and which the writer is unable to represent, and it contained extemporized onomatopes which no letters can express.
123. Texts.—The men who narrated to the author the tales contained in this book were not men of unlimited leisure, as many suppose the Indians to be; they were popular shamans, or medicine men, who had numerous engagements to conduct ceremonies during the winter months, and it was only during the winter months that they permitted themselves to tell the tales. It was usually with difficulty that arrangements were made with one of these shamans to devote a period of two or three weeks to the service of the author. Then, too, they had farms and stock which demanded their care. Neither was the author a man of unbounded leisure. Rarely could he devote more than two or three hours out of twenty-four to the work of ethnography. It has happened more than once that he has been obliged to break an engagement made with a shaman, at a cost of considerable trouble and money, in order to go on detached service away from his proper station. For these reasons it was not practicable to record the original Indian texts of all the stories. The author had to choose between copious texts and copious tales. He chose the latter. But some texts have been recorded. In order that the reader may judge how closely the liberal translation here offered follows the original, the Navaho text of the opening passages—ten paragraphs—of the Origin Legend, with interlinear translations, are given in the notes. The texts of songs, prayers, and interesting passages may also be found in the notes.
ALPHABET USED.
124. Ever since the present alphabet of the Bureau of Ethnology was established (in 1880), it has been the author's custom to use it in spelling Indian words. But heretofore he has written mostly for the scientific world, for ethnologists and philologists who either were familiar with the alphabet, or were willing to constantly refer to it in reading. As the present work is designed to reach a wider circle of readers, the propriety of using the alphabet of the Bureau becomes doubtful. Many of the author's friends have begged him not to use it in this collection of tales, believing that its unusual characters would embarrass the average reader and detract from the interest of the work. Another system has, therefore, been devised, according to which consonants printed in Roman letters have the ordinary English sounds, while those printed in Italics have sounds analogous to the English but not identical with them. The vowels, when unmarked, have the continental sounds. When these sounds are modified, diacritical marks are added in accordance with the latest edition of Webster's Dictionary. The sound of English a in
