June, 1935
T H E K I N G ' S B U S I N E S S
217
Junior KING ’S BUSINESS B y M a r t h a S. H o o k e r
SLENDER BOY OF NAVAJO LAND
B y F rances N oble P h air hill country to take his place as the next medicine man who would succeed his uncle; Strong Arm, to those who now depended upon the old man to chant over them when the devil had bewitched them or the evil spirits had made them sick.
Foreword When the dormitory lights zvent out, and their companions were ready for sleep, four bright-eyed Navajo girls, Alice, Helen, Elle, and Joy, came noiselessly, zvrapped in gay Indian blankets, to help their matron “ write a story.” So we zorote together. All the names and customs are theirs. Slender Boy is no finer, Nazbah no sweeter, than unnumbered boys and girls o f the great American desert, who do not know the Good Shepherd who gave His life for the sheep .-— F rances N oble P h air . PART I S lender B oy turned the knob o f the door softly. For a moment he paused on the threshold. For ten years small boys of his tribe had gone in and out of that door that led into the strange white man’s school from the friendly desert. He was going out, now ; would it be for the last time? Resolutely, but silently, that he might not arouse that wachful man known to small Navajos as “ Sharp Ears,” he closed the door behind him. In the silent grey dawn he stood motion less as for generations past Indian boys had stood in the presence of possible dan ger. No sound broke the stillness; no lights shone from any window on the school campus; the keen chill of the morn ing urged him into motion; silently, swift ly, he ran across the open spaces, back of the girls’ dormitory, past the power house, around the end o f the Teachers’ Hall, and he sighed a little with relief as he dropped over the edge o f the wash, safe from dis covery or pursuit. Sunrise found him five miles from the school and standing on the edge o f the lit tle lake above the dam, watching the morning lights and shadows in the still water. But Slender Boy was unconscious of light and color. He was wondering why he was standing there alone instead of marching with eighty-five other boys to breakfast. A new feeling had come to him; two unseen ropes seemed to be tied to him and to be pulling—each pulling in the opposite direction. One drew him back to the ways of the white man; the other was the command that had come from his uncle, a powerful medicine man living far away from the haunts o f civilization, ply ing his arts in the heart o f the desert hills —the command to forsake the new ways that belonged not to the Navajo and to come back to his people. And that pull was the stronger. Turning his back upon the quiet waters, he resumed the steady desert lope that would take him in two hours to the ap pointed hogan where his horse would be awaiting him and he would ride into the [This story, which will be concluded next month, is reprinted from the Ganado News Bulletin .— E ditor .]
except for shoes and socks. He had been so tired that he had slept late, and as he pulled on his shoes, his aunt came in, carrying a large portion of a newly killed sheep. Slender Boy guessed the meaning o f' this at once—there was to be a feast o f welcome for his return to the hogan and to the ways o f Navajo life. Navajo mutton 1 His mouth watered at the thought. Then there would be Navajo bread, a biscuit-dough patted into large flat cakes and fried in pans o f deep fat; he could almost smell the fragrant coffee with goat’s milk in it ; and there would be corn roasted in its husks on the wire grates over the glowing coals where the mutton also was roasted. It would be a real feast. Who would come? Mr. Uncle with his queer, big nose and white hair would come with Mr. Red Ant, and probably they would bring Mr. and Mrs. Holkidni, the poor blind old couple that lived at the foot o f the hill. It seemed as if the smell of every mutton roast reached these hungry old people. Red Point, the famous medi cine man, might come a half-day’s trip . . . Slender Boy’s chest stood out with im portance. “Will Nazbah come?” he suddenly asked his aunt. “ Oh yes,” she laughed, “your little cousin will be here.” He kept wondering about Nazbah. Had she grown much? Was she as pretty and as quick in her little birdlike motions as she was two years ago ? She was his second cousin, and all their childhood they had wandered over those hills together, herding the sheep. They had built mud hogans and had peopled them with mud figures; scraps of cloth they used for clothes and furnishings. Tiny cedar trees surrounded the little huts, and mud horses and sheep were penned in the corrals. When lunch time came, Slender Boy made the fire, and Nazbah took out the lunch and broiled the mutton and made the coffee and spread out the “kneeling-down bread” (made o f ground corn baked in corn husks) while Slender Boy herded the sheep into the shade of the pinon trees. He was watching for her coming now, and when the sun was high and the shadows o f the tall pines were shortest, the guests began to arrive. All those that Slender Boy had thought o f were there, and many others. Although it was crisp October weather, the sun was so warm and the fires so large that the company gathered outside the hogan for the feast. The men sat in a group by themselves, and Slender Boy and his uncle ate with them while his aunt served the visiting women, who were seated with their children in a group by themselves. Slender Boy listened to the wise talk of the men and felt very grown up, but his eyes wandered over to the women’s group where Nazbah sat beside his aunt. He had heard Nazbah’s mother say that the family was going to rrfbve to
Courtesy Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe By. # Long before white men came to Arizona, the Indians of the desert made pictures with colored sand and powdered rocks. In the pic ture, Navajo medicine men are performing the sacred sand painting ceremony similar to that described in this story of Slender Boy. The brilliant stars of Navajo Land were shining over Pine Mountain when Slender Boy dropped the reins of his tired pony to the ground and swung himself out of the saddle. Stooping, he entered the door way of the low, circular building made of logs and plastered with mud—a Navajo hogan. As Slender Boy stepped into the hogan, the woman bending over the stove picked up a sheepskin and laid it on the ground by the old man sitting in the firelight. He was a tall man, bowed with age, but his grey hair, tied in’ the back in a Navajo knot, shadowed piercing dark eyes, in which the fires of ambition had not died. As he raised his head to greet the new comer, his large turquoise earrings swung and gleamed in the firelight. Slender Boy shook hands solemnly. “How do you do, my nephew?” said the old man. “You do well to come.” The boy answered respectfully, “How do you do, Uncle? I am glad to be in your hogan again. I started this morning.” The old man gave a satisfied grunt and resumed his silent brooding while Slender Boy sat down on the sheepskin placed for him, crossing his legs Turk fashion. As he did so, his aunt left her cooking and came over to shake hands with him and to welcome him home. When the sun streamed through the open hogan door the next morning and touched the face of the boy, he woke and looked around in wonder. Where were all the other boys in their white cots? He jumped to his feet. There was no need o f dressing, for he had slept in his clothes
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