1898^ Fiesta of San Juan 



secret shrines lay little bunches of feathered "prayer S 

 sticks"; sacrificial caves offered refuge from the 

 thunderstorm due regularly every afternoon; and 

 a single, crumbling cliff-house, secreted under the 

 remote edge of the south mesa, bore its own un- 

 fathomed portent. 



A half mile from the town lies the great rock 

 water-tank or reservoir filled by summer rains. 

 From it daily files of women move statuesquely 

 over rough and narrow trails across the "crag 

 hyphen" which joins the two mesas, a gay tinaja 

 securely balanced on each head. 



Our last day at Acoma was marked by the cele- 

 bration of the Fiesta of San Juan. This began 

 early with a beating of drums, followed by a pro- 

 cession through the pueblo and down the great 

 trail. But the principal event of the day was the A gdio 

 gallo (cock) race, in which lusty youths upright in e 

 their saddles on swift ponies dashed by, trying to 

 grasp by the neck a cock hung high above. In the 

 final ceremony, that of bread-giving, women tossed 

 bread and other gifts from the housetops to the 

 participants in the race. 



General enjoyment of San Juan's day was some- 

 what diminished by the arrival that morning of 

 the devoted Miss Taylor, medical missionary at 

 Acomita, whose painful duty it was to vaccinate a 

 round hundred wailing kids. As we ourselves pre- 

 viously discovered, smallpox had broken out in one 

 of the homes; and vaccination is the white man's The white 

 effective incantation against one of the Indian's man ' sin ~ 



f , cantation 



awiui scourges. 



631 3 



