on is a long one; couple follows couple, the men gravely
stamping, the women gracefully tripping. At the head are the tallest and
most robust youths, the best developed and most buxom girls. Following
these, the dancers are less and less carefully assorted and matched,
while boys and old women, little girls and old men, bring up the rear.

As the last couple emerges, the chorus bursts out in full force, the
choristers themselves issuing from the dark passage-way. These are
twelve in number, all men, dressed or undressed as each one's fancy
dictates, their faces whitened like the dancers'. Their rude chant or
rhythmic shouting is in the minor key. They advance in a body, keeping
time with their feet, gesticulating in a manner intended to convey the
meaning of their song. In their midst goes the drum-beater, an aged man
adorned with an eagle's feather behind each ear. Like the rest, his face
is daubed with white paint; his drum, which he thumps incessantly with a
single stick, being manufactured from a hollow tree. Both ends of it are
covered with rawhide, and the whole instrument is painted yellow. We
recognize easily in this musician the head of the Koshare, Shyuote's
late tormentor.

At no great distance from the exit, the chorus comes to a halt, but the
singing, gesticulation and beating of the drum proceed. The dancers
meanwhile move about the whole court to the same step, but the couples
separate and change places; man steps beside man, woman joins woman, all
turning and passing each other, suggesting by their movements the
flexures of a closely folded ribbon. The couples then re-form, the
double rank strings out as at first, tramping and tripping in a wide
circle to the rhythm and measure of the monotonous music.

This solemn perambulation and primitive concert is witnessed by numerous
interested spectators, and listened to by a large and attentive
audience. The Rito's entire population is assembled, eagerly, at times
almost devoutly, gazing and listening. The assemblage crowds the roofs
and lines the walls below, all confusedly gathered together. There is
every imaginable posture, costume, or lack of costume,--men, women,
children clothed in bright wraps or embroidered skins, scantily covered
with dirty rags, or rejoicing in the freedom of undress. The several
roofs of the large house, rising in successive terraces three stories
high, form an irregular amphitheatre filled with humanity of all sizes,
shapes, ages