FAR»oNs] PERSONAL LIFE 243 



(duride) which we may note, incidentally, was the term first appHed 

 to the railway with its flashing locomotive lights. The witch light 

 jumps from place to place. Witches are abroad in particular during 

 ceremonial by the medicine societies. If an attendant at a ceremony 

 faints, the inference is that his or her spirit has gone abroad on witch- 

 craft. When the medicine societies initiate a new member, the witch 

 society feels called upon to initiate one also.'' After lolling a person 

 the witch society may exhume him to initiate him.'* A witch will 

 lurk about the graveyard in the form of an animal.'^ An animal may 

 be sent to do harm by a witch. In one case it was a burro the witch 

 woman sent to bite a boy. The boy's father killed the burro. 

 Witches put on the skins of animals or birds to go to their meeting. 

 The witch ceremony is called na'ihu,-" meaning to pack or put below 

 something. It is nashau, of their own will power. The prime dif- 

 ference between asking a witch or asking a medicine man to help you 

 in any undertaking is that after you succeed the medicine man 

 removes from 3^ou the "power" he has imparted to you, whereas the 

 witch does not, and the "power" may abide with you for life in 

 punishment for having resorted to it, something hke the affliction of 

 King Midas. 



As in other pueblos, certain persons are reputed'to be witches and 

 more or less feared. A woman of Laguna descent was mentioned, 

 and her San Felipe husband. "They say they are both witches." 

 One time this woman asked Lucinda to sell her a piece of pottery. 

 LucLnda refused. A friend of Lucinda remonstrated: "Sell it to her. 

 She is a witch. She might hurt you." "No, she can't hui't me," 

 retorted Lucinda. Lucinda 's husband was ever very set against 

 ha^dng visitors in their house: "They might bewitches," he would 

 say. As at Zuni, anyone peering into another person's window 

 renders himself suspect. Witches are abroad at night until cockcrow, 

 Avhen their time is up. One midnight when returning from boarding 

 school Lucinda had to walk home from the railway station. She 

 heard loud breathing behind her. She would take a step and then 

 have to stop, she felt so heavy and constrained. Lentil cockcrow 

 something kept her on the road; she could not reach home. Recently 

 Lucinda had to go out one night and at the corner of her house she 

 saw a man jumping up and down four times, as if he were starting to 

 fly. She called, "Who are you?" No answer. Again she called. 

 No answer. She said, "I will throw a stone unless you say who you 

 are." "It's me," said the man. "What are you doing?" "Not 

 your business." But it became her business because she thought of 



1" See p. 430. i« See p. 249. 



" See pp. 249, 438. -■» See p. 386. 



