ent to the house of Say Koitza, and in
her presence sang the powerful song, while each one of them in turn
waved a burning bunch of long dry grass to the six sacred regions, and
each time bit off a piece of the burning weed and chewed it. When all
had gone through the performances, and their mouths were well filled
with ashes, each one gravely stepped up to the invalid, and spat the
contents of his mouth in her face. Then they departed as quietly as they
had come, and went home to await the results of the wonderful remedy.[5]
It was a last, a supreme effort.

The condition of Say could not fail to arouse the sympathies of her own
sex, even outside of her clan. Many were the calls from compassionate
women. They would drop in, squat down, tender their services, suggest
remedies, and gossip. Only one woman made herself directly useful, and
that was Shotaye, a member of the Water clan. Shotaye was a strange
woman. Nobody liked her, and yet many applied to her for relief in
secret; for Shotaye possessed great knowledge of plants and other
remedies, and she had a keen practical sense. But people dreaded her;
she lived alone in her cave among the abodes of the Water people, and
nobody knew but she might know more than the official medicine-men
themselves. In short, the majority of the tribe believed that Shotaye
was a witch; but the woman was so wary that nobody could prove her to be
one.

Shotaye was not an old woman. Her appearance was not in the least
repulsive, on the contrary. The men knew that the woman showed no
objections to occasional attentions, even to intimacy. For this reason,
also, she was not popular among her own sex.

Shotaye had had a husband once; but he had left her and was living with
another woman. That husband was called Tyope, badger, a man of strong
physique and one averse to monotony in conjugal life. Tyope was a
scheming man, cunning and unscrupulous in the highest degree; Shotaye an
energetic woman, endowed with a powerful will of her own. Had there not
been the little cloud of marital inconstancy on both sides, the pair
would have been well-assorted for good as well as for evil. Tyope was a
Koshare rather than an agriculturist, he spent his time mostly in other
people's homes and in the estufa of the Delight Makers, leaving his wife
to provide for herself and for him also, whenever he chose to remain at
her house. In short there were flaws on both sides, and Shotaye being
the house-mistress held