78 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. 63 
through impressive ceremonies by a priest of the kiva, just after 
birth, and is carried into the presence of the rising sun on the twelfth 
day. As the tiny infant is held up facing the sun the following prayer 
is offered to the Sun father: “ May the child grow to womanhood ; 
may she speak with one tongue, be gentle and kind to all, and may 
all be gentle and kind to her. May her life be so full of love for 
all the world, and may her acts be so pure that she may be blessed 
with the love of the Sun father, so that her span of life may be com- 
plete, that she may not die, but live long, and become a child again, 
Fic. 75 Learning to photograph. A fine likeness of the rain priest of the 
Ice People. The woman at the tub is his mother. Photograph by Mrs. 
Stevenson. 
and so sleep, not die, to awake in the world with the gods. May 
she ever inhale more of the sacred breath of life.” 
; In order that the rain priest may come into closer communion with 
the gods he must mortify the flesh. Semi-annually, at the winter and 
summer solstice, the rain priests of the Sun and Ice people retire, 
each with his associates, into the kivas for a retreat of four days and 
nights, to pray for rains, observing strict fasts, taking only meal- 
bread, and drinking popcorn water. Here it 1s that the rain gods are 
specially invoked. The rain priests do not pray with their lps— 
‘hearts speak to hearts.” While the priests practice deceptions upon 
ithe people and even delude themselves, when they leave their retreat, 
