BDNZEL] DANCES OF THE WINTER ANT) SUMMER SERIES 1039 



back the way they had come. Then Echo man came close and the 

 Hopi men stepped back. They were afraid to stand too close to 

 him, for he was a real raw person, not just a man with a mask. He 

 came and knocked on the rocks in eveiy direction and he laid his 

 reed mat over the crack. Then he stepped on it. The people were 

 afraid he would fall into the crack, but he never did. He stepped 

 on it, and tried it, and the mat never even bent. Then he said, 

 "Now my work is finished," and went away and stayed a little ways 

 off. Then the Hopi men came and spread a buckskin over it, and 

 then they put down another buckskin and there were two of them 

 there. They used their paint that they had brought along with them; 

 it was a paint that they used on their prayer sticks. Again they put 

 do^vn two more buckskins and then felt them in every direction and 

 said, "Now we have done this, our Earth Mother, that you may not 

 opeii up any more. You must not let the wild animals come out 

 nor the floods to destroy the people of Itiwana. You nmst not come 

 out and bring them bad luck." So they said. 



Then they tui-ned aroimd and came back toward Itiwana. They 

 came to where the priests were met in their ceremonial room. When 

 they came back the chief priest asked the Hopi and said, "Now, my 

 people, you will go to the houses and our people wUl give you food 

 before you go home. And besides that, what would you like to have? 

 No matter what valuable thing you ask for we will give it to you." 

 So they said to the Hopi because the Hopi men had been so kind. 

 Then they said, "Now, our fathers, we shall just go around to the 

 houses for food to take home with us, and we shall not ask for any- 

 thing. We may have trouble in our country sometime and we may 

 want you to come and help us. So we won't take anything, and it 

 will be that we shall always help one another." They went around, 

 and they held hands with the Itiwana people, and they breathed on 

 one another's hands. Then again they asked, "What does your 

 grandfather want? \Miat would he like to take home?" Then 

 the Hopi said to him, "Now, you will ask for what you want. You 

 have done the most important thing. You are wise." Then he said, 

 "I do not want anything at all. I am not going back to my home. 

 I am going to stay here. I belong here. I am the one who made 

 the world firm, and if the world comes open again I am the one to 

 close it up. And you, my fathers, you will give me a home where 

 I may live." So he said to the chief priest. Then all the Hopi were 

 sorry and said, "Oh, don't stay here!" They did not want him to 

 stay because he was wise. But he said that he wanted to stay here at 

 Itiwana. So the head priests called the katcina chief and when he 

 came they said to him, "Our father, we have sent for you because 

 this, our grandfather here, came from the west and he wants to stay 

 here, and he has asked us where is a good place for him to have his 



