1084 ZUNI KATCINAS [eth. ann. 47 



swellings. If this is true it will be a great help to us. So I have 

 brought liim here to see if you want his people to dance for us." 

 Then the katcina chief said, "I am not the one to decide. I must 

 see my bow priest. I do not want to decide this alone." So he sent 

 for his bow priest and told him that the Navaho wanted to come 

 and dance for the people to take the bad swelhng away. He said, 

 "Let us try it. The people are suffering terribly because of this 

 sickness." So they decided and they told the Navaho, "Now you 

 go and tell your people to get ready, and in four days you will come 

 back with your people to dance, and all the people \v'ill wait for you 

 and will give you paper bread and lots of good things to take back 

 with you to pay for the dance." 



vSo he went back and told his people that the Itiwana people wanted 

 them to come and dance for them. He did not tell liis people that 

 they wanted them to cure the swelling. He just told the people, 

 "The Zuni people want us to come and visit and make up our quar- 

 rels and be good friends with them. And if we dance for them they 

 will give us good things to eat when we come home." So he said, and 

 all the people began to practice their songs and work on their masks 

 and clothing. 



At Itiwana the people were waiting for them. They came in in 

 the night and they had a great fire in the plaza. They dressed out 

 on the Gallup road and came in. The katcina chief had built a big 

 fire in the plaza and they came and danced there all night and the 

 Itiwana people took food to them in the night. The next day they 

 went back. The Itiwana people thought they were taldng away the 

 sickness and they gave them lots of bread and good things to eat. 

 They left in the morning and they went two by two around the vil- 

 lage to cure the sickness of swellings. The man who had come before 

 was the leader. He was Yebitcai and he led the dancers around the 

 village. Then they went away to the north. As they left all the 

 people spat and said, "Now you will take away with you this sick- 

 ness," and they said to the sickness, "Now you will go with these 

 people." 



About five years after that the Itiwana people danced this dance 

 themselves. A long time afterwards the Navaho wanted to come 

 here and dance again, but the Itiwana people would not let them come. 

 They had really taken away the sickness and the Itiwana people were 

 afraid that they would bring it back with them if they came again. 

 So now they just dance the Navaho dance with their own masks 

 and it doesn't cost them anything.^* (It was danced on the night of 

 Ca'lako, 1929, just at sunrise. There were no Ne'we'kwe out.) 



^* The dance was introduced before the informant's father was born, probably about 75 years ago. 



