The Cochiti Scalp a Navaho at Sia

THE COCHITI SCALP A NAVAHO AT SIA ³

A Navaho Indian was always coming to Sia pueblo. He was very tall and handsome and amorous, and the Sia men thought he wanted to make love to their women ("thought he was in this condition"). The Sia, men forbade him to enter their pueblo, but he refused to remain away, and when he came again they fought and killed him, but they did not take his scalp. The next morning they went down to see if his body was still there, but it was gone (because they did not take his scalp). The next day he was back in the pueblo. They killed him again and left him as before. He came back again. They held a council and made plans to call help from Cochiti. ⁷ Three Cochiti men went back from here to Sia. There was the Navaho in the village again. They told them, "We have killed this man three (?) times, but he comes back alive."

They all came together, and they invited the Navaho to play blancho (shooting at a mark) with their guns. They told a Cochiti man to sit down and a Sia man was to stand behind and rest his gun on his shoulder to shoot at the mark (a stone or tin can.) The next time they invited the Navaho to sit down and a Cochiti man rested his gun on his shoulder. The Navaho knew how the game had been played before and he was pleased to take part. When they were ready, they said, "Ready?" "Yes." The Cochiti man drew back the gun and shot the Navaho at the base of his head. He was dead. The Sia girls cried as hard as they could for their Navaho lover who had been killed. The three Cochiti men took off his scalp and brought it back to this village and had a war dance. It was not the custom of Sia, but of Cochiti. And the Navaho was dead forever.

Footnotes

197:3 Informant 1.

197:7 "When they have a battle in any village, if even one man from Cochiti is there, a Navaho would say, 'We can not do anything in this battle, for there is a Cochiti Indian among them.'"