repeated his songs at home in order to familiarize himself with them, and she gradually picked up several of them. She sang in a musical soprano with much spirit, and was one of the most pleasing singers heard in the tribe.
49. Figures of Speech.—It is probable that all rhetorical figures of speech known to our poets may be found in these simple com positions of the Navahoes. But in many cases the allusions are to such recondite matters of symbolism, or incidents in their myths, that they could be made plain, if at all, only by a tedious recital. Thus it would not be easy to make clear in a few words why, when the goddess Estsánatlehi, in one of the songs to her honor, is spoken of as climbing a wand of turquoise, we know the poet means to say she is ascending San Mateo Mountain, in New Mexico, or why, when he speaks of her as climbing a wand of haliotis shell, he is endeavoring to tell us that she is ascending the peak of San Francisco in Arizona. Yet we may gain some idea of the meaning by referring to the myth (par. 193).
50. But some of the metaphors and similes are not so hard to understand. Here is a translation of the Dove Song, one of the gambling songs sung in the game of kĕsĭtsé: —
Wos Wos picks them up (seeds),
Wos Wos picks them up,
Glossy Locks picks them up,
Red Moccasin picks them up,
Wos Wos picks them up.273 316
Here Wos Wos (Wōsh Wōsh) is an onomatope for the dove, equivalent to our "coo coo"; but it is used as a noun. Glossy Locks and Red Moccasin are figurative expressions for the dove, of obvious significance. Metaphor and synecdoche are here combined.
51. Antithesis is not an uncommon figure with the Navaho poet. Here is an instance of it in a song belonging to the mountain chant, one of the great nine-day ceremonies of the shamans: —
The voice that beautifies the land!
The voice above,
The voice of the thunder,
Among the dark clouds
Again and again it sounds,
The voice that beautifies the land.
The voice that beautifies the land!
The voice below,
The voice of the grasshopper,
Among the flowers and grasses
Again and again it sounds,
The voice that beautifies the land.
