e same in their untimely
bereavement.

At about midnight supper is announced, and every person in
attendance marches out into another room and partakes of a frugal
Indian meal, generally composed of wild game; Chile Colorado or
red-pepper tortillas, and guayaves, with a good supply of mush and
milk, which completes the festive board of the _veloris_ or wake.
When the deceased is in good circumstances, the crowd in attendance
is treated every little while during the wake to alcoholic
refreshments. This feast and feasting is kept up until the Catholic
priest arrives to perform the funeral rites.

When the priest arrives, the corpse is done up or rather baled up in
a large and well-tanned buffalo robe, and tied around tight with a
rope or lasso made for the purpose; then six or eight men act as
pall-bearers, conducting the body to the place of burial, which is
in front of their church or chapel. The priest conducts the funeral
ceremonies in the ordinary and usual way of mortuary proceedings
observed by the Catholic church all over the world. While the
grave-diggers are filling up the grave, the friends, relatives,
neighbors, and, in fact, all persons that attend the funeral, give
vent to their sad feelings by making the whole pueblo howl; after
the tremendous uproar subsides, they disband and leave the body to
rest until Gabriel blows his trumpet. When the ceremonies are
performed with all the pomp of the Catholic church, the priest
receives a fair compensation for his services; otherwise he
officiates for the yearly rents that all the Indians of the pueblo
pay him, which amount in the sum total to about $2,000 per annum.

These Pueblo Indians are very strict in their mourning observance,
which last for one year after the demise of the deceased. While in
mourning for the dead, the mourners do not participate in the
national festivities of the tribe, which are occasions of state with
them, but they retire into a state of sublime quietude which makes
more civilized people sad to observe; but when the term of mourning
ceases, at the end of the year, they have high mass said for the
benefit of the soul of the departed; after this they again appear
upon the arena of their wild sports and continue to be gay and happy
until the next mortal is called from this terrestrial sphere to the
happy hunting-ground, which is their pictured celestial paradise.
T