S-'bidee'7
(Horned Star)

The identity of S-'bidee'7 (Horned Star) is not known. It is also known to the Tewa Pueblo Indians, who simply describe it as a bright star (Miller 1997:178). Horns symbolize power and are often added to images of the sun and moon in sandpaintings (Griffin-Pierce 1992a:180). S-'bidee'7 might be a metaphorical star with no real equivalent in the night sky. According to Hasteen Klah (1942:66), First Man placed the Horned Star in the sky at the beginning of time. Avery Denny (1996) identifies Horned Star as a comet, presumably based on an entry in the Franciscan Father’s Ethnologic Dictionary which reads: S-' bil7di: star with smoke, a comet (Franciscan Fathers 1910:45).

Comets sometimes appear in sand paintings but rarely in paintings used for healing since comets are understood to be abnormal and contrary to the ordered laws of nature (Williamson 1984:169). There is a remote possibility that S-'bidee'7 represents a supernova that has long since been forgotten. In the Franciscan dictionary the full name given to the string game associated with Horned Star is S-'bidee'7 huloni. No translation is offered for the word huloni, but it is suspiciously similar to the modern word h0l0n65, which means “what was in existence” (Wall and Morgan 1997:94).

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