84 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [bull, 55 



other uses, hvrjlcowapa {biy^ ye, three or more — them; k'owa, husk, 

 skin; pa, make). The Icowaju are handed over to the master at the 

 end of the day, and the ordinary ears are tossed up on the roof or on 

 a platform built of cotton wood poles and branches, or are laid on a bed 

 of logs — in any place that is dr}^ and well drained. 



When the husking is finished the master clears away the husks, rak- 

 ing them over to find piles of k'owaju unwittingly covered up in the 

 heap, and next day he makes the Tc '\ji) oj) Ue {^'u, corn; ''op'Ue, braid), 

 fastening the k'owaju in a long braid by means of the strips of husk 

 attached to them. Most men sort the Tcowaju according to color, 

 making one braid (Spanish risti'o) of blue ears, another of white, and 

 so on. It is recognized that a crop of corn will always be more or 

 less mixed in color; that, if one sows all blue corn, "some white is 

 sure to mix in it from another field." But most men, by continuing 

 to select the whole blue and whole white ears each year for seed, keep 

 up approximately a white strain and a blue strain. 



The ristras when finished are set up to dry, resting on the points of 

 the ears, and afterward are hung over the parapet of the roof. 



Certain ears are saved for seed with the husk on; these are called 

 1c od-e, or JcO'ie]cowa7)wog.ebo''°{]cO'ie,e,2iV of corn; ]cowa,iikm\ ywog.ebo''*, 

 withal). It is said that these are not husked until the spring, when 

 the kernels are sown before any of the other seed. Some husked ears 

 of white corn set apart in the houses have spruce twigs tied on them. 



Dwarf corn, parched and made into ristras^ is hung on the parapet 

 to dry. 



All this is man's work. 



Miss C. D. True informed the writer that the seed corn is the sub- 

 ject of a winter ceremony ^ in which all the heads of houses take part, 

 and that after this ceremony it may not be touched except by the head 

 of the house. ^ 



Seed corn should be kept over until the second year; that is, corn 

 gathered in 1912 should be sown in 1914. If sown the very next year, 

 it is supposed to germinate less quickly. 



An informant at San Ildefonso gave the same rule: 



The old women are like that; they know from very old times, and they keep the 

 corn for seed; some they sow the next year, but some they keep for the year after.* 

 Then, if no corn should grow this year there would still be some to sow the year 



I Possibly identical with the Winter Solstice Ceremony at Hano. See Fewkes, Amer. Anthr., n. s., 

 I, no. 2, pp. 251-276. 



2The statement is made, but on doubtful authority, that the Keresof Santo Domingo represent in 

 their August dance the coming of messengers from destitute pueblos to beg seed-corn from Santo 

 Domingo. 



sFray Juan de Escalona, writing in October, 1601, from San Gabriel in the Tewa country, says that 

 "the captain-general and his officers have sacked the villages, robbing them of their com of which 

 they had six years' store, so that now they are eating wild seeds mixed with charcoal." (Quoted by 

 Torquemada, Monorchia Indiana, lib. v. ) 



