258 THE PIMA INDIANS Ieth. ann. 26 



horse, "a piece of calico," or the hkc. Throujjhout the period of his 

 initiation the novice was not permitted to go near a woman's men- 

 strual lodge nor might he allow anyone to know that he was learning ; 

 that implied that he should not practise until the end of the novitiate 

 period, usually two years, sometimes four. \Mien at length he began 

 to practise his success depended on his ability to develop dreams 

 and visions. 



While the Si'atcokam can induct any young man into the mysteries 

 of the order, that man's son can not inherit his father's profession. 



Legerdemain 



The Makai were intrusted with the important duty of securing 

 supernatural aid to insure good crops. One method of procedure 

 was to gather the people in the large lodge and have some one bring 

 in an olla fillod with earth. This the Makai stirred with a willow 

 stick and placed before a clear fire, where it stood all night while 

 rain songs were being sung. At dawn the olla was emptied and was 

 found to contain wheat instead of earth. Four grains were given 

 to each one present, to be buried at the corners of the fields or the 

 four grains together at the center. 



For a consideration the Makai would go to a wheat field and per- 

 form rites which he assured the owner would result in a heavy yield 

 of wheat. After rolling and smoking a cigarette at each corner of 

 the field, he would go to the center of it and bury a stick (a'mlna) 

 3 or 4 inches long. 



To cause an abundance of melons and squashes, the Makai entered 

 the field and took from his mouth — or, as his followers supposed, 

 from the store of magic power in his body — a small melon or squash. 

 The object was partially covered with hardened mud, symbolic of 

 the productive earth. The rite was performed at a time when no 

 melons or squashes had yet appeared, and it is supposed that he 

 obtained the ''magic" melon by stripping the outer leaves from the 

 growing end of young vines. This was buried at the root of a 

 growing plant to insure a prolific yield. 



Again, the germination and growth of wheat were sometimes 

 imitated by concealing several grains of wheat in the hair and shaking 

 them down upon the soil. Then by a dextrous manipulation of a 

 previously prepared series of young wheat shoots the growth was 

 represented up to the point where a stalk 2 feet in length was 



from the woods: and there they taught them to form certain figures on tablets, and when perfect in 

 these, they were taught others, as children in our .schools are taught to write. . . . But their 

 most usual device was to hold up in their hjinds some little tablets of wood made with great labour, for 

 want of iron tools of mesquite, or another hard wood called Una de Gato, on which were painted 

 some grotesque figures, affirmed to be the true copy of the table, which the visiting spirit left with them 

 at his departure to heaven: and these figures were the same which the Loretto professors [medicine-menj 

 taught the boys at their private academy." Venegas, History of California, i, 98, 100. 



