The Navaho Fire Dance or Corral Dance: A Brief Account of its Practice and Meaning

The Fire Dance is the ceremony performed during the ninth night of the Mountainway. The purpose of these last night's rites is to accumulate power, to help to restore the individual patient; to give strength to the spectators who have gathered in big crowds during the last night and to convey fertility to soil and animal and abundance to crop and game. The signal features of the Fire Dance are the erection of the sacred enclosure, the kindling of the huge central fire, and the performance o...