"All animals of the chase are the herds of Hastyeyalti, God of Sunrise. He is god of game, and he made the hunting songs and gave them to the Navahos. In the old days, before they were shepherds, the Navahos lived by hunting. The Navaho hunter sits quite still and chants a song, and the game comes straight to him. When the animal is near enough, the hunter shoots him through the heart. The Navahos say that the deer like the song of the hunter, and come from all directions to hear it . . . . This can be readily believed, for the Indian can be absolutely immovable. The measured chant attracts the animals, who, always curious, first come to find out what the sound is, and are then almost hypnotised, as it were, by the monotony and rhythm of the chanting . . . . Pueblo Indians say that before they start on the hunt, they sing, bending every thought on prayerful wish for success. While they sing, the distant deer gather in council, and choose to whom each will fall. To those who have been most devout in singing will the animals go. This idea is held by the Navahos also, as is shown in this song. Indians believe in man's power to draw to himself or to bring about that upon which he fixes his mind in song and prayer. .

"In this song, the hunter likens himself to the beautiful blackbird loved by the deer. The Navahos say that this bird alights on the animals, and sometimes tries to make its nest between the horns. The refrain of the song tells of the coming of the deer—how he makes a trail from the top of Black Mountain down through the fair meadows, how he comes through the dewdrops and the pollen of the flowers, and then how, startled at sight of the hunter, he stamps and turns to run. But the man kills him, and will kill yet many another, for he is lucky and blessed in hunting. The Navahos say that the male deer always starts with the left foreleg, the female with the right."

from The Indians' Book by Natalie Curtis