e succumbed to sickness and old age. The evil,
or those who have practised witchcraft, have a place apart from the rest.
Between the latter and the spirits of the good stands a high rock wall at
which the evil ones are condemned to dig for eternity in an effort to
reach the happier home. Spirits can work only in darkness, and the work of
the night is ever brought to naught by recurring daylight.

[Illustration: A Jicarilla Feast March]

A Jicarilla Feast March

_From Copyright Photograph 1904 by E.S. Curtis_

The Jicarillas, like their kindred the Navaho and Apache, pay much
attention to religion and ceremony. Compared with the Navaho their life
seems almost lacking in ceremony, but when contrasted with the various
Yuman tribes on the Colorado and Gila rivers of Arizona it is fairly rich.
Their healing or medicine rites include a dance, called _Isane_, that
occupies four days and four nights, and many one-day "sings," in all of
which dry-paintings are employed. Like the Apache the Jicarillas attach
much importance to the girls' puberty ceremony and still rigidly adhere to
it.

A four-day medicine dance is founded on the following legend:

Two maidens lived at the bottom of a deep pit. Many of the men wished to
marry them, but the girls were well content and refused to come out. The
Bear and the Snake formed a plan to carry them off and make them their
wives. A beautiful butterfly was sent fluttering down over the girls'
heads, but they paid little heed to its beauties. Another was sent, then
another, and yet a fourth, which was so beautiful that the girls reached
up to catch it, for they wished to copy its splendid colors on a large
basket they were weaving. But the butterfly escaped them and flew upward,
keeping ever out of reach as the girls followed to the mouth of the pit.
There the Bear and the Snake in waiting suddenly reached over, seized the
girls, and carried them away. The people, learning of this, asked them to
bring the girls back, but the Bear and the Snake refused, so an appeal was
made to Naye{~COMBINING BREVE~}nayezgani and Kobadjischini. These two gods built a fence
around the world to keep the Bear and the Snake from escaping, and,
summoning all the people, compelled the Bear and the Snake to bring the
two young women back. The one the Bear had married had grown very fat and
coarse, like her master. "What have you done to make this girl so fa