efficacious sacred song requiring exact performance

navajo

• Navaho Legends HOUSES. / ARTS. / INDUSTRY. / POETRY AND MUSIC.; lines 713-811 confidence: high

  The priest and assistants must know songs exactly, since mistakes may harm a ceremony. In a night chant example, four singers appear painted, adorned, and masked as gods to sing the atsá`lei song before many witnesses and critics; any slight error ends the ceremony.

  The passage states that sacred songs must be known exactly, that errors may damage or nullify a ceremony, and that in a night chant an error can end the rite.

  read in the book →