When the snakes have all been carried in the dance, a large circle is marked on the 

 ground with the sacred cornmeal, six radii are drawn representing the sacred dimensions, 

 north, west, south, east, up and down. The snakes are then thrown into the circle and 

 sprinkled with cornmeal 



Sagebrush which may cover practically all the ground is a beautiful foil for 

 the luminous sand and delicate sky. Mesas rise out of the plains like great 

 eroded monuments, turrets and towers. Imagination is lame in picturing 

 shapes as varied and weird as Nature puts into her rock formations. Pin- 

 nacles rise before a flat smooth mass of rock streaked with delicate hori- 

 zontal lines. Erosion turns a spur of rock into a beautiful spindle or leaves 

 a tracery of lace across the hills. It etches, slashes and undermines, 

 tumbling boulders down to lie exposed for centuries and finally to be 

 swallowed up by the sand. 



The shadow of the first mesa glides across the plain changing the 

 gray green sagebrush to olive and rests at the foot of the nearer purple mesa, 

 orange-tipped by the setting sun. The day dies while yonder square- 

 topped mesa glows like molten iron, deeper red and deeper until strain- 

 ing eyes question whether its color is entirely gone. The stars come out 

 brilliantly in a moonlit sky. The artist spreads his blanket on the ground 

 and lies for hours enjoying an Arizona night as wonderful as an Arizona 

 day. All is quiet except for the baying of a mongrel dog; or perhaps a 

 belated worker in the fields sings a weird song off on the distant plain, 

 draws nearer, passes, the voice stilled as he refreshes himself at the spring, 

 then continues the song as he goes up the mesa to his home, a pueblo in 

 the clouds. 



These people, adjusted so perfectly to their surroundings, furnish for the 



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