504 ANNUAL, REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1918. 



by the fireplace and soon a ball of meal thrown into the room from 

 above lands on the floor, tramping of human feet being heard on the 

 kiva roof. The chief calls out to those on the roof to enter, at the 

 same time covering the smoldering fire with an old blanket to shut out 

 the light, after which the forms of men are seen descending the ladder. 

 As they enter the room with the customary salutation they make their 

 way to its unoccupied part and in the dim light put their screen 

 in place and arrange their paraphernalia on the floor. At a signal 

 from them that they are ready to begin, the chief removes the cover- 

 ing from the fireplace and before the astonished gaze of the audience 

 there appears stretched across the rear of the room a cloth screen 

 (pi. 3) upon which are painted various symbolic devices with figures 

 representing Com maids, Germ god, and symbolic rain clouds, light- 

 ning, and other designs. The most prominent of these are six cir- 

 cular disks arranged in line across the middle of the screen to which 

 each is attached. On each of these disks is painted a symbolic pic- 

 ture of the sun. The screen is held upright by poles, each supported 

 by a man, whose naked body is daubed with clay and who wears on 

 his head a helmet covered with projections like wens. These men are 

 the so-called Mudheads, Delight Makers, or the clowns. On the 

 floor before the screen is arranged a miniature field of corn, each 

 hill a clay cone, supporting a corn plant that has been grown in the 

 kiva. Prominent among the actors before the screen is a man dressed 

 as a woman who represents the Earth woman ; there are several men 

 with masks on which are wens or knobs representing eyes, mouth, 

 and ears. Others similarly appareled are squatted by this screen 

 along the sides of the room. Behind it are men who manipulate the 

 serpent effigies soon to be described. 



The effigies of the horned serpent used in this rite are like that of 

 the winter solstice ceremony ; a few words regarding their construc- 

 tion may be instructive. Each serpent has a head and body; the 

 former a gourd, the latter made of cloth appropriately painted and 

 stretched over rings, the size of which increases from the head back- 

 ward. The so-called backbone to which the head is attached is a 

 stick by Avhich the idol is manipulated. It has a ferrule just back 

 of the neck, to which are attached a bag with seeds of various kinds, 

 a quartz crystal, and other objects. The head is made of a gourd 

 painted black, in which the month and teeth are cut, the lips being 

 painted red ; from the mouth there protrudes a strip of red painted 

 leather representing a tongue. The eyes are bundles of seeds done 

 up in buckskin protruding like goggles from the top of the head, to 

 which is also tied a bundle of feathers and a short curved horn. 

 As the rite begins, this effigy is manipulated by a man stationed 

 behind the screen, and is slowly protruded through the opening 



