256 Kansas Academy of Science. 



nually appointed for the purpose goes to the house of the deceased, 

 obliterates the sun drawing encircling the image of the dead, car- 

 ries the effigy, basket of eatables, water-jar and everything that 

 pertained to the departed to the edge of a canyada to the east of 

 the low mesa east of the village, and hurls them to the valley be- 

 low. Over them he then sprinkles sacred meal for a moment. 

 This completes the ceremonies ; the journeying soul has reached 

 the land of bliss. 



THE ANIMAL DANCE. 



In the first act of this dance, as seen by the writer in February, 

 1900, the medicine- men took all their medicine accouterments to 

 the plaza and laid them in a row in a line with the sun, with the 

 most important one, according to the Indian notion, heading the 

 list, then the next most important, and so on till the long row was 

 completed. Beginning at the head of the list, they were arranged 

 as follows: Idols, bowls of corn pollen and corn-meal, groups of 

 eagle feathers, medicine beads, the skins of snakes and birds, the 

 left front legs of bears, bunches of rabbit wool, and the head cover- 

 ings of beasts. When the things of medicine were arranged, the 

 men of the village, followed by the women, passed down the long 

 line in a stooping position and, each one having blown his breath 

 on his left band, stroked the curios one by one with it as he sprinkled 

 the sacred meal over them at the same time with his right hand. 

 The Indian believes that the strength, cunning or health powers 

 of the medicine things they thus stroke and sprinkle with sacred 

 meal will be imparted to them. 



As soon as all had stroked and sprinkled sacred dust on each of 

 the things in the medicine line the curios were removed from the 

 plaza, and two men, carrying parallelepiped-shaped drums made of 

 corn husks, entered the plaza and seated themselves on opposite 

 sides of the public dancing area so as to face each other. They 

 then began to beat their curious-looking musical instruments with 

 drum-sticks that resembled potato-mashers, except that they were 

 were much larger. Scarcely had they seated themselves when the 

 caciques and "principals" gathered around them and began to 

 chant and gesticulate to the earth, the animals, and the other sacred 

 things on the earth, and to those above. 



This chanting was only just beginning when men, dressed in 

 the skins of animals or birds, all wearing masks as near as possible 

 in the natural shape of the head of the animal or bird they respect- 

 ively represented in imitation, came cantering, galloping, crawling 

 or "flying" from one of the dressing-rooms to the plaza and com- 



