gin at once, and those assembled
spend the time telling stories, jesting, and gossiping. Belated arrivals
make coffee, or do hurried cooking around the fires.

Some distance to the east of the dance ground is a brush enclosure where
the dancers prepare for their part in the rite. There, too, is a fire for
light and warmth. The men in preparation remove all clothing, save short
kilts, and paint their bodies with a mixture of water and white clay.
Anyone who may have experienced the enjoyment of a sponge bath out in the
open on a cold, windy night can appreciate the pleasure of the dance
preparation. The dancers are impersonators of Navaho myth characters,
twelve usually taking part. No qualifications are necessary other than
that the participant be conversant with the intricate ritual of the dance.
The dance continues throughout the entire night, one group of men being
followed by another. The first twelve men dance through four songs,
retiring to the dressing enclosure for a very brief rest after each. Then
they withdraw, and twelve others dance for a like period, and so on. The
first group sometimes returns again later, and the different groups vie
with one another in their efforts to give the most beautiful dance in
harmony of movement and song, but there is no change in the step. The
several sets have doubtless trained for weeks, and the most graceful take
great pride in being pronounced the best dancers. The first group of
grotesquely masked men is ready by nine or ten o'clock; they file into the
dance enclosure led by Hasche{~COMBINING BREVE~}lti, their naked, clay-painted bodies
glinting in the firelight. While wearing masks the performers never speak
in words; they only sing or chant. To address one in conversation would
incur the displeasure of the gods and invite disaster. Time is kept by the
basket drum and the rhythm of the singing.

The white visitor will get his best impression of the dance from a short
distance, and, if possible, a slight elevation. There he is in touch with
the stillness of the night under the starry sky, and sees before him, in
this little spot lighted out of the limitless desert, this strange
ceremonial of supplication and thanksgiving, showing slight, if any,
change from the same performance, held on perhaps the same spot by the
ancestors of these people ages ago. As the night wears on the best group
of dancers come out. They are, perhaps, from the Redrock country, or from
some other f