The Mountain Chant, a Navajo Ceremony: Fifth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, 1883-84, Government Printing Office, Washington, 1887, Pages 379-468

Published in 1887, this remarkable document captures one of the Navajo people's most sacred healing ceremonies at a moment when such knowledge teetered on the edge of extinction. Washington Matthews, a military surgeon and ethnographer, spent years earning the trust of Navajo medicine men who finally permitted him to witness and record the Mountain Chant, a nine-day winter ritual so potent it was believed to cure disease, summon rain, and invoke blessings for entire communities. The text presents the origin myth of the wandering hero whose exploits give the ceremony its power, a narrative as structurally complex and emotionally resonant as any Greek epic or Arthurian legend. Matthews walks through each of the nine days in meticulous detail, translating the ceremonial songs that have been passed down through generations of singers. This is not merely an anthropological artifact but a rare window into a spiritual worldview where the human and the sacred, the sick and the healed, are bound together through story, song, and ritual precision. For readers seeking to understand the depth and sophistication of indigenous literary traditions, or those drawn to the raw power of preserved oral mythologies, this text remains indispensable.