Children of the Sun

Falling Leaf strolled languidly across the plaza of her home village of Shipolovi. A Hopi maiden of seventeen, she had attended the government high school at Oraibi during the current year. School had been pleasant, the studies not too difficult, and, now that vacation was here, her resumption of village home life had been accomplished quickly and without friction. The way of the Hopi was a fine way of life. It was still the season for the outdoor dances that would bring the summer rains, the corn and squash and melons were planted, and, even more interesting, a number of the village boys who had been to school in Phoenix and Riverside were home for the summer. One boy had shown a particular interest in her during the picnic trip the day after the Hunters' dance. The girl entered her home and her reverie was sharply interrupted by her mother. Hopi school girls, home for vacation, have routine household tasks to perform, and these may not be neglected for day dreaming. The mother directed her daughter to assist in the preparation of the evening meal, reminding her that the men would soon be back from the fields. Yet, even as she rebuilt the fire in the little stove, Falling Leaf's thoughts continually slipped back to the picnic trip and the boy with the strong, handsome face who had smiled so often at her.

In Hopiland, the summer is a season of many activities. Rarely a week passes without a short ceremonial dance in one or another of the villages. The young men and girls arrange rabbit drives, creating their own opportunities for courting. A rabbit hunt is announced and the girls begin preparation of little cakes of cornmeal, tied in corn husks and boiled. On the appointed day, the young people leave the village early, scamper down the trail and out into the valley, where they form a large circle. Each hunter carries a rabbit-stick, carved from tough mountain oak and roughly resembling a boomerang. The circle of hunters slowly contracts and the rabbits caught within its limits flee toward the center. One of the hunters throws his rabbit-stick and a good-natured scramble ensues. The air is full of flying sticks and scurrying rabbits. When the first rabbit is hit, all the girls race to claim the fallen animal. The winner of the race returns to the hunters and coyly rewards the killer of the rabbit with some of the little cakes that were prepared before leaving the village. He, in turn, politely offers to share his reward with all the other young men. The hunt develops into an all-day picnic, with all the amorous byplay usually present at such affairs. By evening the group has fairly well resolved itself into couples, and each maiden presents what remains of her corn cakes to the man of her particular interest. He will take these home and present them to his parents, thereby announcing his romantic inclinations. This may or may not lead to a wedding.

Marriage among the Hopis is a highly involved affair, requiring the consent, not only of the parents of the prospective bride and groom, but of other relatives as well. The maternal uncles are invariably consulted. Clan relationships must be considered; no Hopi may marry within his own clan. Eventually, the mothers make the decision as to the desirability of the match, for the mother owns and rules the home, including the children and the harvest. All children are of the mother's clan. The man of the house may dance in the ceremonies, he may be the leader of the interminable discussions of village affairs, and he will slave in the fields to conjure a crop of corn. He plants with patience and ceremony-so many kernels for the hot wind, so many for the field rat, so many for the ground worms, build a small stone fence around each individual hill to protect the tender shoots. In fact, he will grow corn where no other farmer would consider it possible. Yet, when the crop is harvested and the Hopi share carried across the home threshold, that corn belongs to his wife, and not one ear may be removed without her consent. Among the more conservative Hopis, he may not even punish his own children. The mother's brothers are called upon for this task. So it is with marriage.

Since earliest spring, all the men and boys of the village have been on the lookout for eagle nests. When a nest is found its location is reported to the members of the Eagle clan, who maintain a careful watch until the newly hatched birds appear ready to fly. The eaglets are then captured and taken the village, where they are chained to the housetops. The captured birds are fed on mice and rabbits and, in general, receive the attention reserved for distinguished guests. In late July the Niman Kachina dance will be held and, on the day following the dance, all the eagles will be killed. A member of the Eagle clan climbs to each housetop, sprinkles some blessed cornmeal in symbolic patterns and breathes a prayer to the appropriate spirit. Covering the bird with a blanket, he returns to the ground, choking the eagle to death as he descends the ladder. The feathers are plucked from the dead eagles by the Eagle priests, sorted and stored for use in the ceremonies. The tail feathers are used on Kachina masks; the wing feathers will be sewed along the sleeves of the costumes worn in the Eagle dance, similating the eagle's wings; the small feathers and down will be reserved for the making of prayer-sticks. On each of the four corners of the wedding robes to be worn by new brides will be fastened small bundles of prayer feathers from the breast of the eagle, near the heart.

Death, too, comes to the Hopis, and a plentiful supply of the essential eagle feathers must be at hand for the making of pahos. When the medicine man seeks to drive away the evil that causes illness, he places a paho of eagle feathers on the path leading away from the village. Otherwise, the evil spirit may not even know which direction to travel. Should the ministrations of the medicine man prove ineffective and the patient die, the spirit must be helped on its journey to the Underworld.

The bodies of the plucked eagles are buried in the eagle burying ground at the foot of the mesa. Food is placed in the grave and prayers are offered, as in the case of a human.

After the death of a Hopi, a woman of the family washes the hair with yucca-root suds and otherwise prepares the body for burial. A cotton mask is tied over the face. A prayer paho, of the finest eagle down, is bound to a lock of hair with cotton yarn and made to fall forward over the face. In the case of a woman, her wedding robe is used as her shroud; a man is wrapped in an ordinary blanket. The body is arranged in a sitting position in a corner of the room. An official mourner is designated by members of the family, and it is the duty of this individual to scold the dead person for going away and causing sorrow in the village. The burial is conducted at night by the father or nearest male relative, with one male relative to assist in carrying the body from the mesa to the burial ground in the flat below. Here the corpse is placed in the grave in a sitting position. No train of mourners accompanies the funeral party.

The men return to the house and participate in puri fication ceremonies which include the house as well as their persons. Sacred meal is sprinkled throughout the room, pinon twigs are burned in the fireplace and the men bathe hands and feet. Only then may they rejoin the family circle and the routine of family life be resumed.

Prayer feathers, attached to cotton yarn, are placed at the grave to point out the direction the spirit must travel to its future home in the Underworld. For four days food and prayer-feathers are placed at the grave. During the ensuing months new pahos are placed in rock shrines at a distance from the village, where they may be found by the spirit of the dead.

During the latter part of July, each village holds its Niman Kachina or Going Home dance. This is the last dance of the Hopi year in which the Kachinas participate. At the end of the dance these half-gods, kindly guardians of village well-being, disappear over the edge of the mesa and off into the distance toward the San Francisco mountains. There they will remain until the first winter ceremony is held in November. The Niman Kachina ceremony lasts for eight days. The first seven days are spent in the kiva, an underground ceremonial room, where the participants conduct the secret rites and make the pahos to be presented to the Kachinas during the public dance on the eighth day. As many as fifty fantastically costumed dancers may participate in the dance, each wearing a grotesque mask and colorful headdress. The dance drama is brilliantly performed to the difficult rhythms of chanted story songs. The vibrant booming of the single accompanying drum reaches to the farthest corner of the village, its hypnotic cadences hurrying the people toward the dance plaza. The dance lasts all day, with brief intermissions during which the mud heads, or clowns, perform their comic pantomimes for the entertainment of the audience. Spectators perch themselves at every available vantage point, including the roofs of the houses surrounding the plaza.

Late in the afternoon, just before the last appearance of the dancers, all the village brides, married since the last Niman Kachina dance, enter the plaza. After her wedding, no bride may attend any village dance until the next Niman Kachina dance. Now, accompanied by her mother-in-law, each bride takes her place behind the dancers. Dressed in complete wedding costumes of pure white robes, buckskin moccasins and leggings and long fringed woven belts, and carrying the traditional reedrolls, the brides present a very pretty picture.

The Niman Kachina dance is hardly over until pre parations are begun in the kiva for the best known of all Hopi dances, the Snake dance. The ceremony lasts eight days, with the public dance limited to a short period late in the afternoon of the last day. The rites are announced by the village crier, who ascends to a housetop, and, in a voice of amazing carrying power, informs the villagers that the ceremony will begin after so many days. In four days, members of the Snake society go out into the desert to hunt for the snakes to be used in the dance, each day heading in a different direction. Each hunter carries a large sack to hold the captured snakes, a sack of sacred cornmeal and a feathered snake whip. The snakes are tracked down, sprinkled with meal and then stroked with the snake whip until they uncoil, when the hunters seize them behind the head and thrust them into the snake sacks. While some of the snakes will be common bull snakes, the most desirable and the largest number will be vicious desert rattlesnakes.

The snakes are taken to the kiva for purification ceremonies. Here they are washed and sprinkled with sacred meal, in preparation for their public appearance in the dance. On the day of the dance, a snake house of cottonwood branches, or kisi, is constructed in the dance plaza, over a hole in the rock. A bag of snakes is placed in this hole just before the dancers enter the plaza, and the hole is covered with a board. Soon the Antelope dancers appear. They circle the dance area four times, and as each dancer passes the snake hole, he stamps his foot vigorously on the board. This is to advise the snakes that the dance has begun. The Antelope dancers sprinkle the area with sacred meal, chanting a weird song of forgotten origin, and then form a line across the plaza.

Now the Snake dancers enter the plaza, their painted faces and bodies frozen in the rigid postures of the fanatical dance. They circle the plaza four times, and they, too, stamp violently on the board covering the snake hole. A new chant is begun by the Antelope dancers, and the Snake dancers assume positions facing them. The kisi is blessed by a Snake priest. The Snake dancers divide into pairs and, as each pair approaches the kisi, the Snake priest thrusts his arm into the hole and draws out a snake. The snake is quickly passed to one of the two partners, who thrusts it out in front of his face, while his partner gently strokes the hissing reptile with his feather whip, attracting its attention from the carrier. Now the dancer places the twisting snake in his mouth, holding it at about the middle of its length. The snake's head and tail are free to twist in any direction.

The pair of dancers completely circle the dance area, and the snake is then dropped to the ground. Another dancer, called the gatherer, will confine the now fightingmad snake to the limits of the dance area by the judicious use of his feather snake whip. Other pairs of dancers receive their snakes from the Snake priest, circle the plaza and release the snakes. Soon the entire dance area is a mass of twisting, squirming snakes and grotesquely painted dancers, gyrating against a background of ancient chants and the colorful costumes of every last spectator who could squeeze into the limited space around the plaza. Truly, it is a barbaric festival.PAGE TWENTY-FIVE OF ARIZONA HIGHWAYS FOR JULY, 1947

Finally, the supply of snakes is exhausted. A large circle of sacred meal is inscribed in the center of the plaza, and all the snakes are gathered within its limits. At a signal from the Snake chief, certain of the dancers catch up great handfuls of the writhing snakes, rush down the trails to the desert below, and there release them to carry the message of the Hopis' need for rain to the Rain gods. The runners return to the village, and all of the dancers go to the kiva for purification rites.

Before the night is over, the rain will come. It never fails. No sickly drizzle follows the Snake dance, but a downpour of cloudburst proportions. Surely, the Snake brothers of the Hopis were pleased with the ceremony and have interceded with the proper gods. Was not the Snake dance the enactment of a prayer for rain?

The excitement of the dance had barely subsided when Falling Leaf's family had occasion for a celebration of its own. A new baby was born to Falling Leaf's oldest sister, and while the home already was crowded, room would be found for the newcomer. Hopi babies are always welcome.

When a Hopi woman goes to her ordeal, she goes alone. Carrying a perfect ear of corn, selected when she first learned that she is to have a child, she enters the prepared room and closes the door. No one may enter until the first cry of the newly born child is heard. The grandmother then goes into the room to assist in caring for the baby. For nine days, the mother must remain in a darkened room, and for twenty days, the sun may not shine on her, nor may she wear her moccasins. The passing of the days is recorded by scratching marks on the wall of the room; a perfect ear of corn is placed under each mark. Later, this corn will be ground into the sacred meal to be used in the naming ceremony, on the twentieth day.

During the nineteenth night, pigame, a kind of sweet mush pudding, has been baking in an underground pit. A mutton and hominy stew boils over the fire. Soon the guests begin to arrive, each bearing trays of finely ground meal or perfect ears of corn. Bowls of yucca-root suds are prepared for the washing of the mother and child.

Four lines of sacred meal are drawn on the floor of the room; an eagle feather paho is placed where they cross in the center. A bowl of yucca suds is placed over the paho, and here the mother kneels and dips her hair into the bowl. The baby is washed with yucca suds, and its entire body rubbed with ashes from the fireplace. Corn pollen is sprinkled on the baby's face, and white cornmeal is patted over its body. All present, except the mother, dip ears of corn into the yucca suds and lightly touch the child's head, at the same time suggesting names for the newest member of the family.The father leaves the room and climbs to the house-top, to watch for the coming of the sun. The baby is placed in a cradle-board, its face carefully covered with a tiny blanket. Now, the father warns that the sun is about to rise above the distant horizon. The maternal grandmother carries the baby in its cradle-board and, accompanied by the mother, dressed in her wedding robes, rushes to the edge of the mesa. All of the guests follow. Just as the rim of the sun appears above the horizon, the grandmotherremoves the blanket from the cradle-board and allows the light to shine full on the baby's tiny face. Uttering a prayer for the health and happiness of the child, she casts a handful of sacred meal toward the sun, at the same time repeating the name she has selected from those suggested at the washing rites.

Family and guests now return to the house to enjoy the feast of good things prepared during the night. Only the mother may not participate. She must go to the sweat-house to complete her purification rites, and only then may she resume her normal place in the home.

Falling Leaf's mother reminded her that the time for returning to school was near, and that preparation for this event must be started at once. The girl shyly replied that she had no intention of returning to school; that, instead, she would remain at home and marry that young man who had courted her all through the summer. Her announcement caused neither surprise nor objections on the mother's part; all through the summer she had watched the budding of the romance, pleased that her daughter had limited her attentions to this one boy.

When a Hopi girl decides that she wants a certain man for a husband, she grinds cornmeal very fine, piles it and rolled piki high in a basket plaque, and carries the plaque to the home of the young man's mother. She places the plaque on the doorstep and hurries home to await the outcome of her proposal. Should the girl be acceptable to the young man's mother, the plaque is taken into the house and the piki eaten by the boy and his near relatives. If, by any chance, the girl is not wanted as a daughter-in-law, the plaque remains on the doorstep until a brother or other male relative of the girl secretly removes it, thus saving her public embarrassment.

The cornmeal and piki offered by Falling Leaf were readily accepted by Edward's family, and soon the two mothers were busy planning for the wedding. No definite date was set; that would depend on the grinding of the cornmeal with which the bride must pay for her husband. For nearly a month Falling Leaf, with the help of women friends and other women of her family, knelt at the grinding stones many hours each day. The stacked baskets of meal grew mightily.

One evening, just after dark, Edward came to the home of his bride, to escort her to his mother's house. Now it was time for the ceremony to begin. With Falling Leaf carrying a large plaque of cornmeal, the pair returned across the plaza to Edward's home, where the real task of earning her husband confronted the girl.

Early the next morning, Falling Leaf was up and at the grinding stones. Many of the boy's maternal aunts came to the house during the day. They carefully examined the fineness of the ground meal, and loudly protested the wedding, claiming the boy to be theirs. Threats were hurled against against the girl, for wanting the boy; and against his father, for consenting to the wedding. The aunts finally left the house, but with a warning that further trouble could be expected.

Carefully concealed from visitors, the bride spent all of the next day at the seemingly endless task of grinding corn. She ground corn for Edward's mother, his grandmother and his aunts, and for all the families in his immediate relationship. The boasting of the boy's aunts that trouble could be expected was not idle talk. On the morning of the third day after the bride went to the boy's home, they assembled a large group of the women of their families at one of the homes, making especially sure to include those whose sharp tongues would lend zest to the day's program. Stringing out across the plaza toward the boy's house, each woman carried a large bowl or basket of very sticky mud. The women gathered before the house and began a fairly mild discussion of the bride's lack of qualifications and the general undesirability of the wedding. The pace of the discourse soon quickened, and all traces of mildness disappeared from the statements of the visitors. The bride's faults, real and imaginary, were proclaimed to all who would listen, and by this time quite an audience, all women, had gathered. At the first indication that this was to be the day of the aunts' visit, all the men had retired to the kivas or gone down to the fields. Woe betide the poor man caught in the vicinity. His clothes would be torn off, and his body smeared with mud.

The name-calling continued, the voices of the embattled women becoming louder and their statements more caustic. Doubt was expressed concerning the habits of the young lady, and even her morals were questioned. Suddenly, someone threw some of the sticky mud, and now the battle was on in earnest. The answers from within the house became just as rowdy as the statements from outside. The aunts' party attacked the door of the house and finally pushed it open. Rushing to the hiding place of the little bride, they daubed her face with mud, as they heaped abuse on her quivering shoulders. The father of the boy was found and dragged out into the village street. Of all the men, only he was obligated to remain at home to participate in the undignified roughhouse that is a part of every Hopi wedding. The women cut his hair and pelted him with mud until he was completely unrecognizable. They again turned their attention to the house and threw great gobs of mud at the outside, then the inside, and finally, at everyone in the vicinity. The place became a shambles, the inside a mudhole.

Tiring, at last, and running out of both mud and invectives, the women retired from the scene and returned to their homes. Falling Leaf and her parents-in-law immediately began the task of cleaning themselves and the house. By evening, some semblance of order had been established, and the house was sufficiently clean for the return visit of the women. This time they brought peace offerings of plaques, stacked high with piki. The bride's parents and relatives came to the house later in the evening, and brought great trays of cornmeal, previously ground by the bride and her friends, to be used in the actual wedding ceremony.

The following morning, long before daybreak, the families of the bride and groom assembled for the wedding. Two bowls of yucca suds were prepared and placed on the floor, side by side. The bride and groom took their places behind the bowls, squatting on the floor. The two mothers unbound and washed their hair, proclaiming them to be married and accepting them as son and daughter of both families. The bodies of the bridal pair, from the waist up, were washed in the foaming suds and, after resuming their blouses, Edward and Falling Leaf rose from the floor to mingle with their guests. They were now husband and wife. So must all Hopis enter marriage.

During the next few days many of the village people came to Edward's home to express their good wishes for the happiness and prosperity of the couple, and to bring gifts. Many brought native wild cotton, to be spun into yarn for the weaving of the bride's wedding robes. The next day the cotton was taken to the kiva where Edward belonged, and the work of spinning the yarn began. For a week many men of Edward's family spent every spare moment spinning the great balls of yarn that would be required. The women were equally busy preparing food for the spinners, who must be fed at the home of the bridegroom's parents. Much of the cooking and household drudgery fell to the new bride, who would remain in the house of her mother-in-law, working for her husband's family, until the robes had been woven.

belonged, and the work of spinning the yarn began. For a week many men of Edward's family spent every spare moment spinning the great balls of yarn that would be required. The women were equally busy preparing food for the spinners, who must be fed at the home of the bridegroom's parents. Much of the cooking and household drudgery fell to the new bride, who would remain in the house of her mother-in-law, working for her husband's family, until the robes had been woven.

A great feast was held on the day the weaving was begun. The men set up the looms in the kiva, and, after the warps were thrown, gathered at the bridegroom's house to consume great quantities of hominy and mutton stew. Day after day the weaving continued, with many of Edward's relatives taking turns at the looms. The bridegroom secured the reeds for the making of the reed roll. Other relatives completed the buckskin moccasins and leggings, whitening the soft leather with finely ground clay. At last, everything was finished, even to the attaching of the small bundles of eagle prayer-feathers at each corner of the robe and the embroidered, feathertrimmed tassels at the bottom corners. The men sent word from the kiva that the bridal procession would take place after four days.

On the appointed day the weavers delivered the wedding robes to the bride, and were rewarded with more mutton stew. Assisted by all the women of the household, Falling Leaf donned the beautiful garments and prepared for the return to the home of her mother. Carrying the reed roll in her outstretched arms, she stepped daintily through the doorway and into the plaza as the women of the groom's family, carrying bowls of food, started in the direction of the bride's family home. Falling Leaf, glancing neither to right nor to left, walked alone across the plaza, her shining white robes accenting the soft brown of her face and the brilliant black of her hair. There was an air of great excitement at the door of her mother's house as the little bride was joyfully welcomed home.Soon the bride was back at the endless task of grinding corn. Not until hundreds of pounds of meal were ground would payment for her husband and wedding robes be completed; not until then could the bride claim her husband and bring him home. Again her women friends helped, and at last the gigantic task was finished. The cornmeal was piled high on basket plaques and taken to the mother-in-law's house. That evening, after dark, Falling Leaf clasped Edward by the hand and led him across the plaza. Her mother's home would be their home from now on, or at least, until such time as the coming of their children would require the building of additional rooms to the house or the construction of a separate house close by.

The young couple quickly slipped into the routine of adult village life. Each day Edward went to the fields or to tend the sheep. Falling Leaf assumed a substantial share of the homemaking tasks and devoted much of her spare time to the weaving of the baskets for which her village is famous.

At the end of the day, as they watched the great red ball of the sun sink below the desert's rim, either might be heard to say softly, "Lo-lo-mai, life is good."

"Zuni, Pueblo of Pageantry" BY DAMA LANGLEY

Twenty miles east of the Arizona-New Mexico line is an Indian Pueblo where witches have lived, and died; where gods ten feet tall come from the hills at twilight; where swords are swallowed to the tempo of drumbeats, and where a yearly festival and feast honor a doll. That is Zuni. Almost three thousand Indians live in the red sandstone town topping a low hill beside the Zuni River winding its sluggish way toward the Little Colorado. Their remoteness from paved roads, and their complete ability to exist within their own tight little twenty thousand acre empire has kept alive their old tribal superstitions, their ancient rituals, their splendid pageantry and rare ceremonial dances. To reach Zuni the visitor must be prepared to encounter dirt roads which are slippery in summer and snow blocked in winter. U. S. 666, the connecting link between U. S. 66 and U. S. 260 passes a tiny settlement called Witch Water, and from there a dirt road leads directly into Zuni Reservation.

Years of coming and going in Zuni have not exhausted its fascinating possibilities for me, and word of the Doll Dance brought me into the pueblo early in October. I left U. S. 260 at St. Johns and drove over rolling hills dotted with juniper and pinon trees. This was a fruitful year. Rains which had slighted the reservation for many years had fallen in ample blessing and the fields yielded one of the largest harvests the Zuni remembered. Even the flocks of sheep had more lambs among them than usual. All the storage rooms were bulging with dried beans and corn and wheat, and on every house great crimson strands of peppers were drying ready to be hung inside for winter use. The soldiers were home from the war, those who would ever come, and there could be no better time to show honor to the Doll than now.

I drove across the wooden bridge at the edge of town and sat in my car watching the women at the ovens beside the river. More than a score of them were lined up with pans ready to claim their crisp loaves of bread being taken from the hive shaped ovens. Each oven was large enough to bake twenty loaves laid flat on the meal sprinkled rock floors. The outdoor oven was brought to Zuni by their Spanish conquerors and was one of the few good things the Indians accepted. Early in the morning of baking day two women selected for the task build juniper fires in each oven and keep them going until they are full of hot coals. Then the coals are raked out and the floor swabbed clean with green juniper twigs tied to a long pole. At a signal the women come from their homes bringing shaped leaves of yeast bread ready for baking. Each loaf bears the maker's identification mark and there is never a mix-up in ownership. The bakers are paid for their work by taking a certain percentage of the crisp loaves. Hundreds of loaves are baked in preparation for the feast which follows each major dance. And dozens of sheep are butchered down in the picturesque corrals at the foot of the hill. Zuni women own the houses with their four or five long cool rooms. Corner fireplaces are large enough to take three foot logs placed endways in them, and heat is thrown to every portion of the room from them. Strings of red peppers and colored corn hang on either side of them, and the kids find it a grand place to pop or parch corn in the evenings. Most of the houses have big steel ranges, sewing machines and iron bedsteads, and food is served on tables instead of on the floor in one big bowl as do the Hopi Indians. The Hopi and Zuni have more in common than any of the other eighteen pueblos but they do not speak the same language. In fact the Zuni Indians have a unique language of their own not spoken or understood by other tribles. On the morning of the Doll Dance the plaza in the center of the town is swept and sprinkled to lay the dust. Then fresh juniper boughs are brought from the hills and shaped into a sheltering bower which is hung with bright silks, ribbons, lengths of hand woven cloth, silver belts and deer skins. The ground is covered with Navajo rugs, and a painted "runner" is sent to summon the Doll. From some secret room four priests dressed-or undressed -for dancing come carrying a figure on a sort of platform with four handles. This platform is placed within the bower, and another messenger is dispatched for her guardians. Two solemn looking Zuni men appear bearing muskets so antiquated they might have belonged to the Conquistadores, and they take their stand for the day, one on each side of the bower. The Doll is quite a disappointment if one expects to see something dainty and beautiful. It is a wooden Church figure so battered by time and hard usage there are no features left. It is clothed in blue silk which is trimmed with yellow lace. Doubtful jewels are sewed here and there These picturesque Indians have held to their old ways of life.

on the cloth, but all is partly concealed by the big open mouthed purse of leather which hangs around her neck. Once the Doll is placed within her bower the Custodian displays a silver dollar and drops it suggestively into the purse as a sort of shining example. All observers are supposed to drop clinking money in there.

When the Doll is comfortably settled a team of five girls and five boys glide into the plaza from one of the narrow passage ways. The girls wear black hand-loomed dresses beneath which two inches of white petticoat beautifully embroidered appear. Over their shoulders are thrown white Hopi robes. Their stiffened wrapped leggings are white doeskin. a whole skin to each leg, and the tiny moccasins are white with blackened rawhide soles. Color is given by the brilliant parrot feather crests on their heads from which yards of bright satin ribbon cascade down their loose black hair to their knees. Each girl is burdened with silver and turquoise and shell jewelry for which the tribe is famous. A bunch of eagle feathers is clutched in each hand, and these are gently waved as the girls go through the dance steps without ever raising their modestly lowered gaze from the brown earth. The five boys are bare to the waist and are painted a turquoise blue. They wear feathers in their hair and a white woven sash around their hips. Bare legs end in blue moccasins with turned over tops of orange. All dancers form into couples and keep time to the vocal chorus of a dozen singers whose falsetto efforts compare favorably with coyote yelps. The thump of a tombe keeps singers and dancers synchronized.

Zuni tribal officers are men of experience and commonsense.

During rest periods in the dance, visitors approach and make their silver offerings. Women pour from their houses carrying baskets of bread, fruit, red peppers, frosted cakes from the trading past, and rolls of the thin piki baked on flat stones. Sun and Rain Priests appear and take charge of the food which is distributed among unfortunate Zunis.

There is little poverty in Zuni. It is a self supporting, self contained little nation to which no rations have ever been issued. No land has ever been leased to outsiders and the 6000 acres of fertile land under cultivation are held by the tribe with no individual ownership. Still there are always a few feckless families dogged by ill luck, and to such as these go offerings made to the Doll.

All day long the dance continues with different teams of singers taking turns furnishing the vocal accompaniment. Sometimes one team is not ready to retire and they stay right in there until as many as half a hundred male music makers lift their falsetto notes heavenward. When the sun goes down the Doll and her well filled purse retire for a year's seclusion.

The sun and rain priests are the calendar for the pueblo. They set dates for ceremonies which are either in supplication for rain or to thank the harvest gods for abundance. Perhaps the most famous of Zuni dances is that of the Shalako.

Some forty one days of preliminary ceremonies and preparations culminate in the all night visit of these spec-