450 ISLETA, NEW MEXICO [eth. ann.47 



giving root of the medicine men) he began to rattle and sing. His 

 left hand began to tremble, his whole body trembled. His left hand 

 pointed to the bracelet and ling the thief had left behind on the floor. 

 His eyes were open. He kept moving his left hand. He was tracking 

 the thief. In about an hour his hand dropped suddenly, he had found 

 the thief. "Now, my son (inue')," he said, "rub me!" He was ex- 

 hausted. My friend, the policeman, and I rubbed him. After a 

 while he recovered. He began to laugh, and so heartily, we laughed 

 too. He told us the thief was one of our own town boys. He was a 

 young boy, at work in Albuquerque, and when he came to Isleta he 

 would stay only a day or two. In Albuquerque he was boarding 

 with his older brother. He had a mole near his left ear. He had 

 sold the jewelry, but kept the rifle. . . . My friend and I went into 

 Albuquerque. The first Indian we met was this boy. He asked us 

 to come to eat at his house. "We might come," we said. We did 

 go, and there on the wall hung the rifle. After he finished eating, 

 my friend asked the boy where he had got the rifle. "Bought it from 

 a Mexican," he said. "How much you pay?" asked my friend and 

 he look it down and on it read my name. He charged the boy with 

 stealing it. The boy said nothing. My friend got an order of 

 arrest. The boy paid for the value of the jewelry and they kept 

 him only six or seven days in jail. ... I gave a present of $10 to 

 the bkka'ade. From this I know the birka'ade has power. 



43. Other Thefts 



Mrs. A's sister had a child by a man who would not marry her. So 

 one night when the man was away from his house across the river, Mrs. 

 A. and her sister and Mrs. A's Sant Ana husband ^^ broke into the 

 house and took out the jeweliy, the blankets and buckskins to Mrs. 

 A.'s car. The owner's brothers saw the car and followed it to Albu- 

 querque, where in her house there Mrs. A. deposited the blanlcets and 

 buckskins. She returned to Isleta with the bundle of jewelry. Seeing 

 that the boys were following her, she threw the bundle into a field. 

 The boys found it and they got the Isleta policeman to arrest the 

 woman. She was one week in the jail at Isleta, and three months in 

 Albuquerque jail. 



One time the kiva ladder was stolen.''' An old man (the detective 

 Father) was working to find the thief. He was paid lots of turquoise 

 and buckskins. He said the ladder was stolen by three Indians, a 

 woman and two men, who sold it to a white man in Albuquerque. 

 After four or five years the ladder was brought back and left in the 

 churchyard. It was veiy bad luck to take the kiva ladder. People 

 think it was Mrs. A. who took it. 



»s See pp. 201,451. !» See pp. 208, 266. 



