STEVENSON.] RAIN CEREMONIAL. 101 



dipped a piece of bread into the stew, left the house and threw the food 

 to the cardinal points, as the ho'miaite had done the previous night, 

 and, returning, removed the bowl of stew and basket of bread to the 

 northwest corner of the room. He then swept the floor with his two 

 eagle plumes, beginning some 18 inches in front of the altar (the line of 

 meal remaining perfect to this point) to the point where the blanket 

 was to be placed, and then laid the blanket and made the meal lines, 

 the change in the drawing of these lines being that the liiie was begun 

 at the line of meal which extended in front of the altar and lan over 

 the blanket to the entrance of the room ; then beginning in the center 

 of the blanket, the line was extended across to the north wall, and 

 again beginning in the center, a line was run across to the south wall. 

 The writer mentions this deviation in the drawing of the meal lines, 

 though she believes it was a mere matter of taste on the part of the 

 worker. Instead of the vice ho'naaite receiving the child at the outer 

 entrance, the man who sat between him and the ho'naaite brought the 

 child into the room, and he was led out by the ti'iimoni. Upon this 

 occasion, and on the third and fourth nights, the child walked into and 

 out of the room, an indication that he was in better physical condition 

 than on the first night of the ceremony. The songs on the second night 

 were addressed to the bear of the west instead of the cougar of the 

 north. The child did not seem to move a muscle throughout the cere- 

 mony, except when he stepped to his position on the blanket. 



The scenes on the third and fourth niglits were coincident with those 

 of the second, with a few variations. The man who sat between the 

 ho'naaite and his vicar dipped the ashes with his plumes and sprinkled 

 the altar, and, returning to his seat, the vicar laid the blanket and 

 sprinkled the meal lines in the same manner as on the previous night; 

 he also procured the child. When dancing before the altar two men 

 wore bear-leg skins on their left arms, and two others wore them on their 

 right arms. It was noticed that the skins were drawn over the arms 

 upon which the amulets were worn. Their dancing and incantations 

 were even more turbulent and more weird than on the two former 

 nights. 



The songs the third night were addressed to the badger of the soirth 

 and on the fourth to the wolf of the east. 



RAIN CEREMONIAL OF THE KNIFE SOCIETY. 



While the ho'naaite and his vicar sat during the morning making 

 hii'chamoui they rehearsed in undertones the scmgs of their cult. The 

 membership of this society consists at the present time of five men and 

 two boys, and two novitiates, a man and a boy. 



The sun was far to the west when the members came straggling in 

 and the ho'naaite i)roceeded to set up the slat altar (PI. xxii «). Then 

 each man to(jk from the wall a soiled buckskin sack. The well-wrapped 

 ya'ya was first taken out and then other fetiches. After the ho'naaite 



