Twinkling Star 81 



Scene 32. — As the sun begins to show his advance fingers of gorge- 

 ous colored light over the eastern mountain peaks, the clown wakes all 

 the sleepers with his trident and compels them to stand up. The chief 

 medicine people sprinkle all with sacred meal. Every one takes one 

 more drink of Indian whiskey (twiswin). The medicine dancers ap- 

 proach the sick one again. As they perform, every one joins in a 

 straight backward and forward dance within the circumscribed area. 

 The excitement becomes intense. They all shriek and shout till the hills 

 re-echo it again and again; and the drummers pound the tom-toms till 

 it seems as if the very poles of the earth have thundered. The sick 

 one makes one supreme effort to rise and join in the dance but she has 

 not sufficient strength. They lift her to a standing position, they 

 sprinkle her with the sacred dust, they rub her back and her chest with 

 scorching fir twigs, they support her in a dancing position. She makes 

 one more heroic effort to dance and become well. Greater and greater 

 becomes the excitement. The chief medicine man prays louder, the 

 shrieks and shouts of the dancers become deafening. The crisis comes. 

 In the excitement, under the influence of the hypnotic spell, the sick one 

 forgets her ailments. She dances. She takes a medicine hoop in each 

 hand. She lifts them high above her head. She leaps. She crow-hops. 

 She poses. She struts around the great fire like a turkey. She calls 

 the gods by name. She shrieks, swoons and dies. 



Scene 33. — Subtitle: "The Ceremonies over the Deceased." 



Words can not describe the scene that follows. The men weep, the 

 women wail with the hideous coyote yelping wail. They pull their hair 

 cut by handfuls, then rend their apparel and destroy their property at 

 hand. They make a rush to see the corpse. They trample over each 

 other, and it is with difficulty that they are kept from crowding one 

 another into the great fire. 



Scene 34. — They carry her to the nearest wigwam; strip, wash, and 

 dress her; bead her with all the beads of the clan; put wristlets upon 

 wristlets on her wrists; and roll her in her best robe. 



Scene 35. — They take her and all her personal belongings to the 

 mountain side and bury them beneath a pihon tree. 



Scene 36. They then return to the village and destroy everything 

 which belonged to her, both animate and inanimate, together with her 

 tepee (the horses, cattle, dogs, were stabbed to death; the other prop- 

 erty was piled up and burned). 



Insert: "The property of the deceased is destroyed that it may be 

 with her in spirit in the land of bliss." 



Scene 37. — Subtitle: "For thirty days the women mourn and wail 

 for the dead." 



Then for thirty days the women go to some secluded place and wail 

 and mourn for Twinkling Star at morning, noon, and night. 



6—25870 



