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Introduction to Coyoteway

Navajo religion consists of twenty or more overlapping but nevertheless distinct ceremonial traditions. In the opinion of this writer these traditions are traceable in mythology, by way of geographized ecstatic journeys (vision quests), to their respective shamanic founder or founders. They are traceable in history, possibly, to a point in time when several formerly shamanic traditions became amalgamated into the conglomerate healing ceremonials of later priestly hataałii or "singers." Since my general views on Navajo religious history have recently been published (Luckert 1975), this statement on the subject of historical development is brief.

The arrival of the first Navajo-Apachean hunters in the Southwest, from the north, is commonly estimated at about A.D. 1500. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries most of the healing rituals of the Navajo-Apacheans were probably still securely anchored in hunter ideology. But after coming to the Southwest, and after a change in life-style, their hunting and their hunting rites became less important. At the same time, the direct concern for health in ceremonialism remained. In dialogue and in competition with representatives of Pueblo Indian maize-planter cultures, the Navajo-Apachean hunter shaman, with his northern Athapascan heritage, has gradually adapted to become a sort of learned professional—a priestly performer of composite song-ceremonials, thus a "singer."

Pueblo Indian cosmology, the worldview that has been taking shape in the Southwest for about two thousand years, appears to be in

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its basic outline a product of the great archaic civilization of Middle America (see Luckert 1976). Its basic notions are explained in terms of prehuman events in the myth of emergence. For instance, according to Hopi tradition, the mythic evolutionary emergence of the people from the underworld is generally divided into four stages. The "fourth world" of present-day earth-surface people is again structured numerically in relation to four cardinal points. Specialized gods preside over each of the four directions.

Confronted by this tightly structured view of a planter people's universe, the early Navajo-Apachean shaman found himself groping for answers which would relate his divine hunter tutelaries to the directionally stationed gods of the Southwest. For the traditionally individualistic shaman it was no longer sufficient to encounter one divine guardian at a time, or to get initiated by a predecessor into a close relationship with that divine guardian. Confronted by Pueblo Indian systematic cosmology he needed the combined strength of his Athapascan heritage to achieve a synthesis that would fall short of total surrender. And so it seems that Navajo narrators of myths began to draw increasingly from a larger number of available shamanic formulations. As scholastic syntheses, the originally shamanic bodies of knowledge ceased to be shamanic. Instantaneous communication with divine tutelaries was replaced increasingly by systematic learning and poetic creativity. The credit for all this creativity was, nevertheless, given to the gods, in a posture of religious humility.
While Navajo singer apprentices learned the traditions of several shamanic masters, the divine guardians of the latter assembled above them into some sort of corresponding pantheon. The result is that Navajo ceremonial traditions feature now overlapping but, nevertheless, different pantheons. And, in accordance with the four-directional scheme of Pueblo Indian cosmology, some freely roaming tutelaries of the Navajo-Apachean hunters were stationed permanently. Learned Apachean hunter lore could thus be harmonized with the priestly concepts of Pueblo Indian cosmology and anthropogony. The arrangement that has the Talking-god (haashch'ééłti'í) in the east, Calling-god (haashch'éoghan) in the south, Begochidi in the west, and Black-god (haashch'ééshzhini) in the north, appears to be the most popular synthesis in the Black Mesa area. Other traditions list Calling-god as a "Talking-god in the west." Still other arrangements have a Talking-god stationed in each of the four directions, or as four divine persons in the east, or everywhere. From a historical perspective it seems that Talking-god, as an anthropomorphic "talker," associated predominantly with the White East, has risen to highest prominence.

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This era of general synthesis and poetic creativity in the history of Navajo religion seems, in all likelihood, to have been precipitated by the Pueblo Revolt of 1680. Large numbers of Pueblo Indians fled from along the Rio Grande when the Spanish retaliated. Many of them were absorbed by the Navajo tribe. The stories of shamanic vision quests, brought from the north and now challenged by Pueblo cosmology and ceremonialism, were retold by fascinated newcomers in the hauntingly bright and magnificent landscape of the Southwest. All this together, in the course of a few centuries, produced a ceremonial ferment that is unequalled anywhere in North America. The challenge that is put on the priest and the mythmaker is great indeed in the Southwest, because world-sketches of heroes and gods must excel those attainable by ordinary Earth-surface people. The general pattern of this Apachean-Pueblo synthesis is still very much in evidence in the form and content (i.e., first half versus second half) of the Coyoteway ceremonial. Specifically, in this instance, this synthesis may be as recent as the early part of the nineteenth century.

According to Leland C. Wyman (1970b, p. 3), there were formerly "about twenty-three Holyway chantway systems, all for curing illnesses, to which—by elaboration according to male and female branches, ritual, and other considerations—about forty names for song ceremonials could be ascribed." Wyman's newest, at the moment
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The Holyway Chantways

Shooting Chant subgroup
Hailway * Waterway * Shootingway Red Antway Big Starway Flintway (?)

Mountain Chant subgroup
Mountainway Beautyway Excessway * Mothway *

God-Impersonators subgroup
Nightway Big Codway * Plumeway Coyoteway * Dogway * Ravenway *

Wind Chant subgroup

Navajo Windway Chiricahua Windway

Hand-Trembling Chant subgroup

Hand-Tremblingway

Eagle Trapping subgroup

Eagleway * Beadway *

Extinct ceremonials of uncertain affiliation
Awlway * Earthway * Reared-in-Earthway (?) *

* extinct, obsolescent, or virtually obsolescent. (?) indicates questionable classification.

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still unpublished, chart of these chantway systems is included here with his permission. Coyoteway is classified as a chantway of the God-Impersonators subgroup and as "virtually obsolescent."

Classification of Navajo chantways is made difficult by the fact that two somewhat independent criteria are being used interchangeably—modes of performance and etiological factors. Coyoteway is readily, and for obvious reasons, assigned to the God-Impersonators subgroup. God-impersonators do indeed appear during performance of this ceremonial. Nevertheless, based on Navajo etiological reasoning, a good case can be made for having Coyoteway in the Mountain Chant subgroup alongside ajiłee, the so-called Excessway.

Recent research in the ajiłee tradition has revealed that, rooted in the hunter tradition, Coyoteway and ajiłee are indeed closely related. A more extensive discussion of the ajiłee-mą'iijí dichotomy will have to be postponed to a forthcoming publication. Let it suffice to say here, that Luke Cook, our Coyoteway patient, has traced all illness among humankind to the great Coyote beyond the east. From there illness is conveyed to us by Sun and Moon. According to its more specific etiology. Coyote illness is mediated from Sun and Moon to humankind by predators. "It is gotten when members of the Coyote family (which in a broad sense includes all predators) put their heads together and decide to get to you." Ajiłee is basically the same kind of illness. It, too, is sent into our world by the great Coyote who lives beyond the homes of Sun and Moon in the east. It, too, is conveyed into our world by these celestial personages. But in contrast to what is specifically referred to as Coyote illness, ajiłee is passed on to humans when they eat the meat of the game animals without the proper counter measures; it has gotten into the game animals when, in self-defense, they ate certain poisonous or hallucinogenic plants; such plants have, in turn, received ajiłee power from having been made pregnant by Sun and Moon.

Regardless of the subgroup to which it belongs, Coyoteway is a healing ceremonial of the Holyway type. This means, it seeks to remedy the patient's estrangement from the Holy People and his provocations toward them.⁽¹⁾ Angered gods, in this instance angered Coyote People, inflict their brand of illness on the human offender. Subsequently, the divine cause and his human victim must be reconciled ceremonially with songs and prayers; the evil residues of illness must, nevertheless, be exorcised, in Evilway or Weaponway fashion, with the appropriate rites. Each species of Holy People, such as Bear,
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(1) Evidence of an Evilway version of Coyoteway is presented below, in Chapters 11 and 12, with the myth and the sandpaintings of William Charlie. See also an explanation of Evilway modes of performance later in this chapter.

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Snake, Wind, or Lightning, requires its own special reconciliation procedures. So it may be said, that each of the twenty or more chant-ways represents a sort of "mini-religion." Each of these small-scale religious traditions has its own distinct soteriology; it saves the devotee, that is, the patient, from his particular predicament and estrangement, yes, even from his self-destructive open rebellion against a divine being. The process of liberation and recovery requires usually a two, five, or nine-night performance of the god's (or gods') own prescribed reconciliation ceremonial.

Adjusted to Pueblo Indian cosmography, the divine Coyote People live underground. At the same time, manifestations of these divine prototypes roam in the surface world as animals. Mą'ii is the Navajo name for Coyote; it is also a generic name for the larger wolf and the smaller foxes. The remaining predators, even snakes, are sometimes included in the extended ma'ii family.⁽²⁾ The Coyoteway which is presented here does not include any references to wolves, but according to our informants it includes all the Coyote People who now live in the Navajo territory: White Coyote in the east, Blue Coyote in the south, Yellow Coyote in the west, and Black Coyote in the north. Of these the Yellow Coyote (yellow or red fox) and the Blue Coyote (gray or silver fox) are native in the Black Mesa area. Black Coyote is said to live "somewhere on the Navajo Reservation; he is used in the yé'iibicheii (Nightway) ceremonial" (Luke Cook). Specifically, it is the Gray or Blue Coyote from the south that figures in the last sand-painting ceremony where a yé'ii-impersonator carries a stuffed specimen of the mą'ii species. In the sandpainting itself, animal-shaped and anthropomorphic Coyote People of all four colors are represented.

For diagnostic purposes the Navajo Coyoteway can be performed as a two-night ceremonial. If it proves effective, a continuation of up to at least five nights is called for, namely, the first four nights (evenings and mornings) of the complete nine-night sequence and a basket-drum summary on the fifth night. The second four-night portion of the full sequence can be considered as a separate ceremony. For historical interpretation, someday, it will be significant to know that the Holiness Rite of the Jicarilla Apache corresponds to the second half of Navajo nine-night ceremonials. The first portion of the Navajo sequence is omitted in the Jicarilla ceremonials (cf. Opler 1943, pp. 94f). Nevertheless, on account of this I do not regard the first four nights of Coyoteway as constituting a later development. On the contrary, the rites on the first four evenings and mornings strike me as

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(2) Mą'i is an old Apachean form for "animal." See, for instance the Chiricahua mbai—coyote; mhai'tso—wolf; mba'ishói—lizard. (Personal communication of Morris E. Opler.)

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being, in the Navajo historical context, much more archaic than the Puebloized sandpainting rites which follow. A combination of at least two basically different ceremonial traditions seems, therefore, indicated. In the case of the Navajo Coyoteway the synthesis of two such traditions is indeed firm. While the four-night portions of the ceremonial are separable, patients become eligible for the second portion only after having experienced the first portion earlier.

In contrast to Luke Cook, whose Coyote theology of cosmic dimensions has already been introduced, our Coyoteway singer, Man With Palomino Horse, insists on a simpler explanation—that Coyote illness results only from offending animal Coyote persons. According to him, prior to 1948, or thereabouts, a bounty was paid on the Navajo Reservation for coyote skins. Apparently this was a government effort at reducing the ever-increasing livestock losses, especially among young lambs. But this well-intentioned measure burdened the coyote-hunting shepherds with divinely caused troubles and with human guilt. Not many centuries ago the Navajo people were hunters. Coyote was a fellow hunter who probably enjoyed the rights of kinship that then applied to all fellow hunter peoples. As the explanations to some of William Charlie's sandpaintings (Chapter 12) seem to indicate, Coyote functioned occasionally, though definitely more seldom than his big brother Wolf, as a divine tutelary power in hunting.

Still in the 1880s Coyote was regarded as a respectable hunter tutelary among the Zuni Indians. Frank H. Cushing (1920, pp. 414-515) has recorded a mythological narrative about a hunter whose divine sponsor and guardian was a Coyote person. It seems at least possible that the portion of the Zuni story, which refers directly to the Hunter/Coyote relationship, has had parallels in other hunter traditions of the Southwest. Numerous incidents from Navajo coyote mythology can be traced to Pueblo Indian traditions. Moreover, William Charlie's Navajo Coyoteway could be performed for success in hunting.

In any case, later, when the Navajo hunters had become herdsmen provisioned with and equipped by Western materialism, they were hunting coyotes as nuisances and pests. This all too sudden change to a pursuit of new values took its toll. Coyote illness soon was on the increase and was persistently diagnosed in the Black Mesa area. Since 1948, according to our practitioner, Coyote troubles have been declining steadily in this area.

The manner in which Coyote illness is caught was explained by our singer in the following manner: When a Coyote person is shot and left to die, his last spasms and twitchings, as they suddenly cease in the animal person, leap onto the killer. This happens most easily if some-

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how in the process of killing the hunter has eye-contact with his victim—Coyote continues to recognize and to haunt the offender. But this can also happen through physical contact with the animal's dead body or even with the decayed remains of a Coyote person. And in this regard no shepherd who strolls through the sagebrush pastures can ever be sure of his personal immunity. Killing a Coyote person means offending him. The symptoms of the animal's suffering which are thrown onto the offender continue as a sort of nervous malfunction, as a shaking of the head, hands, or of the entire body.

Coyote illness may also be indicated by a twisted mouth, by cross-eyed vision, by weakened eyesight, loss of memory or loss of mind, and by fainting (Luke Cook). Earlier sources (Franciscan Fathers 1910, p. 363) counted mania and prostitution (sex frenzy) among the symptoms of Coyote illness. Wyman and Kluckhohn (1938, p. 27, informant "R") named prostitution, mania and rabies. Their informant "M" added sore throat and stomach trouble. Recently I have even been told of a case where chronic alcoholism was diagnosed as Coyote illness. Notwithstanding possible later embellishments, mania, nervous malfunctions, and rabies seem to comprise the basic symptom pattern of Coyote illness most naturally. What our practitioner has described as shaking and twitching may well be traceable to rabies. This seems even more likely if we consider that our patient, after he is initiated into a sort of kinship with Coyote peoples, must also respect dogs, wild cats, badgers, porcupines, and skunks—all potential carriers of rabies.

Nevertheless, these considerations do not allow us to simply reduce the Coyoteway healing procedure to a primitive attempt to cure rabies. No scientific experiment has yet disproved the link between rabies and the intentions of some divine Coyote peoples—not to mention the intentions of the cosmic Coyote who transmits his spells on humankind from beyond Sun and Moon in the east. First and foremost in the perspective of the Coyoteway tradition is the wrath of divine Coyote people, and it must be placated.

Meanwhile, for the majority of the Navajo people Coyote has lost his positive value and function. Some people on the reservation barely seem to know anymore that the shakedowns (the dust or "pollen" brushed from a coyote being) contain power to procure wealth. Most people have by now come to interpret the sighting of a coyote as a bad omen. Like many things that still had their proper place in the old Navajo hunter tradition, and like his big brother Wolf, Coyote has come to be associated with witchcraft.

This defamation of Coyote as a divine person appears to be the result of two parallel developments. The first is that all hunter gods

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eventually do suffer defamation if their human protégés cease to be hunters and if they learn to answer to different types of gods (cf. Luckert 1975, pp. 186-90). Coyote is a trickster person par excellence. Among archaic hunters this reputation gave him prestige; hunters daily tried to imitate his trickery.⁽³⁾ But trickster gods among presiding shepherds or among sedentary planters are a nuisance—their archaic behavior burdens them soon with the reputation of being wizards or even of being devils. In spite of all this, Coyote does nothing to redeem his reputation—he kills the shepherds' lambs. According to what seems to belong to the Pueblo Indian portion of Coyote mythology, this trickster also steals the farmers' maize.

There is a second reason for Coyote's bad reputation. Aside from suffering the universal fate of all hunter gods in post-hunting cultures, Coyote, while getting involved in medicinal ceremonialism, came under suspicion precisely from that direction. Luke Cook, our patient, traces every kind of illness to the great Coyote beyond Sun and Moon in the east; and as far as Coyote's general disposition can be understood—"Coyote giveth and Coyote taketh away." So it seems that the present defamation of Coyote is being generated also by that same general concern which necessitates various versions of Evilway healing ceremonials.⁽⁴⁾ Evilway performances emphasize exorcism and are held primarily to drive away vengeful ghosts, their bewitching influence, together with evil hosts of other witchcraft elements. Evilway ceremonials today run a close second in popularity to the Blessingway rites. Their popularity, it seems, runs parallel with the general fear of ghost-influence in Navajo society. Fears of various kinds marry each other easily.⁽⁵⁾ In any case, it must be noted, that the deezlájí (Weapon- or

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(3)Apache tribes used Coyote ceremonies for trickery of war (personal communication of Morris E. Opler). On the other hand, it was insisted on by the participants, that sexual trickery, which is frequently attributed to Coyote, has nothing to do with the performance of the Coyoteway ceremonial that is recorded in this book.

(4)Evilway rites became increasingly necessary during the Fort Sumner period (see Chapter 2). Also in Chapter 2, note 2, Coyote's involvement in Pueblo Indian witchcraft is documented.

(5)I have delineated my incomplete views on this subject in The Navafo Hunter Tradition (pp. 199-202). The increase in the fear of ghost-influence, in Navajo history, appears to have been primarily the result of having lost touch with the traditional "Black Earth" eschatology. According to an informant of Wyman, Hill, and Osanai (1942, pp. 34-37), the dead Navajo people formerly went to join their predecessors who had returned to Black Earth, a northern place. It seems that upon moving south, in confrontation with Pueblo Indian emergence mythology, and with an ever growing dedication of practitioners to retain their patients' health at any cost, apparitions of the dead ceased to be tolerable signals for rejoining the ancestors. For people who refuse to be escorted away—at least "not yet"—ghost apparitions are bad omens. For people who no longer know where to go after death they are evil in general and a threat to human existence.
Morris E. Opler (personal communication) suggested that defeat, loss of territory in the face of a growing population, lack of resources, high incidence of disease, alcoholism, etc., cause friction and suspicion among Navajos; further, that these human conflicts, the ill will and suspicions which they engender, play a large part in the perpetuation of the fear of ghosts and witches. This statement does indeed explain the intensification of fears in certain culture areas. But it also appears that religious eschatologies do not necessarily obey the laws of economics, anatomy, or psychology. The same troubles that in one place intensify interpersonal conflicts and subsequent fears, are resolved elsewhere by the vision of a real afterworld in favor of a harmonious coexistence with the dead. Proof of this has been the Ghost Dance religion toward the end of the nineteenth century on the Great Plains. And, while tear of witches appears to linger today in the Navajo Peyote religion, frequent anticipation of "a new heaven and a new earth" has generally transformed fear of the dead into a relationship of friendship with them.

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Fightingway) attitude which is expressed in Evilway rites against certain causes of disease—whether they be ghosts, witches, or defamed archaic gods—is the opposite of the search for reconciliation which predominates during Holyway rites. And having been caught in this general trend of Evilway thinking, Coyote has become associated with the "wrong kind of people."
In several versions of Evilway mythology—as in Upwardreaching-way and in the myth of Ghostway in the Male Branch of Shootingway—Coyote is no longer mentioned in Holyway fashion as an offended deity, a subsequent patient, or as a reconciling agent of health; instead, he is regarded exclusively as a cause of illness. In this manner Coyote has become identified with vengeful ghosts and with evil witchcraft elements with whom reconciliation is no longer possible. Coyote, the already defamed hunter tutelary roaming among shepherds, must now be driven away—exorcised in order to safeguard human health. And so it seems that, because of an increase in Evilway-type thinking, this Holyway-type ceremonial was increasingly misunderstood and avoided. Had it not been for the government's bounty on coyote skins, which produced a flare-up of Coyote illness and a demand for the ceremonial in the conservative Black Mesa area, the Coyoteway ceremonial of the Holyway type would probably not have survived. But now, after several decades of inroads made by American secular education, it seems as though this religious ceremonial is definitely doomed.

While his ceremonial is disappearing, Coyote as an archaic divine figure is still a long way from dying. Indeed, he was forced into joining the ranks of antiquated and defamed hunter gods, but Coyote mythology itself credits him with several resurrections. His positive role is still vaguely reflected in the ethicized fables that depict the great Coyote of Coyoteway as a laughable villain, buffoon, or bungler—more often than as a shrewd exemplary model for hunter tricksters. The archaic Coyote, the epitome of hunter tricksters, could indeed be a clownish bungler. Divine incarnations among hunters need this sign of humanity. On the other hand, the Coyote of Coyoteway is also a greater-than-human personage, a deity who, when angered, inflicts his brand of punishment or illness and who, when reconciled with the use of his own prayers, songs, and rites, restores the patient to health. He even helps a man to gain prosperity.

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The strongly ethicized, popular Coyote tales that until now have been available in ethnological literature represent, as all ethical systems do, only the tail end or afterglow of a religious fascination. The real Coyoteway ceremonial has been classified as "extinct" by the Franciscan Fathers in 1910 (p. 392). From the perspective of a historian of religions it seems therefore extremely fortunate that the archaic core of Coyote religion among the Navajo, the "head of the comet," so to speak, could once more be sighted and seen in a meaningful historical context.

* * *

A brief explanation about nomenclature may be in order at this point. A Navajo healing ceremonial is called a hatáál, a "sing." The person who officiates is a hatááłi, a "singer." However, almost everywhere in the Western world the word "singer" conjures up some associations with operas and folk music. In my earlier work on the Navajo hunter tradition I have used, with some hesitation, the popular term "medicine man." Leland Wyman has advised strongly against using this term in connection with Coyoteway. "Medicine man" reminds him of America's once popular medicine shows. Obviously, Navajo healing ceremonies should not be confused with unscrupulous salesmanship and with a circus atmosphere. Wyman, who is also a scholar of biology and physiology, suggests that the term "practitioner" be used.

As far as the title "shaman" is concerned, I am still very sympathetic toward Mircea Eliade's delineation of shamanism as "techniques of ecstasy." At the same time, I see that outside the Tungusic-Siberian realm shamanism is not always clearly definable in terms of ecstasy. In the American Indian area a rational discourse with the god(s) often takes the place of ecstasy. Moreover, individuals who would be better classified as priests sometimes have ecstatic experiences. Morris Opler suggests therefore that Navajo ceremonialists be distinguished from shamans by virtue of their reliance on traditions. Thus, a shaman who no longer alters his rite on the basis of direct communication with divine tutelaries, and on the spur of the moment, should be called a priest. This line of demarcation extends the phenomenon of shamanism just enough to accommodate the American Indian situation. Since ecstasy is a matter of degrees and is an inner happening, detection is often very difficult. For field research in American Indian religions the boundary line that is suggested by Opler is therefore more useful. Moreover, since the Tungusic terminus "shaman" has already been linked to loosely related phenomena elsewhere in the world, this slight adaptation seems justified.

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Theologically defined, this means then that a shaman should be regarded as having become a priestly practitioner when his divine tutelary (or tutelaries) no longer adds new revelations to his rite. Therefore, wherever in this book I mention Navajo "shamanism" or refer to "shamans" I actually have reference to a time when the northern religious heritage of Apachean hunters was still intact—a time, perhaps, before the Spanish name "Navajo" was applied.

Our Coyoteway ceremonialist may thus be called a practitioner, or else, he may be called a priest. I like the term "practitioner" because it implies a professional relationship toward individual clients; I dislike the term because in our Western culture it generally refers to a materialistically trained, scientific medical doctor. I like the designation "priest" because it refers to a mediator between god(s) and humankind; I dislike the term because priests are generally thought of as mediating between god(s) and organized groups of people. Navajo singers perform their ceremonials for individual clients. In an attempt to get the best part of both suggestions I have decided, in this book, to refer to our ceremonialist primarily as "priestly practitioner." In order to escape the awkward grammatical consequences of this long title, I will occasionally substitute such alternatives as healer, practitioner, priest, singer, and priestly singer.

The primary participants in the Coyoteway ceremonial, the divine Coyote People and various other divine personages, I prefer to call "gods." In much of anthropological literature the term "super-natural(s)" has been adopted. In my opinion this is a most unfortunate choice. To apply this term in Navajo religion, where nature is not yet distinguished from a divine realm, would be more distorting than simply referring to gods as greater-than-human personal powers or Holy People.

Finally, an explanation is called for concerning the capitalization of some English nouns in translations of Navajo texts. The practice of writing ordinary English nouns with small letters, and of capitalizing the names of persons, is based on a view of the world where the observers pretend to know, absolutely, the difference between an "object" and a "person." This practice is a legacy of British Empiricism and the result of scientific ambitions. But, unlike English orthography, Navajo traditional thought has none of its roots in this philosophy. Navajo traditionalists are obviously capable of identifying certain less-than-human entities as "objects" or as "things," but, when on subsequent occasions some of these "objects" happen to reveal themselves as persons, then traditionally oriented Navajo minds remain open also