El Palacio . r with her gift of corn, and of theSon-Father fertilizer of the earth. Theimpersonal life-giving forcé behind andbeyond the parent son and earth is, inthe language of the prairies, the GreatMysteiy. The nomad Navajo tells usthat when the skies are blue, the Sunfather rides a horse of turquoise acrossthe heavens; when the skies are darkwith storm he has mounted his garnethorse or his horse of jet. In PuebloIndian song, a distant storm with sheet-lightning, seen afar off on the desertshorizon takes form as Black CloudsYouth who at earlhs edge, are practis-ing wilh their lighlning ar
El Palacio . r with her gift of corn, and of theSon-Father fertilizer of the earth. Theimpersonal life-giving forcé behind andbeyond the parent son and earth is, inthe language of the prairies, the GreatMysteiy. The nomad Navajo tells usthat when the skies are blue, the Sunfather rides a horse of turquoise acrossthe heavens; when the skies are darkwith storm he has mounted his garnethorse or his horse of jet. In PuebloIndian song, a distant storm with sheet-lightning, seen afar off on the desertshorizon takes form as Black CloudsYouth who at earlhs edge, are practis-ing wilh their lighlning arrows. In the ceremonial rain songs the birds,like the Indians, cali the clouds with song,and then the swallow, the tiding bear-er, flies to tell the corn the glad newsof coming rain. There are many kindsof rain in Southwestern poetry: the malerain, and sometimes violent; thefemale rain, soft and gentle; the up-start-ing rain and the down pouring walking rain, moving in symbolic 96 EL PALACIO. O CQ 3 o << ^^ LiJ a:O n: Q co CQ -O gesture and in song through many aceremonial dance, is a disíinct desertimage. Where but in that clear air,may one, passing over the wide earlh seea shaft of rain falling from a cloud andliterally walking across the desert ?The rainbow, pictured in sand painting. on head dress and silver necldaces, isoften hkened toa youth, brilliantly deckedand painted, face and body, even as theInd paint themselves for the ceremon-ial dance. To those who know thesong-literature, of the desert tribes, NewMéxico and Arizona becc<me an enchant- EL PALACIO 97 ed land as filled with mythical person-ages as was Greece to the ancients. Many of the South-western songs aresnaped in the conventionalized ceremon-ial song pattern of the desert tribes —apattern parallel in woven baskets, inpottery designs, and in the altar pictureswrought with colored sand. The Ind-ian is ever conscious of the forces of na-tura. The cardinal points which symbo-l
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Keywords: ., bookauthorarchaeol, bookcentury1900, bookdecade1920, bookyear1921
