252 ISLETA, NEW MEXICO 



[ETH. ANN. 47 



officers, kneeling before him, to the governor, Heutenant governor 

 and teniente, and to the war captains. (The sheriff has his badge.) 

 Now in the pubhc kiva all meet to give thanks to the outgoing officers. 



The first business of the new officers is to decide whether the dance 

 on Kings' Day and three days afterwards will be performed by Isletans 

 or by the Laguna colonists. ... In this dance, as in others, the war 

 captains appoint the dancers. The war captains call out orders for 

 the ritual hunts; they enforce the exclusion on ceremonial occasions 

 of Mexicans and wliites; they clean the roimdhouses and the church- 

 yard. For a general street cleaning the governor takes responsibility. 

 Permission to leave town on a visit must be had from the governor, 

 whom one also notifies on returning home. Arrest and punishment 

 for crime, exclusive of crimes of witchcraft, are functions of the gov- 

 ernor and his officers. Murder, in the rare cases which occur in the 

 pueblos, is a matter for the Federal court as a rule, but in 1904 there 

 occurred at Isleta a case of murder in self-defense which did not get 

 into the Federal court and which illustrates how the governor and 

 his officers may act. One night a drunken man in town was being 

 baited by some boys. To one of them he took a strap and then 

 grabbed him to choke him. The boy picked up a rock and hit 

 him. He fell dead. The boys ran away. Somebody notified the 

 dead man's father, who notified the officers. They made the roimds 

 of the town, arresting all the men who were outdoors. Next day in 

 the bush they arrested the murderer, whom the governor fined $350 

 and a team of oxen, the fine going to the murdered man's wddow. 

 The agent was informed of this settlement and agreed to it. 



The governor acted also in a recent murder case of which the story- 

 is as follows: One day a townsman told his wife he was going out 

 after his horses. He went and did not return. His wife thought he 

 had probably gone to cut adobe for a Mexican at Los Padillos about 

 whom he had told her. Wlien, after three days, he did not return, 

 she sent word to the governor. This was Saturday night. The next 

 Sunday mormng after the race the governor had the crier call out for 

 all the men and boys to ride out and search. A boy had seen the 

 mis.sing man and another man riding the same horse. The searchers 

 found horse tracks across the river and a place where two men had 

 been sitting and smoking. Then the tracks were lost in the bushes. 

 The governor had the other man arrested. He said his friend had 

 gone to Los Padillos to cut adobe. They kept the suspect in jail five 

 days. After he was released he was seen several times on the bridge, 

 crossing and recrossing. The governor was informed and the man 

 was rearrested. Twenty-two days after the disappearance of the 

 man, white engineers saw his body lying in the river with a rope 

 around legs and neck, showing the body had been weighted. The 

 white doctor who was sent for said the skull had been broken by a 



