80 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. 63 
past, it was a revelation to Mrs. Stevenson when she found that this 
rite was observed by the Tewa at the present time; and, while it is 
known to exist only in two of the villages, she has every reason to 
believe that they are not exceptions. In one village the subject is the 
youngest female infant. In the other village an adult woman is sacri- 
ficed, a woman without husband or children being selected whenever 
possible. The sacrificial ceremonies occur in the kiva. The subjects 
are drugged with Datura meteloides until life is supposed to be ex- 
tinct. At the proper time the body is placed upon a sand painting 
on the floor before the table altar and the ceremony proceeds amid 
incantations and the most weird performances. The infant is nude, 
Fic. 77.—Lucindra Jackson, Yonkalla tribe, Kala- 
puya family. Photograph from Frachtenberg. 
and the woman is but scantily clad. The rattlesnakes, which have 
been starved, are turned loose from the pottery vases and allowed 
to feast upon the body until not an atom of flesh remains. The 
skeleton is then deposited, with offerings, beneath the floor of an 
adjoining room of the kiva. The entire ceremony is performed with 
the greatest solemnity. 
NOTES ON THE ALSEA AND KALAPUYAN INDIANS 
The opening of the year found Dr. Leo J. Frachtenberg in Siletz, 
Oregon, completing the linguistic and ethnological studies that were 
commenced in 1910, among the Alsea Indians. In addition to im- 
