Head and Face Masks in Navaho Ceremonialism

Religion & Spirituality

Haile, Berard

Other Religions, Practices & Sacred Texts

Ams Pr Inc

Father Berard Haile (d. 1955) spent a lifetime studying and recording Navajo ceremonial practices. His ethnographic work was held in wide regard by contemporary anthropologists, and he is still commonly cited by present-day students of Navajo ceremonialism.Originally issued in a limited edition in 1947, Head and Face Masks in Navaho Ceremonialism presents information on masks and their uses, most of it obtained in 1908 from one family of singers and supplemented over the following forty years. It offers a detailed account of the necessary attributes of Navajo masks and their construction. At the heart of the book is a day-by-day account of the nine-day Nightway healing practice, now the primary ceremony in which masks are used. There is also a discussion of two masks Haile attributes to the Upward Reaching Way, no longer practiced. An addendum by Robert Young updates Haile's Navajo orthography.In this work, Haile reports what he was told with a minimum of interpretation, assumption, or opinion. The result is a Navajo account of the origin of the ye'ii or Holy People whom the masks and associated sand paintings personify.

Head and Face Masks in Navaho Ceremonialism (English and Navaho Edition)

Reference

Encyclopedias & Subject Guides

Univ of Utah Pr

Origin Legend of the Navaho Flintway

Native Child Dinétah

Legend of the Ghostway Ritual in the Male Branch of Shootingway: Suckingway: its Legend and Practice

Blurb

Navajo Singers (medicine men) have always helped their Native veterans heal from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder through a War Dance, also known as the "Enemy Way". As Father Berard Haile writes in this publication: "To be sure the young warrior has slain the enemy and taken the life out of his body. But dreams about his encounters, dreams of actual combat or of actual contacts with, and sights of injured foreigners and the like, may haunt the returned boy or girl in his native habitat. There is loss of sleep and pep, a general listlessness and weakness which nothing at home can account for. Isn't it perhaps that those foreign journeys and contacts cause this condition? That the ghosts of those enemies are still active and are haunting him?" In his publication he gives a short description of the songs, prayers, drumming, and herbs used to cleanse the body from the effects of war. For a more indepth understanding of the Enemy Way, Native Child Dinétah has published Father Berard's work: Origin Legend of the Navaho Enemy Way, which includes the Navajo text and translation.

The Navaho War Dance: A Brief Narrative of Its Meaning and Practice

Education & Teaching

Schools & Teaching

The story of the Navajo Twins, Monster Slayer and Born for Water, exists in many versions. It can be said with certainty though, that Father Berard Haile's publication, is the most authoritative and extensive version ever written and recorded. "The text was obtained in the winter month of 1930, and dictated by Slim Curly of Crystal, New Mexico, a singer of recognized authority on every phase of this rite," he writes in the introduction.This text, originally recorded in the Navajo language, is written in the orthography devised by Dr. Sapir, and arranged with each page facing its English translation for easy following.The Navajo text and translation is in four parts. The first, "Monster Way," tells of the origin of the man-devouring monsters which appeared soon after the emergence of the people from the underworlds; of the birth of the miraculous twins, Enemy Slayer and Born for Water; of their visit to their father the Sun in order to obtain weapons; and of their campaigns against the monsters in order to make the earth a fit habitat for the human race. The second part, Enemy Way Legend, describes a war on the Taos Pueblo and subsequent events. Monster Slayer is the leader in the war; and the Hard Flint Boys, represented by the Black Dancers in the Enemy Way ceremonial, are introduced. The third part is the Enemy Way Ceremony, performed with the Young Man of Jarring Mountain as the patient, in order to restore the earth which was suffering from the effects of the conflicts with the Monsters and with the Taos warriors. The fourth part is a detailed description of the present day ceremonial itself. In the Appendix we find the text of the Enemy Way songs, including important notes to the song texts.

Origin Legend Of The Navaho Enemy Way: Text and Translation

Literature & Fiction

History & Criticism

Independently published

Literary

Literary Licensing, LLC

The Fire Dance is the ceremony performed during the ninth night of the Mountainway. The purpose of these last night's rites is to accumulate power, to help to restore the individual patient; to give strength to the spectators who have gathered in big crowds during the last night and to convey fertility to soil and animal and abundance to crop and game. The signal features of the Fire Dance are the erection of the sacred enclosure, the kindling of the huge central fire, and the performance of group dances, executed by medicine men who have been ceremonially invited from far distant places. Some of these dances are exclusively part of the Mountain Way, as for example the dance of the fire dancers whose task it is to replace a burned-off feather by a new one, a trick which symbolizes "restoration". Other group dances are taken from the Shooting-Chant (the Whirling Feather) or from the Nightway (the Masked Dancers).Berard Haile bases his account partly on personal observations, partly on the word of informants, and, to some extent, on the description of the ceremony of the Mountain Chant as given by Washington Matthews.

The Navaho Fire Dance: or Corral Dance: A Brief Account Of Its Practice And Meaning

Dinetah, Native Child

CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform

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