One day, as we walked
back to Whitesheeps' camp, Jessie's friend Lee Kiiyanni explained
what the old people had told him about the sacred mountains and
the People's strength.
"The Black Mountain is the
female mountain and the Lukachukai Mountains are the male. According
to my grandmother, it takes male and female to produce any ceremony
concerned with natural things.
"Different clans live on different
mountains. If we have a light rain, it comes from the female
mountain.
A heavy rain with thunder and lightning comes from the male mountain."
He alluded then to the mining company
program to drill deep wells for water that could sluice pulverized
coal to distant power plants:
"People are concerned with
the water level on Black Mesa. They say it ia like draining the
blood out of the patient. The female mountain is being cut up.
It is something lke manipulating the body of the whole mountain
and she is being killed. The same thing is true for the male
mountain. Those oil drills are the same thing.
"People who have so much belief
worry. If both the mountains die, the old prayers and the Navajo
way dies. The Navajo people will be dead."
And so too could die the Song of
the Earth Spirit: |
It
is lovely indeed, it is lovely indeed.
[Photograph:
from Song of the Earth Spirit]
|
