prinkle water and meal from beautiful
grails; then they all stand with bare heads to watch the rising of the
sun. When his full orb is seen, once more they sprinkle the sacred water
and the sacred meal over the tops of the houses. Then the _cacique_ in a
loud voice directs the labor of the day. So his talk is explained to us.
Some must gather corn, others must go for wood, water must be brought
from the distant wells, and the animals of the strangers must be cared
for. Now the house tops present a lively scene. Bowls of water are
brought; from them the men fill their mouths and with dexterity blow
water over their hands in spray and wash their faces and lave their long
shining heads of hair; and the women dress one another's locks. With
bowls of water they make suds of the yucca plant, and wash and comb and
deftly roll their hair, the elder women in great coils at the back of
the head, the younger women in flat coils on their cheeks. And so the
days are passed and the weeks go by, and we study the language of the
people and record many hundreds of their words and observe their habits
and customs and gain some knowledge of their mythology, but above all do
we become interested in their religious ceremonies.

One afternoon they take me from Oraibi to Shupaulovi to witness a great
religious ceremony. It is the invocation to the gods for rain. We arrive
about sundown, and are taken into a large subterranean chamber, into
which we descend by a ladder. Soon about a dozen Shamans are gathered
with us, and the ceremony continues from sunset to sunrise. It is a
series of formal invocations, incantations, and sacrifices, especially
of holy meal and holy water. The leader of the Shamans is a great burly
bald-headed Indian, which is a remarkable sight, for I have never seen
one before. Whatever he says or does is repeated by three others in
turn. The paraphernalia of their worship is very interesting. At one end
of the chamber is a series of tablets of wood covered with quaint
pictures of animals and of corn, and overhead are conventional black
clouds from which yellow lightnings are projected, while drops of rain
fall on the corn below. Wooden birds, set on pedestals and decorated
with plumes, are arranged in various ways. Ears of corn, vases of holy
water, and trays of meal make up a part of the paraphernalia of worship.
I try to record some of the prayers, but am not very successful, as it
is difficult to hold my interpreter to