Volume 9, No. 4

THEME: NATIVE AMERICANS AND INDIAN POLICY IN THE PROGRESSIVE ERA

. . .At some part of the ceremony [of the Mountain Chant], one of the chanters (medicine-men) thus makes a sand-picture of the four Digini, or "Divine Ones," placing them from left to right: The Holy Youth, The Holy Woman, The Lightning Youth, and The Holy Believer. The sand-pictures are made in this wise: Upon the floor of the hogan is spread fresh sand smoothed flat; then upon this background the medicine-man and his assistants make the symbolic figures, by sifting through thumb and finger colored powders ground from minerals and charcoal.

In the picture of the four Digini, the black streak at the bottom represents the hogan of The Holy Youth and The Holy Woman. Above the heads of the Divine Ones are the guardian bats of the hogan. A rainbow surrounds the picture, decked with sprays of prayer-feathers. Each figure stands upon a piece of rainbow, for it is upon the rainbow the Divine Ones travel. Steaks of lightning are painted upon the legs, for lightning is the symbol of speed; around the neck hangs a whistle of eagle bone; while on the arms are bracelets [not pictured] of eagle feathers, for the Divine Ones move swiftly, as with wings. The forms are naked except for the richly decorated sash and the "woman's belt." Their bodies are painted with clays of different colors. In the right hand each figure holds a pouch containing corn-meal, and in the left a small ceremonial basket and a sprig of spruce, which can be swallowed and drawn up again by those who have hold power. From the ears hang pendants of turquoise, and on the heads are five rain-feathers pointing upward towards the clouds. -- from The Indians' Book (1907), pp. 366 (illustration) - 367