458 ISLETA, NEW MEXICO [eth. ann. 47 



55. The Haunted House 



About 12 years ago a house in Orai'bi (house 41) was lived in by my 

 comadre and a boy of Laguna descent who worked for her. He 

 called her "mother." One day as she was standing by the well she 

 dropped. Her children, a married son^" and married daughter, 

 asked the Lagima Fathers to hold a ceremony to find out the cause of 

 her death. The Fathers did so and reported that she died because 

 she had sold a ceremonial basket they called launpa hcha (basket) 

 to a white person for $150. This basket had been missing some time. 

 My comadre did not belong in a ceremony, but being a rich woman 

 she would help the medicine societies, gi%ang them what they needed. 



After a tune people began to say that they heard noises La that 

 hoiise (liouse 41), and they saw a wliite figure going up and dowm on 

 top of the second story. Then the house was rented to some Italians 

 who were building the schoolhouse. The first 'night they heard 

 noises; the second night they saw the white figure; the third night 

 one of them was seized by the foot. They were frightened and ran 

 away from the house, and did not come back to it. 



The children of my comadre asked the Laguna Fathers to hold a 

 ceremony to find out what was the matter with the house. My 

 comadre's children went to the ceremony. The chief chewed liis 

 root and went to sleep [i. e., into trance], and went to the house (house 

 41) [m spirit). On coming back he said that their mother was still 

 suffering, she was still going aroimd, during the day her soul (wai'de) 

 was at the well where she had left it. He had found it there. Also 

 he had found some money wliich she had kept plastered up m a wall 

 niche of the second story room. After the ceremony her son went 

 and opened the niche and foimd in a tin can $750, also gold rings and 

 pins and bracelets. (Six months before her death she had distributed 

 her hoiises and lands between her children.) 



During the ceremony they sent away that wai'de.''* Afterwards 

 there were no noises in the house which has since then been rented to 

 whites and Mexicans. 



56. The Hat« 



A man was living, and American hats were just coming in, and the 

 Indians wondered what they were for. This man bought a hat, and 

 the white man told him to put it on his head. As he was a bad man, 

 he thought, "This is a good way to carry my stuff on my head." 

 When he got home he said to his wife, "I have bought something 



" Pablo Abeita. 



*8 In an account from another person, a Navaho shaman had said that the old woman (i. e., her spirit) 

 was in the well, that she had been dead only two days and, if they wished, he could bring her back. But 

 they did not wish him to bring her back. 



** Heard from Tomas of Zia, whose father's brother was the man with the hat. Hats are not worn at Zia. 



