88 THE DESERT AND THE ROSE 



step out on the porch, and lift our eyes to the high 

 mountains. The fires still burn. 



Professor Bandelier, the noted Santa Fe arch- 

 eologist, once expressed an opinion in regard to the 

 Indian which applies almost as well to the Mexican. 



"It is vain to deny that the Southwestern village 

 Indian is "not an idolater at heart," but it is equally 

 preposterous to assume "that he is not a sincere 

 Catholic." Only he assigns to each belief a certain 

 field of action and has minutely circumscribed each 

 one." 



At the same time, there are ceremonious occa- 

 sions in which Catholic and Paean ideas are com- 

 mingled naively enough, such for instance as that 

 alluded to in a former chapter, when a statue of 

 the Virgin is carried around during the green-corn 

 dance, her guard of honor consisting of naked and 

 bedaubed individuals beating tom-toms and firing 

 guns, all this being intended to propitiate the Rain- 

 God. Their dancing before the Catholic Church on 

 feast days presents itself also as a composite rite. 



It is claimed on good authority that all the Indians 

 are believers in magic and witchcraft, and the bulk 

 of the Mexicans in witchcraft. In the large Indian 

 pueblos in close touch with Americans nothing: buf 

 the near presence of white people has more than 

 once prevented wholesale uprisings against "witch- 

 es;" and even as it is isolated specimens of the 

 craft, male and female, are occasionally, though se- 

 cretively, killed according to the ancient and pre- 

 scribed Indian method of dealing with witches. Yet 

 it by no means follows that these believers in super- 



