340 ISLETA, NEW MEXICO [eth. ann.47 



showing; his crystal to the assistants who stand in a half circle facing; 

 him. As they look into the crystal they see through all the world, 

 whence wind or rain will come, and on what day. what sickness may 

 be imminent, how long the sickness will last and how to get rid of 

 it. . . . Now the chief starts to call the wdtch who is the cause of 

 the sickness and who is in hiding at the ends of the world. The chief 

 calls him by singing his song. Every tinre he sings the witch's song 

 the witch draws closer to town. Some of the assistants together 

 with the war chief and knmpa go out to search for the witch while 

 the chief sits near the Mothers, singing to help those who have gone 

 on the witch quest. These spread out in a circle, as on any hunt, and 

 close in on the witch who is so afraid of kumpa "he does not even 

 move." The men seize him to take to their ceremonial house. 



Sometimes the witch is so strong they can not move him, and they 

 tell the war chief to shoot him with his bow and arrow. He will 

 shoot him through the body.^* His power thus broken, they carry 

 him in. Everybody looks at him and spits at him. They place him 

 near the meal basket of the altar. The chief tells those present what 

 bad things the witch has been doing, sending sickness, starving the 

 animals, etc. The chief will ask the witch if he is going to stop his 

 bad ways. He will say yes, he will, and that he will keep back the 

 bad and suffer it himself. The chief takes the blade from the altar 

 and sticks it into the body of the witch, killing him. Two assistants 

 carry him out and burn him on a pile of wood, i. e., burn his body, 

 his spirit (power, nate') leaves the village to die outside. Outside 

 the ceremonial house he looks like a grown man, inside like a little 

 boy, '*" with feathers in his hair, Comanche fashion. . . . The chief 

 addresses those present, telling them not to worry or think about it 

 any more. The sickness (naho're) is gone. If they go on thinking 

 about it the sickness will linger. The sooner they forget it, the 

 sooner it will go. . . . The assistants again brush the people, putting 

 everything they take out of their bodies (naloa) in a large bowl by 

 the door. The bowl is carried out by tw'o assistants to the ash pile 

 (nahtu), where they sprinkle its contents with water taken in a shell 

 from the medicine bowi and bury them in a hole. They ask Wjeide 

 (see p. 341) to take it all away. 



SUPERNATURALS 



There is the usual Pueblo pantheon of sun, moon, and stars; light- 

 ning, thunder, wind; of the Corn mothers (and the old women of 

 natural supplies); of the animals, including the horned serpent and 

 the ants and Spider grandmother or mother; of the kachina who are 



