no SADDLE AND CAMP 



weird and uncanny spectacle. Below us two 

 long lines of dancers, wearing hideous masks, 

 some with bare arms and portions of the naked 

 body painted in yellow and black, keeping time 

 to their chant, were moving up and down the 

 enclosed street with the dance step peculiar to 

 Indians. One row was blanketed, the other 

 was not. The dancers wore anklets of tortoise 

 shells with dangling deer hoofs so arranged 

 that with each step the hoof struck the tortoise 

 shell with a loud tap-tap-tap. Alongside the 

 lines of dancers, and directing them, were un- 

 costumed old men. The masks, the painted 

 bodies, the kachina symbols, and the ceremony 

 were fantastic in the extreme. 



Up and down the street, facing now one way, 

 now another, they danced, but always the same 

 dance in constant repetition and apparently 

 with no variation. This ceremony, I was in- 

 formed, was to be continued, with occasional 

 half-hour intermissions, for two days and two 

 nights, when the performers would be quite 

 exhausted through fasting, lack of sleep, and 

 practically incessant dancing and chanting. 



The Hopi religion is mainly a worship of the 

 powers of nature. From Earth, the mother, 

 and the Sky God, the father, sprang man and 

 all living things. Mother Earth is believed to 



