Miscellaneous Papers. 267 



stones, in shells, and in shining silver pieces. The men wore coats 

 of bucksin and leggings and moccasins of the same material, beau- 

 tifully fringed and embroidered with shells of various kinds. They 

 also wore an outer garment of buffalo hide. The women were 

 bareheaded; the head-dresses of the men were deerskins and 

 feathers of the war eagle. To finish off these singularly rich and 

 elaborate head-dresses there was added to each a pair of buffalo 

 horns, reduced in size and weight and arranged as they grew upon 

 the animal. To give the whole dancing suit a more striking appear- 

 ance, the dancers had suspended at their backs, from the crown of 

 their heads to their ankles, a line of war-eagle feathers so arranged 

 on a buckskin cord that they kept a horizontal position. 



When they were all lined up, the drum on the south estufa 

 sounded. The dancers then danced slowly to the public dancing 

 plat. Behind them the pole was laboriously carried. On reaching 

 the plaza with it, it was set in the ground just west of the arti- 

 ficial grove. The dancers then retired to the nearest estufa, as 

 the caciques prayed and sprinkled the sacred pollen to the breeze. 



Soon the five dancers, the two men and the three women, reap- 

 peared and formed in column abreast inside the crescent arch with 

 their faces turned toward the north. The musicians came next, two 

 chanters, two drummers, and two flute players. Following these 

 came the squaws of the place. They were gaudily painted and 

 dressed. Sparkling ear pendents dangled from their ears, and ring 

 upon ring of shell beads encircled their necks and reached almost 

 to their waists in front. These squaws formed in line to dance in 

 a great circle, having the striped pole, the grove and the musicians 

 at its center ; four men danced with the squaws, one in each quad- 

 rant of the circle. In dancing, these tripped it sidewise to the left, 

 moving their feet about four inches at a step ; while, as a counter- 

 movement, they waved their hands, first the right and then the 

 left, to the time of the music. In these waving hands they gripped 

 ears of corn. The moving around the entire circle by each partici- 

 pant completed a dancing set. 



The women of the special dancing group of five tripped it lightly 

 five steps in succession as they alternately waved ears of corn 

 in their hands; the men vigorously stamped and shook the gourd 

 rattles they carried in their left hands and waved the bunches of 

 pine twigs they carried in their right hands. Then all wheeled 

 about so as to face the east. Then five steps more were tripped or 

 stamped ; a whirl to the south was then made. This time the 

 dancers raised their hands alternately above their heads in a vigor- 



