500. NAVAHO HOUSES [erH. ANN. 17 
sponding timbers in a hogan. They are placed, as in the hogan, with 
the lower ends spread apart like a low tripod. Two straight sticks 
leaned against the apex form a narrow entrance, which, as in the hogan, 
invariably faces the east. Numerous other s ‘icks and boughs inclose 
the frame, and enough bark and earth are laid on to make the structure 
practically air-tight when the entrance is closed. 
When the place is to be used a fire is made close beside it, and in 
this fire numerous stones are heated. The patient to be treated is 
then stripped, placed inside the little hut, and given copious drafts 
sometimes of warm or hot water. The nearly red-hot stones are 
rolled in beside him and the entrance is closed with several blankets, 
forming in fact a hot-air bath. In a short time the air in the interior 
rises to a high temperature and the subject sweats profusely. When 
Fic. 240—Low earth-covered shelter 
he is released he rubs himself dry with sand, or if he be ill and weak 
he is rubbed dry by his friends. This ceremony has a very important 
place in the medicine-man’s therapeutics, for devils as well as diseases 
are thus cast out; but aside from their religious use, the ¢o‘tce are often 
visited by the Indians for the cleansing and invigorating effect of the 
bath, with no thought of ceremonial. The Navaho, as a race or indi- 
vidually, are not remarkable for cleanliness, but they use the ¢0‘tce 
freely. 
During the Yébitcai dance or ceremony four ¢6‘tce are set around the 
song house, about 40 yards distant from it, one at each cardinal point. 
The gagali, or chief medicine-man, sweats the patient in them on four 
successive mornings, just at dawn, beginuing with the east and using 
oneeachmorning. The ¢o‘tce on the east is merely an uncovered frame, 
and after the patient enters it and hot stones have been rolled in it is 
