move more quickly, eating. [Illustration] GOING TO THE SING My father goes for dry wood. He has to go to the foothills to get it. My mother cooks bread and meat. I sit by the door in the sunshine and think about the Sing. My grandmother comes to my mother's hogan. She will look after the sheep while we are gone to the Sing. The sun shines. The sun shines. Soon we will go to the Sing, the Sing. After awhile my father comes back with the wagon. He piles the wood near the hogan. He says he is ready to go to the Sing and we are ready, too. It is not far. Not long after the sun has finished with the day we will get there. We will get to the hogan of the wife of Tall-Man's brother. We will be at the Sing, the Sing, the Sing. The ruts in the road are deep and frozen. The wheels of the wagon have a song of their own. I sit in the back of the wagon in a nest made of blankets. I listen to the song of the rolling wagon wheels. My father sits on the wagon seat. He is driving his horses. My mother sits beside him. Straight and tall my mother sits on the wagon seat beside my father. My father sings as he drives along. He is happy. He sings, "Now is winter. Thunder sleeps. Falls the snow. Thunder sleeps. Grass is gone. Thunder sleeps. Birds are gone. Thunder sleeps. Warmth is gone from the sands, from the red rocks, from the canyons. Thunder sleeps. It sleeps." In my father's wagon we go. Behind my father's horses we go. On the trail of the Holy Songs we go to hear the voices of the Gods. [Illustration] THE SING It will be a long time before the night sky bends down and the stars hang low and the supper fires of the camping people dot the night. Our wagon comes within the circles of supper fires, comes within the circle of firelight, and I see all the People who have come to the Sing. There are many People here. There are many horses here. There are many wagons here. There is one truck. It makes me happy to see all of the People walking around and standing and sitting. It makes me happy to see all the colors that there are in the skirts of the women in the shirts of the men and in the blankets that all the People wear. I can see the horses, all the horses. I can see a race horse that belongs to a man my uncle knows. After the Sing is over, the men will race their horses. My father will bet which horse will win. And then perhaps he will win a better concho belt than the one he has in pawn to the Trader. There is a new hogan built just for the Sing. There are some shelters built just for the Sing, and at one side is the Cook Shade where all kinds of foods are cooking. The smell of food makes me happy. I think it is good to be happy when food is near. As it gets darker more fires are lighted and within the circle a big one burns. Smoke gets in my eyes and I can taste it in my mouth. In the folds of my mother's blanket, in the warmth of my mother's blanket, in the quiet of my mother's blanket, close to her heart I sleep and awaken to hear the Gods, the Singers of Songs. Now is the time for the singing. Now is the time for the songs. We go, we go, on the Holy Trail of Song. We go, we go, to hear the voices of the Gods. They say, on the path of the rainbow, they say, on the bridge of the lightening, they say on the trail of pollen went the Elder Brother, Reared-in-the-Mountains, Young Man, Chief. We go to hear them say it. Look! Look! they say, they say, the Gods are walking. The Gods are walking. Follow the trail of song. Hu-Hu-Hu-Hu. Look! Look! they say, they say, the Gods are dancing. The Gods are dancing. Follow the trail of song. Hu-Hu-Hu-Hu. Look! Look! they say, they say, the Gods are singing. The Gods are singing. Follow the trail of song. Hu-Hu-Hu-Hu. It is finished. The Sing is finished. Dawn light is here. Gray light is here. Morning is here. Day is here. The sun comes again to warm the world. The Sing is finished. It is finished. Finished. [Illustration] THE BETTING The men go for horses that have walked away to find grass to eat. The women put blankets and food in the wagons. My uncle tells my father to wait awhile because my uncle says he knows a man who has a horse that can win a race. All the men stand around. They talk together about this horse. My father gets the things out of the wagon that my mother has put in it. He is going to bet them on this horse that my uncle says can win a race. The Trader comes. He does not like the horse my uncle knows. He puts up a hundred dollars against the horse. All the Indian men take off their concho belts and rings and turquoise and bowguards and blankets. They throw them on the ground to make a pile of things as much as a hundred dollars. They say, "We will run to that place and back." They mount their horses. They line them up. One man stands by the pool of things that are being bet against the hundred dollars. With another man my father bets his bowguard against a concho belt on that horse my uncle knows. The men choose a flat place to run the race. [Illustration] THE RACE The starter takes his hat off. He lifts it up. He lifts it up. He holds it there. He drops it. They are off. They are off. They are running together. No horse is in front. No horse is behind. They are together. Together. Running, running. The black one that the Trader likes stretches out, running, running, gets in front, running, running. Sand flies. People shout. The People shout. Now comes the horse my uncle knows. There he is, there he is, in front, in front, away in front. He has won the race. The horse my uncle knows has won the race. The horses come back. They are sweating. Their sides go in and out just like my blouse goes in and out. We are tired, the horses and I are tired. It takes some running to win a race. [Illustration] GOING HOME The horse race is finished. My father has a concho belt and money in his pocket. Now we go back on the home trail. Back to the hogan. Back to the sheep. Everything is finished. We have listened to the Holy Songs. We have walked on the Holy Trail. It is finished. Our hearts are good. All around us is good. We ride along on the home trail. It is finished. IN SPRING [Illustration] IN SPRING Page Morning 73 The Hogan 74 Breakfast 75 Possessions 76 Sheep Corral 78 The Puppy 79 The Waterhole 80 The Field 81 Little Lambs 82 Herding 83 Little Bells 85 Lambs In the Snow 86 The Wind 88 Noon 90 Thinking 91 Old Grandfather Goat 92 Baby Goats 93 Afternoon 94 Sunset 95 Greedy Goat 96 Beautiful Mountain 97 Meetings 98 Going Home 100 Night 101 [Illustration] MORNING This morning, when I crawled from under my blanket, when I stood before my mother's hogan door, outside looked as if it had been crying. The sky was hanging heavy with gray tears. I stood at the door of my mother's hogan and looked out at the gray, sad morning. My father came. He stood beside us. He spoke in a happy way to me and to my mother. Then the gray tears on the sky's face melted. The clouds pushed away and the sun smiled through them. Now it is gray again, but I cannot forget that when my father spoke the sun came and looked down upon us. [Illustration] THE HOGAN My mother's hogan is dry against the gray mists of morning. My mother's hogan is warm against the gray cold of morning. I sit in the middle of its rounded walls, walls that my father built of juniper and good earth. Walls that my father blessed with song and corn pollen. Here in the middle of my mother's hogan I sit because I am happy. [Illustration] BREAKFAST On the fire in the middle of her hogan my mother cooks food. My mother makes fried bread and coffee, and she cooks mutton ribs over the coals. My father and I and my mother, we sit on the floor together, and we eat the good food that my mother has cooked for us. [Illustration] POSSESSIONS We have many things. My mother has many sheep and goats and her hogan and the things of the hogan and me. My father has many horses. On his land he has many horses. He has a wagon near the horse corral. Inside my mother's hogan my father keeps his gun, and outside he hangs his sheepskin and his saddle and his blanket. And I have my mother and my father, three baby lambs and a cat with a long tail. I have a tree that I know. It is a little tree. It is a crooked tree on the top of a hill. It knows me, too, I think, because it bends down low to let me climb it to hide away. Behind my mother's hogan is Beautiful Mountain. It is mine, I know, because always it is looking at me to make me happy. We have many things. All of us have many things. One day my father told me that all The People had possessions. He said, "Sheep and horses for the men and the women and land for all. That is enough." My father said this. But I think there should be more than sheep and horses and land for all. There should be little girls for little girls to play with. That would be enough, I think. [Illustration] SHEEP CORRAL Near my mother's hogan is the sheep corral, a hard packed place fenced with poles. There is a tree for shade. There is a shelter for lambs in the sheep corral. The sheep stand together in their corral. They stand close to each other. I think sheep like to know that they are many. Sometimes I think that way. I think that there are many children all around me, all about me. When I am herding and I cannot see my mother, it is good to play that many children stand together with me, and that all outside is my corral. [Illustration] THE PUPPY Far from the hogan in a dry sand wash I found the gray dog and a new baby puppy gray with black spots. Poor little puppy, it crawled to me crying. Thin little baby, its pink cold nose found my hand. Soft baby puppy, it was so little it made me feel gentle and strong like my mother. When I picked it up, the gray mother dog did not growl. She was glad for me to want her puppy. She thumped her tail. Listen, you gray pup with black spots, I will teach you to watch the sheep so that always there will be a place for you in our hogan. [Illustration] THE WATERHOLE The waterhole hides away behind the red rocks, but my sheep know where to find it. Their little feet have made a deep trail from the corral to the waterhole. [Illustration] THE FIELD In a little delta of seepage water near the waterhole is a small place that my father has fenced to make a home for the corn, for the squash and the melons. It is too cold now, but soon, when the snow melts and hides away in the warm sand, my father will go to his field. There he will make the soil ready for planting. He will break through the hard crust of winter and turn up toward the sun little lumps of fresh earth. I like to go with my father to his field because I like the feel and the smell of new earth when it first sees the sun. I want my father to take me with him when he goes to plant the corn because I forget how he does it. [Illustration] LITTLE LAMBS The little lambs are born. Near the waterhole my mother makes shelters of green boughs for the mother sheep. There in the shelters the little lambs are born. The green boughs stand close together, they do not let the snow nor the wind nor the sand come in to hurt the lambs. Soon the lambs will be big enough to play with me. [Illustration] HERDING All day I herd my mother's sheep. The sheep and I, we have a way of going that is always the same. From the corral we go to the waterhole and through the arroyo to the sagebrush then back again. Outside is round like the sheep corral. Outside is round like my mother's hogan, but it is bigger. Outside is big, big, so big. Sometimes when I am alone with my mother's sheep, I am afraid. I cannot say with words the things that make me afraid because I do not know what they are. But sometimes outside is so still and big and empty and I am so little. The red rocks are so high and Beautiful Mountain behind my mother's hogan seems far away. Nothing walks with me, but the sheep, just the sheep, and I am so little walking along in the big outside. I am so little, I am afraid. And then near by I see my mother at her hogan door. The red rocks seem to bend down to look at me in a good way and Beautiful Mountain comes closer. All things are good again because my mother is near me. I am not afraid. Today is cold. There is wind and snow and sand and always wind. I take the sheep to the waterhole and the wind goes with us. [Illustration] LITTLE BELLS I have little bells on my belt fringe. Little bells, silver bells, hanging on my belt fringe. My mother has a tin can filled with stones. She rattles it to tell the sheep to hurry. But I have little bells tied to my belt fringe. When I run the little bells laugh and say to the sheep, "Hurry, hurry." [Illustration] LAMBS IN THE SNOW Today the cold comes in gray clouds of blowing snow. The little lambs stand close to their mothers. They think the cold has come to stay. Yesterday the sky was blue and the sun warmed the land. The lambs do not know that sometimes cold days make mistakes and come again after they should have gone away. They do not know that tomorrow will be warm again. They have not been here long enough to know these things and their mothers have not told them. My mother is watching the lambs. She will not let them get too cold. My father says, "Next year I will try the white-man's way of breeding the sheep. Then the lambs will be born later, when summer has come to stay." My mother says, "Yes, next year we will try that way." [Illustration] THE WIND There are many things about the wind that I do not know. I have not seen the wind, and no one has told me where the wind lives, or where it is going when I hear it and when I feel it rushing by. And something more I do not know about the wind. I do not know if it is angry or if it is playing and just doing the things it does for fun. Sometimes the wind gathers the sand into whirlwinds and makes them dance over the flat lands until they are tired and lie down to get their breath. Sometimes the wind bends the wild grass down to the ground, and makes the sagebrush bow its head as if a giant moccasin had stepped on them in passing. Today the wind makes the tumbleweeds look like sheep jumping off high banks and racing up arroyos with no dog to guard them, with no herder to guide them. Poor tumbleweeds are frightened because they do not know where to go. I want someone to tell me if the wind is angry or if it is playing with me and racing with me and my many skirts across the sand. When the wind blows my long skirts, my many skirts are in a hurry to get to the hogan where the wind cannot push them. They pull me along when I am walking and my feet have a hard time to keep up with my skirts. [Illustration] NOON Now it is middle-time of day. The sheep stand still. The shadows sit under the trees. Everything is resting, the sun and the sheep and the shadows. I, too, rest. And I look at Beautiful Mountain behind my mother's hogan. I am thinking about something. [Illustration] THINKING Earth, they are saying that you are tired. They are saying that for too long you have given life to the sheep and The People. I am only little. I cannot do big things, but I can do this for you. I can take my sheep to new pastures. I can take them the long way around the arroyos, not through them, when we go to the waterhole. This way their little feet, their sharp pointed feet, will not make the cuts across your face grow deeper. This way the worn pastures can sleep a little and grow new grass again. I can do this to heal your cuts, to make you not so tired. Earth, my mother, do you understand? [Illustration] OLD GRANDFATHER GOAT Grandfather Goat stands on the hilltop, shaking his whiskers, chewing something and looking wise. Sometimes when I ask him things he looks at me as if he knew. Perhaps he does. [Illustration] BABY GOATS Baby goats always are playing, climbing up and jumping down. This small one always stands on the top of the storehouse. He knows there are things to eat inside, I think. [Illustration] AFTERNOON Afternoon is long. The sun goes slowly across the sky. The sheep walk slowly, feeding. I see them against the sky in a long, slow line. I whisper to the wind to blow the sun and the sheep a little to make them hurry. But it blows only the clouds and the sand and me. [Illustration] SUNSET Just now I watched the sun going. It took a long time to say goodbye. I think it knew that the land and the things of the land were sorry it had to go. It said goodbye in such a good way. Just for a little time it made the sky and the rocks and the sand like itself to let them know how it feels to be sun. Then it went away and all things were still because the sun had gone. [Illustration] GREEDY GOAT The sheep know that the day is over, but Grandfather Goat stays behind to push his whiskers high up in a tree for one last bite. Old Greedy Grandfather Goat. [Illustration] BEAUTIFUL MOUNTAIN Beautiful Mountain looks so blue and so cold and so lonely now that the sun and the sheep and I are going. If it were nearer to me and small, I could bring it into my mother's hogan under my blanket. Then I need not leave Beautiful Mountain out there by itself in the night. [Illustration] MEETINGS For a long time there have been meetings of many men for many days. At the meetings there is talking, talking, talking. Some this way. Some that way. In the morning when my father leaves for meeting he says to us, "When I come here again then I will know if it is best to have many sheep or few sheep, to use the land or let it sleep." But when my father comes home from meeting he does not know which talking-way to follow. Tonight when my father came home from meeting he just sat, looking and looking. My mother gave him coffee and bread and mutton, but my father just sat, looking. Then my mother spoke to me. She said, "A meeting is like rain. When there is little talk, now and then, here and there, it is good. It makes thoughts grow as little rains make corn grow. But big talk, too much, is like a flood taking things of long standing before it." My mother said this to me, but I think she wanted my father to hear it. [Illustration] GOING HOME After the sun has gone, my mother's sheep and I, we walk together, slowly, to my mother's hogan and the corral. Most all the day my mother from her hogan door has watched me and the sheep to see that no harm came to us. And now my mother comes to meet us. She comes to welcome us as if we had been gone a long way, a long time. Sometimes my father's singing comes to meet us across the sandwash. It comes to meet us to sing us home. Sometimes, the smoke from the supper fire comes to meet us across the dark blue of the night sky. For me the hogan is waiting and the corral waits for the sheep. [Illustration] NIGHT Night is outside in his black blanket. I hear him talking with the wind. I do not know him. He is outside. I am here in my mother's hogan warm in my sheepskin close to my mother. The things I know are around me like a blanket, keeping me safe from those things which are strange. Keeping me safe. [Illustration] IN SUMMER [Illustration] IN SUMMER Page Today 105 Packing 106 Goodbye To My Hogan 107 Goodbye 108 Ready To Go 109 Goodbye Gray Cat 110 Across the Sand 111 Goodbye To Grandmother 112 Riding 113 Noon in the Sagebrush 114 Night Camp 115 Up the Trail 116 Summer Range 117 The Lake 118 Shelter 119 The Sheep Corral 120 Dawn 121 Morning Prayer 123 The Sheep 124 The Goats 126 Herding 127 Noon on the Mesa 130 Afternoon 131 Playmates 132 Possessions 134 Storm 135 Lightning 136 Fire 137 Rain 138 Evening 139 Supper 141 Talking 143 Sheep Dipping 145 Bedtime 146 The Star Song 147 The Artist 149 TODAY Today we leave my mother's hogan my mother's winter hogan. We leave the shelter of its rounded walls. We leave its friendly center fire. We drive our sheep to the mountains. For the sheep, there is grass and shade and water, flowing water and water standing still, in the mountains. There is no wind. There is no sand up there. [Illustration] PACKING My mother's possessions we tie on the pack horses, her loom parts and her wool yarns, her cooking pots, her blanket and my blanket and the water jug, white sacks filled with food, cans of food, cornmeal and wheat flour, coffee and sugar. My mother's possessions, we tie them all on the pack horses. The packs must be steady. The ropes must be tight. The knots must be strong. I cannot pack the horses, I am too little, but I can bring the possessions to my father and my uncle. I am big enough for that. GOODBYE TO MY HOGAN My mother's hogan, I feel safe with your rounded walls about me. But now I must leave you. I must leave your fire and your door. The sheep need me. I must go with them to a place they know, but that is strange to me. I put my moccasins, my precious moccasins, by your fireplace, my hogan, so you will not be lonely while I am gone. GOODBYE Land around my mother's hogan and sheep trail and arroyo and waterhole, sleep in the sun this summer. Rest well for my sheep will not be here to deepen the trail and arroyo with their little sharp feet. They will not be here to eat the short grass, to drink the stored water. Sleep, rest well, and be ready for our return. [Illustration] READY TO GO My mother scatters the ashes from her cooking fire. She sweeps the hogan floor with her rabbit-brush broom. My father lays the bough across the door to show that we have gone. The dogs bark. They run around the sheep corral telling the sheep we are ready to go. The young corn in the field hangs its tasseled heads. Young corn, my grandmother is staying at home. She will take care of you. My father mounts his horse. He drives the pack horses before him. My uncle mounts his horse. They ride away together, singing, across the empty sand. [Illustration] GOODBYE GRAY CAT Gray Cat, I am telling you goodbye. Today I go to the mountains. I take my sheep to summer range, but you, Gray Cat, you have no sheep so you must stay at home. Stay here with my grandmother, Gray Cat. She will feed you. Goodbye, Goodbye. [Illustration] ACROSS THE SAND My mother lets down the bars of the sheep corral. The flock crowds around her. The goats look at me. I think they are saying, "We know where we are going." The little lambs walk close by their mothers. They are like me, they do not know if they will like this place where we are going. My mother and I, we drive our sheep across the sand. My grandmother stands at her door looking after us. GOODBYE TO GRANDMOTHER My grandmother, my little grandmother, now I am leaving you. Last year I was too small to go to the mountains. I stayed with you, but this year I am big, I am almost tall so I must help drive the sheep to summer range. My grandmother, my little grandmother, do not be lonely. I will come back again. [Illustration] RIDING Riding, riding, riding on my horse to herd the sheep across the yellow sand. Yellow sand is around me. Yellow sun is above me. I ride in the middle of a sand and sun filled world. Riding, riding, riding on my horse to herd the sheep across the yellow sand. Sun heat and sheep smell and sand dust wrap around me like a blanket as I ride through the sand with my sheep. [Illustration] NOON IN THE SAGEBRUSH At noon we reach the sagebrush flats. Gray-green sagebrush scents the air. Gray-green sagebrush softens the yellows of the land. My mother makes a little fire no bigger than her coffee pot. Food is good and rest is good at noon in the sagebrush. [Illustration] NIGHT CAMP At night we make camp in the juniper covered hills. My father is waiting for us there. The moon looks down on the restless sheep on the hobbled horses. The moon looks down on a shooting star. But I am too tired to look at anything. I sleep. [Illustration] UP THE TRAIL Morning sunrise sees us climbing up and up on the mountain trail. There are pine trees standing straight and tall. Brown pine needles and green grass cover the ground. Shadows play with the sunlight. There is no yellow sand. The sheep hurry upward, climbing and pushing in the narrow trail. I ride after the sheep. My horse breathes fast. His feet stumble in the narrow trail. All day long the sheep climb upward. They want to eat and I am hungry, too, but my mother says, "No." All day long we ride to herd the sheep. Night is almost with us when we reach the top. SUMMER RANGE Summer range in the mountains is on a high mesa, a steep, high mesa, a flat-topped mesa, with tall growing pine trees, with short growing green grass, with little, winding rivers and rain filled lakes. This is summer range for our sheep. [Illustration] THE LAKE Between the trees I see water standing in a bowl of green rushes. The water is quiet. It is still and blue and cold. It is a lake with land all around it. It is a lake. The sheep drink long and steadily. They stand in the shallow water at the edges of the lake. Their little pointed feet dig deep into the mud of the lake banks. I see colored fish beneath the water swimming in a rainbow line. I throw stones into the lake. The water pushes back in circles to take the stones. The dogs swim far out into the cold waters. They are thirsty and hot. I have never seen a lake before. Gentle rain pools I have seen and angry flood waters, but never before a still, blue lake. It is beautiful. A lake is beautiful. [Illustration] SHELTER Beneath the trees I see our summer shelter. My father and my uncle have made a shade to shelter us from night rains and from the cold of near-by snow peaks. They have made us a shade of cottonwood boughs and juniper bark. It has the clean smell that trees give. [Illustration] THE SHEEP CORRAL My father and my uncle made a sheep corral while they were waiting for the sheep and for us to come up the trail. They made the sheep corral of branches, a circle of branches, a circle of dark colored boughs. The sheep stay safe in their corral tonight and I sleep beneath the cottonwood shade. [Illustration] DAWN This morning when I opened my eyes from sleeping I could not remember what place this is. I thought I was in my mother's winter hogan. Now I remember. This is summer camp. Tall trees stretch above me. In the darkness they look blacker than the night. As I lie here, safe and warm beneath my blanket, all around me turns to gray mist, all around me turns to silver. Darkness is gone, but it made no sound. It left no footprints. The world is still asleep. Through the pine trees day comes up light comes up. In the pine trees bird wings are stirring, bird songs are stirring. I hear them. I hear them. The grass beside my blanket is wet with night rain. Morning mist is on the leaves and in my hair. I put one toe out, one brown toe out. It is hard to get up when it is cold. Blue smoke from my mother's fire curls upward in a thin blue line. The sheep move inside their corral. I come out from under my blanket, from under my warm blanket. Like the other things around me, I come out to greet the day. MORNING PRAYER Silent and still my father stands before our summer shelter. He is thinking a prayer to the Holy Ones, asking them this day to keep our feet on the trail of Beauty. Filling the silence of my father's prayer I hear the bluebird's song. [Illustration] THE SHEEP The poor sheep are cold. Their winter wool was cut off last week at shearing time. When early summer painted flowers on the desert with bunches of new grass, when snow water melted and softened the hard earth, when Sun-Bearer smiled on the sheep and the people. Then my mother said, "Now, it is shearing time." My mother said that last week. Last week it was shearing time. Last week at shearing time, my mother caught her sheep. One by one she caught them. She tied their feet together and with her shears she clipped their wool. My mother's hands were sure. She cut the wool but once from underneath. She did not fumble, cutting it here and there into short pieces. She cut the wool but once. Her hands were sure. My mother's hands were strong. She pulled the wool back. She folded it back to come off in one piece. My mother's hands were strong. The sheep lay still beneath her gentle fingers. Trusting my mother's hands, the sheep lay still. But now the poor sheep are cold. They stand in their corral this morning and shiver and bleat and call loudly for the sun and for me to come. [Illustration] THE GOATS Goats lead the sheep. They go first into everything. That is their way. They are not afraid. My uncle says in the English, "Goats are tough." Goats eat the grass too far down. They eat the trees too far up. That is their way. They do not care. My uncle says in the English, "Goats are tough." Goats, more than sheep, get into my mother's stew pot. Their meat is good, but it takes chewing, too much chewing. I say with my uncle, "Goats are tough." [Illustration] HERDING After we have eaten our morning food, my father and my uncle ride down the steep trail to the Trading Post. My mother kneels beside her loom before the cottonwood shade. I see the sun on my mother's brown hands. I see the sun on my mother's black hair. I give my mother a long look, then I turn my back. I walk to the sheep corral. My feet are brown. My feet are bare. The wet grass parts to make a way to let me pass. I walk to the sheep corral. My skirts are long. My skirts are many. The flowers move back to make a way to let me pass. I walk to the sheep corral. I let down the bars. The sheep go first and I follow. The sheep walk slowly for they like to eat the short sweet grass under the trees. I walk slowly for I am lonely. Things here are strange. I am afraid. I know that my mother sits before our shelter weaving a blanket at her loom. I know she is near me, but I cannot see her. I can see only tall trees and bits of sky. I am a child of the yellow sand. Mesa top and pine trees, green grass and colored flowers are strange to me. Unknown things live here. I am afraid. I creep to the edge of the mesa while my sheep are feeding. Far, far below me is the world I know, the yellow world of sand and wind and sand. Far below I see sheep walking, someone's sheep walking, in a dust cloud of their own making. Far below I see a sand whirl made by an angry wind fighting the land. Far below I see the heat haze, colored heat haze blanketing the desert. I see these things through tears for they are the things I know. I am lonely without them. Here on top of the mesa is a strange world of shadows and water and grass for the sheep. Grass for the sheep, I had forgotten that. Grass for the sheep to give them life, to make them strong. Here on top of the mesa there is grass for our sheep. Surely the gods are good who live here. The sheep drink slowly. Shadows sleep. The quiet of the mesa pushes against me. I can feel it, heavy, heavy, it pushes against me. Surely, the gods who live here are known to me. The words of the Holy Song are known to me. "On top of the mountain are found the gods." These are the words of the Holy Song. NOON ON THE MESA Day grows long and bright with sunlight. The sheep eat their way to the rain lakes under the willows. Little rivers run through the tall grass and hide away in the rushes. I see a line of scattered clouds across the sky. Sun-Bearer rests on his way to the House of Turquoise Woman in the Western Waters. It is the middle-time of day. AFTERNOON Lying on my back under the willows I can see an eagle flying far above in great circles against the blue. I feel and see and listen, but I do not talk. There is no one to hear me. There is no one to play with me, only the lambs and the baby goats and they like each other better than me, I think. I am alone. [Illustration] PLAYMATES But look!! There are butterflies, small white butterflies above the flower plants of purple iris. I sit among the iris. I hear the whispering of white wings flying. I think they like my velvet blouse. I think they like my long black hair because they come to me and to the purple iris, those small white butterflies. A little fat chipmunk in a brown striped blanket comes close to me. He sits on his feet. He holds his hands out. He wrinkles his nose and looks at me. I give him bread. He holds it in his hands and with little quick bites stores it away in his fat brown cheeks. Funny little chipmunk in his brown striped blanket with storerooms in his face! Gray squirrels with bushy tails run up and down the trees. They chatter to me. They make me laugh. I pull my skirts around me and follow the squirrels. Now I know where they live. Now I know where I can find piñon nuts this autumn. I feel the warmth of Sun-Bearer's shield against my back. And on my face I feel cool fingers of rain-cloud shadows. With my hands on the warm earth beside me, almost, I can feel things growing. Why did I think I was alone? [Illustration] POSSESSIONS I am making a song to sing to myself. It is about my possessions. I have a woven hair tie. I have a woven belt. My mother made them for me. My mother gave them to me. They are my possessions. I have silver rings on my fingers. I have silver bracelets on my arms. My father made them for me. My father gave them to me. They are my possessions. Soft things and hard things I have for my possessions. A song, a song, I am singing a song about them. [Illustration] STORM A storm wind comes to stop my song. It comes through the trees with the strength of anger. It sways me forward. It sways me backward. It turns me when I am walking. Black clouds gather to blanket the thunder. Zig-zag lightning cuts the clouds in two. My sheep crowd near me. With soft words I speak to them. I tell them not to be afraid for I am here. LIGHTNING Lightning darts like an arrow, an arrow of fire, from an unseen bow. It darts in flame from the gray sky to the gray earth. It strikes a tree. Lightning strikes a tree. My sheep, my sheep, I must save my sheep from this evil around them. I must save them, my sheep, my poor frightened sheep. FIRE Fire runs up the tall tree trunk and into the branches. The tree is on fire. The tree is aflame. It blazes. It crackles. It burns. The sheep look to me to protect them. My poor frightened sheep, I do not know which way to take them. [Illustration] RAIN But wait! The sky is opening. Rain comes through. Male rain comes through, comes down in sheets of water, pours down in sheets of water drenching the flames of the burning tree. My mother comes running between the trees. She is frightened for the sheep and for me. I tell her all things are good. Lightning did not touch the sheep. Male rain saved the trees from fire. Male rain saved us from forest fire. Now male rain has gone down into the valley. Female rain follows with soft footsteps. Flowers turn upward Leaves turn upward lifting their hands to catch the gentle rain. It is good. The rain is good. I open my hands to catch the gentle rain. [Illustration] EVENING Sun-Bearer parts the clouds and looks down on the rain. He turns each raindrop into a silver bead. He turns each rainstreak into a silver necklace. He makes a rainbow path for the gods across the sky. I go among the sheep, the huddled, wet sheep. I sing to them. I sing to the sheep, a song, a song, a song about my possessions, my ceremonial goods. I have a little buckskin bag filled with things, with things. My grandfather filled it for me. My grandfather gave it to me. Wherever I go I carry my little buckskin bag to keep me safe, to keep my feet on the Trail of Beauty. A song, a song, I am singing a song to my sheep. Just now on the home trail, a young deer, a beautiful young deer, stood in the bushes and looked at me. His eyes were big and dark and full of questions. A song, a song, I am singing a song on the home trail. I have a necklace of turquoise and coral. I have a necklace of white shell and coral. My grandmother traded for them. My grandmother gave them to me. They are possessions. I have turquoise in my ears, silver bells on my belt fringe. My uncle made them for me. My uncle gave them to me. They are my possessions. A song, a song, I am singing a song to my sheep. My father has five kinds of possessions. He has hard goods and soft goods, ceremonial goods and land and game. But I am little. I do not have five kinds. I have three. I made a song about them to sing the sheep home. At last we reach the home camp. The sheep are safe in their corral. I am safe with my mother. Summer shade is at my back. In front of me is my mother's fire. I am dry and warm. Good food is cooking. My mother sings, and all around me there is beauty. [Illustration] SUPPER My father and my uncle ride up from the Trading Post, the Red Rock Trading Post down near the winter hogan. Long before I heard them I could feel them coming. Long before I saw them I could hear them singing. Now they ride into the firelight, my father and my uncle. My father brought salt and baking powder and lard for my mother from the Trading Post. He brought candy for me. My father brought news, much news. Things he had seen, things that were told to him at the Trading Post. He brought them back for us to hear. Then we washed our hands. We sat away from the fire. My mother placed the evening food before us. When we had eaten my father gave thanks to the Holy Ones. We washed our hands again. My uncle put new wood upon the fire. Then the best part of the day began. My father and my uncle talked. [Illustration] TALKING My father said in ten days would be the time for dipping the sheep. He and my uncle would help my mother and me drive the sheep to the dipping. Sheep must be dipped in medicine-water. There is no pollen. There is no Holy Song. There is no Trail of Beauty in this medicine water. But my father says it is good for the sheep. Sheep get lice hidden in their thick wool. Lice make the sheep unhappy. Lice make the sheep bite their wool. Lice are bad for sheep. Dipping the sheep in medicine-water kills the lice. Ticks are bad for sheep. Ticks live on the sheep's good blood. Ticks make the sheep thin and weak. If the sheep are robbed of their good blood they cannot stand the cold of winter. They cannot stand the heat of summer. They sicken. Their wool is not good. Dipping the sheep in medicine-water kills the lice and the ticks. It is good for the sheep. My mother does not like dipping because she does not understand why the sheep are dipped. But my father talks to her. He tells her about lice and ticks. He tells her too that she is quickest and best of all the women at dipping her sheep in the medicine-water. SHEEP DIPPING All the people with their sheep and goats and horses and wagons and children and dogs go to the dipping. There is much dust and work and singing and eating at dipping time. I like it. Sheep do not like dipping. They do not like to take a bath in the medicine-water even though it is good for them. When grandfather goat gets dipped he is angry, very angry. He does not like to get his whiskers wet. Tomorrow, first thing, I will tell old goat, old goat, that in ten days Washington will wash his whiskers. My father talks of other things besides the dipping. His voice goes on and on like wind in trees, like water running, like soft rain falling, like drum beats pounding, talk, talk, talking. [Illustration] BEDTIME After a time my mother and I unroll our blankets. We go to bed beneath the cottonwood shade. I have my own prayer to the night. I whisper it, whisper it, but only the night wind hears. The horses move within the shadows. My father sings. It is night. The sheep move within the circle of branches. My mother sleeps. It is night. THE STAR SONG Softly my father sings the Star Song to the stars and me. "When the world was being made, being made, when the gods were placing stars, the stars, the stars in patterns in the sky, coyote stole the star bag, coyote spilled the stars out in the sky, helter skelter in the sky, when the world was being made." Softly my father sings it, the Star Song, to the stars and me. Darkness covers me. Beauty covers me. My mother is near. My father is near. The sheep are safe. The words of the Holy Song come to me, "On top of the mountain I found the gods." It is night. It is night. Happiness comes to me. I sleep. THE ARTIST The artist, Hoke Denetsosie, is a full-blood Navaho boy of twenty years, born and raised near Tuba City in the western part of the reservation. He was a student at the Tuba school, and transferred to Phoenix Indian School for high school work. Hoke has been drawing for a number of years, during which time he has had little instruction. He finds the landscape of his native country a source of never-tiring interest. Prior to undertaking the problem of illustrating this series of stories, Hoke had done no work in black and white, but has developed his technique as he has proceeded. When Hoke was invited to prepare the illustrations for these stories, he was given the manuscripts to read, and then talked over with the author the things she had in mind in writing the various episodes of the story. By the variety of the story, many problems of illustration were encountered which an artist might avoid for many years if simply drawing in response to his own interest. Hoke has had full freedom in the solution of these problems, often preparing several sketches for a single episode, and then selecting between them for the final drawing. Some of the drawings have been frankly experimental—showing a snow scene in the simple black and white technique developed by Hoke, for example; or distinguishing between night and day. The style is the artist's own, and is neither the flat stylized drawing of many Pueblo artists, nor the minutely shaded drawing of the white man. The artist was chosen because he possesses a sure skill and inquiring mind. It is believed that his present pictures will illuminate the text, and give pleasure to many; and that he may have before him an artistic future. He has the following brief statement to make about his own work: "I shall always remember the day when I received the first manuscript of the Little Herder series. The only instructions and suggestions I received before I began were; 'Here are the manuscripts, let's see what you can do with them.' "So not knowing the first thing about the fundamentals and principles of illustration the work really launched several months of extensive experimentation, the result of which was the black and white technique finally achieved. The use of simple black and white technique was employed because it is more readily understandable for a child. "The nature of the stories, being concerned with Navaho life, called for illustration genuine in every sense of the word. I had to observe and incorporate in pictures those characteristics which serve to distinguish the Navaho from other tribes. Further, the setting of the pictures had to change to express local changes as the family moved from place to place. The domestic animals raised by the Navaho had to be shown in a proper setting just as one sees them on the reservation. The sheep could not be shown grazing in a pasture, nor the horses in a stable, because such things are not Navaho. "In other words the ideas were represented in an earnest attempt to express as far as possible the author's feelings, but without hindering the illustrator's freedom." TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES 1. Silently corrected simple spelling, grammar, and typographical errors. 2. Retained anachronistic and non-standard spellings as printed. End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Little Navajo Herder, by Ann Clark *** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LITTLE NAVAJO HERDER *** ***** This file should be named 52311-0.txt or 52311-0.zip ***** This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: http://www.gutenberg.org/5/2/3/1/52311/ Produced by Richard Tonsing, Juliet Sutherland and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will be renamed. 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