184 Field Columbian Museum — Anthropology, Vol. IX. 



more important part in the latter ceremony. In the Cheyenne cer- 

 emony the area to be painted is found by measuring, the one doing 

 this work being accompanied only by the Lodge-maker, who does the 

 painting. The remainder of the priests continue to rest half-way be- 

 tween the secret tipi and the lodge. In the Arapaho ceremony all the 

 principal Rabbit-tipi priests, including the wife of the Lodge-maker, 

 take part in the rite of painting the poles, the places where the poles 

 are to be painted being indicated by the chief priest with a pipe stem 

 and by his wife with the feathers of the wheel. In the fork of the 

 center-pole in the ceremony of each tribe is the Thunder-Bird's 

 nest. That of the Cheyenne contains a digging-stick, a damaged 

 arrow, and a small human image. That of the Arapaho contains a 

 buffalo robe, with ceremonial attachments, and a digging-stick. The 

 Thunder-Bird nest of the Arapaho is of willows ; that of the Cheyenne 

 of dogwood and cotton-wood. The dance on the night of dedication 

 the Cheyenne call the hand-and-arm drill, the Arapaho call it 

 the dance to the Four-Old-Men. On the morning of the altar the 

 Arapaho dance to the rising sun; the Cheyenne do not. The buffalo 

 robe of the Lodge-maker, prepared in the secret tipi among the 

 Cheyenne, is reinforced by nine bits of rabbit skin; among the 

 Arapaho by an equal number of medicinal roots, each one of different 

 magic power. In each performance the priests leave the lodge 

 to secure sods. In the Arapaho performance the movement of the 

 line of priests imitates that of the path of flying geese. The Arapaho 

 require for their altar two ceremonial pieces of sod arranged one on 

 either side of the buffalo skull. The Cheyenne require five, arranged 

 about the skull, and broken up and connected so as to form a semi- 

 circle. A comparison of the finished altar of the two ceremonies re- 

 veals the following differences, in addition to the ones just noted, 

 and the difference in the decoration of the skulls. The excavation 

 in front of each skull was painted, that of the Arapaho half black 

 and half red, that of the Cheyenne in four different colored lines; 

 over the excavation in the Arapaho ceremony were seven rainbow 

 sticks, half of each of which were painted black and half red; the rain- 

 bow sticks of the Cheyenne altar were four in number, each painted 

 differently, to correspond to the four lines of paint in the excavation; 

 on each side of the excavation in the Arapaho altar were two billets of 

 wood; these were absent in the Cheyenne altar; the nine sticks 

 symbolic of men on each side of the excavation in the Cheyenne altar, 

 comprising the Cheyenne sticks painted black and red, and the enemy 

 sticks painted white, were replaced by seven sticks on each side of 

 the excavation in the Arapaho altar, those on one side being painted 



