outside in the darkness.
The initiates enter and sit on the ground in a row--the males naked, the
women dressed in their ordinary mode. They dare not look up, for should
they see Hasche{~COMBINING BREVE~}lti before being initiated, they would become blind. One
at a time these novices take their place in the centre of the hogan and
the initiatory rite is performed over them.

[Illustration: _Shilhne'ohli_ - Navaho]

_Shilhne'ohli_ - Navaho

_From Copyright Photograph 1907 by E.S. Curtis_

In this plate is pictured the second dry-painting employed in the Night
Chant, made on the sixth day of the ceremony. It represents crossed logs
which whirl around in a mythic lake. Upon them are alternately seated male
and female deities, singing. The light figures are goddesses,
_haschebaad_; the dark ones gods, _haschebaku{~COMBINING BREVE~}__n_. Their songs treat of
all life-giving plants, of which corn, beans, squashes, and tobacco, the
most important, are pictured as growing from the very centre of the lake,
the point of contact of the logs.

Of the four marginal figures the one in white toward the east is
Hasche{~COMBINING BREVE~}lti, Talking God, with his pine-squirrel pouch of sacred meal.
Opposite him stands Haschogan, House God. The other two are Ganaski{~COMBINING BREVE~}dil,
Hunchbacks, Gods of Harvest, with seeds of the field in packs on their
backs. Around the whole is the personified rainbow.

When the dry-painting is in actual use the patient enters upon it over the
feet of Hasche{~COMBINING BREVE~}lti and sits at the intersection of the logs. A man
personating a god then enters, places his hands upon the various parts of
the many deities represented in the picture, then upon the corresponding
parts of the patient's body. The whole picture is then destroyed and the
colored sands are carried off to the north in a blanket and strewn under
trees.

_Sixth Day_: This is the first day of the large dry-paintings. The
painting is commenced early in the morning, and is not finished until
mid-afternoon. The one on this day is the whirling log representation.
After it is finished, feathers are stuck in the ground around it, and
sacred meal is scattered on parts by some of the assisting singers. Others
scatter the meal promiscuously; one of the maskers uses a spruce twig and
medi