PARS0X3] CALENDAR 303 



CHRISTMAS EVE AND CHRISTMAS DANCES, 1925 



As we crossed the town about 10 p. m., rows of lanterns were to be 

 seen on the roofs of '* several houses, a dozen or more, and there were 

 small bonfires, one in the plaza, one in the church yard, one on the 

 outskirts, on the farther side of the drainage canal. These are the 

 night lights or fires which give the name to the season — nofe, night 

 fire, i. e., Christmas. 



The dance was to be by moiety, and the Black Eyes came out first, 

 from house 13, their house. Into the church, crowded with visitors 

 from Albuquerque and with townspeople, the dancers walked, a 

 space in the center of the church having been cleared for them by five 

 or six men, each wearing a red blanket and holding aloft a candle. 

 A dab of white paint was on their cheeks. Among these men I 

 recognized the chief of the White Corn people and the sheriff. The 

 choir of five or six men and the drummer stood near the entrance of 

 the church and from that point the 12 dancers started to dance step 

 toward the altar, in single file, men and women alternating. The 

 line turned, danced back to the choir, turned again and repeated its 

 single file movement. Then the men and women separated into 

 vis-a-vis lines, the men on the east side, the women on the west. A 

 forward bending dance step and a fourfold repetition of the move- 

 ment by the opposing fines in antisiuiwise circuit, i. e., in the second 

 movement the men faced south, the women north, etc. In changing 

 position the men shook their rattles. After this quadrillelike figure 

 the dancers went individually, first the men, then the women, to the 

 bower for Mother and Child set near the altar rail, each kneeling in 

 turn, some of the men removing their banda as they said the prayer. 

 The single line reformed and danced back to the choir, to disperse. 

 The shure' group was waiting to come in, with their choir. Between 

 the two dance groups. Black Eyes and shure', there were no distinc- 

 tions either in their dancing or in their appearance. 



The men wore the Hopi dance kilt, with pendent fox skin and girdle 

 of bells; also moccasins and leggings with red and green belting. 

 Their nude chest and back were painted with a Y-shaped design in 

 white, their forearms and hands were whitened, and there were white 

 zigzag lines on forehead, cheeks, and chin. Each wore a red banda, 

 his hair in queue. In the left hand, a bow ; in the right, a gourd rattle. 

 The women wore the native black dress, over the usual cotton sUp, 

 and the silk kerchief pendent across the shoulders. Wrapped moc- 

 casins; hair in queue, with a dowTiy white feather on top; cheeks 

 dabbed with white and hands whitened; two stifi' eagle feathers in 

 each hand. 



1* On Christmas Day on the roofs of many of the Mexican houses on the road from Isleta to Albuquerque 

 paper bags were set out, containing, it was said by a white man, "offerings to Jesus." These were not 

 observed in Isleta. 



