white] 



MISCELLANY 139 



Other games. — There were kick-stick races between groups of boys 



or men." 



Culin also mentions a game played with cane dice.''^ 



A game called sishi is cited by Culin from Acoma. It is said that 



it was invented by Kausat, who played against the sun and lost his 



eyes/" 



Salt Gathering 



When they were living at Kacikatcuf* (White House) in the north 

 there was a woman named Mina Koya. She was the Salt Woman. 

 She quarreled with the people. They quarreled with her because 

 she was so dirty. So she left and went to the south. She stopped at 

 various places on the way, but kept on going southwest. Finally 

 she stopped where the Zuiii salt lake is now. She stopped there to 

 rest and turned into the salt lake.^^ 



The people at Acoma used to send out expeditions to the Ziini salt 

 lake to get salt. Only men from the Pumpkin and Parrot clans went. 

 One or more of the war chiefs went with them, however. When they 

 got to the salt lake they bathed. They made prayer sticks and 

 prayed. The headmen of the clans had a ho'nani. Wearing only a 

 breechcloth, the men went into the lake to gather the salt. No one 

 laughed during the time they were at work; it was a very solemn 

 occasion. When they came back to Acoma with the salt every house 

 had the sign of its clan painted on the wall by the door. The Parrot 

 and Pumpkin men distributed salt to each house.''* 



A Love Charm 



If a young man wants to make a girl who has remained indifferent 

 to his demonstrations of affection fall in love with him, he executes 

 the following formula: 



The young man fuids a spider web which has been spun over the 

 mouth of a hole in the ground. This he removes carefully and 

 preserves. In pajinent for the web he gives the spider a ball of 

 cotton which contains in its center some ya'katca (a reddish-brown 

 rock), some pollen (the beings that creep on the earth, such as ants, 

 are supposed to feed on pollen), some rabbit meat, or deer meat if 

 it can be secured, and perhaps some beads. This is deposited with 

 a prayer to the spider. 



Then the young man proceeds to the house of the girl whom he 

 wishes to win. Without being seen by anyone, he places the web 



" See Culin, p. 668. 

 " Ibid., pp. 119-121. 

 " Ibid., p. 121. 



*^ See other accounts of the Silt Woman: this is very fragmentary and incomplete. See Boas's Myths 

 and Tales from Laguna. 

 •* Compare account of salt gathering described by Doctor Parsons in Laguna Genealogies, p. 225, 



