Enemy Way

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The Enemy Way or Anaʼí Ndááʼ is one half of the major Navajo song ceremonial complexes, the other half being the Blessing Way. The Enemy Way is a traditional ceremony for countering the harmful effects of alien ghosts or chindi, and has been performed for returning military personnel.[1]

The Enemy Way ceremony involves the patient identifying (through chant, sandpainting, and dance) with the powerful mythical figure Monster Slayer.[2] The ceremony lasts three days; on the second morning a mock battle is performed.[3]

Associated with the Enemy Way is a Girl's Dance (sometimes called "Squaw Dance"), to which young men are invited by marriageable young women.[4] This derives from an aspect of the Monster Slayer myth, in which two captive girls are liberated.[3]

The Enemy Way ceremony is described in Tony Hillerman's novel The Blessing Way.

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References

  1. ↑ Robert F. Murphy (ed), American Anthropology, 1946-1970: Papers from the American Anthropologist, University of Nebraska Press, 2002, p. 111, ISBN 0-8032-8280-X.
  2. ↑ Vincent Crapanzano, The Fifth World of Forster Bennett: Portrait of a Navajo, University of Nebraska Press, 2003, p. 238, ISBN 0-8032-6431-3.
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 Reginald Laubin and Gladys Laubin, Indian Dances of North America: Their Importance to Indian Life, University of Oklahoma Press, 1989, p. 423, ISBN 0-8061-2172-6.
  4. ↑ Clyde Kluckhohn, Dorothea Cross Leighton, Lucy H. Wales, and Richard Kluckhohn, The Navaho, Harvard University Press, 1974, p. 228, ISBN 0-674-60603-5.
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