Collins: Pueblo Indian Maize Breeding 



257 



"With the closmg of the prayers, the 

 right hand of each worshipper is passed 

 gently over the tray — while scattering 

 prayer-meal — and breathed from. The 

 corn-matron then returns to the gran- 

 ary, bearing both the old corn and the 

 new. She replaces the old bunch of soot 

 with the new, laying the former away 

 with the fresh ears of corn, and return- 

 ing the ya'-po-to and mi-k' iap-pan-ne 

 to their resting place. 



EARS CAREFULLY SORTED. 



"When all the harvest has been 

 gathered, dried, sorted and corded up, 

 around and over the 'Father and 

 Mother' in the corn-room, the cere- 

 monial interrupted at the beginning is 

 resumed. While the com is being 

 classified as to color and grade, the 

 finest ears of each kind are selected and 

 laid aside. These, and the ears of 'new 

 corn' are together laid along the outer 

 edge of the corn-pile. Next morning 

 the corn-matron takes a basket tray — 

 perhaps the same one used before, or at 

 least one like it — and goes to the door of 

 the corn-room. Here she slips off her 

 left moccasin, then enters. As she 

 passes the threshold she looks around 

 as though she were about to address a 

 group of waiting friends and exclaims: 



" 'My mothers and children, how be 

 ye, and how have you come unto the 

 morning?' and after a moment herself 

 replies: 'Happily!' 



"Reverently, for she is in the presence 

 of the conscious and the benign — so it 

 seems to her — she approaches the cord 

 of corn and with her left hand takes of 

 the selected ears along the top, an ear 

 for each finger (that is, four), then with 

 the right hand an equal number, plac- 

 ing them in the tray. She brings these 

 forth and assisted by the male head of 

 the household, shells them with such 

 care that not a kernel is lost. Dust 

 from the old bunch of soot is scattered 

 over the shelled corn, and a curious 

 sacred pigment is prepared, in an 

 earthen ladle, of yellow paint and a 

 kernel of salt, from the mountain near 

 the lake of the dead, and the salt lake 

 in the South. To these ingredients are 

 added two or three kinds of little yellow 



flowers, the principal VarietV being Seedling ofHopi maize planted eight inches underground. 



-^ „ •„ J.1 r .1 rj •' A.-\ i. The first permanent rooti can be seen sticking out seven 



precious m the eyes of the Zuni, as that and one-half inches above the seed. (Fig. 6.) 



