VII. PRAYERS OF THE MEDICINE CULT 

 The Great Fire Society Chief Sets Up His Altar 



The Great Fire Society convenes for the first time in November at 

 the full moon. Before sunset the male members assemble at their 

 ceremonial house. The women bring food to the house and leave 

 their sacred corn fetishes to be placed on the altar. The tablet altar 

 has been set up against the west wall of the room. At sunset the 

 choir begins to sing very softly a set of eight songs known as "For 

 Pouring in the Water." At the beginning of the fourth song two men 

 go out to offer food in the river. The society pek^\^n rises and makes 

 the meal painting and sets up the corn fetishes. At the fifth song the 

 society chief takes the bowl for the medicine water, at the sixth he 

 mixes the medicine, at the seventh he puts in sacred colored pebbles, 

 during the eighth he "smokes" the altar. The following prayer is 

 spoken in a low voice by the society chief while performing these 

 rites. 



The procedure is followed whenever the society altar is set up. It 

 is followed by a rite of exorcism which leads into the main body of 

 the ceremony. It is about the same for all societies. The peculiar 

 style of the following prayer may be due to the fact that it is accom- 

 panied by song. 



This many are the days 



Since our moon mother 



Yonder in the west, 



As a small thing became visible. 



Now j'onder in the west, 



Standing fully grown against the sky 



She makes her days. 



Our spring children,' 



Whoever wished to grow old, 



Carrying prayer meal. 



Carrying shells, 



Yonder, with prayers, 



One by one they made their roads go 



forth. 

 Yonder they met those 

 Who since the first beginning 

 Have been given the world,^ 

 The forests, 

 The brush. 



At the feet of some lucky one 



Offering prayer meal, 



Shell, 



Among their finger tips, 



They looked about. 



Breaking off the young shoots 



Of some fortunate one, 



.\nd drawing them toward them. 



These very ones who stayed there 



quietly. 

 Bearing their long life. 

 Bearing their old age, 

 He brought back. 

 Into the rain filled rooms 

 Of his daylight fathers,' 

 His mothers. 

 His children. 



He made their roads come in. 

 This many days the divine ones* 



1 Members of the societj-, who have dnink from the sacred "spring"; the bowl of medicine water that 

 stands on the altar. 



! The shrubs whose wood is used for prayer sticks. 



• That is, human. The ceremonial room of the society. 



' Sapin a''ho'i, literally "raw persons," as distinct from the "daylight people" "who are cooked" 

 through having been born on a bed of warm sand. 



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