STEVENSON. ] SWEAT HOUSES. 241 
During the song the theurgist mixed various herbs in a gourd over 
which he poured water. After chanting some twenty minutes he ad- 
vanced to the entrance of the house, taking the medicine gourd with him, 
and, after pouring some of its contents on the heated stones, took his seat 
and joined in the chanting. After another twenty minutes Hasjelti and 
Hostjoghon appeared. A Navajo blanket had previously been placed 
on the ground at the south side of the entrance. Hasjelti lifted the 
coverings from the entrance, and the patient, having first donned his 
breech cloth, came out and sat on the blanket. Hasjelti rubbed the in- 
valid with the horn of a mountain sheep held in the left hand, and in 
the right hand a piece of hide, about 10 inches long and 4 wide, from 
between the eyes of the sheep. The hide was held flatly against the 
palm of the hand, and in this way the god rubbed the breast of the in- 
valid, while he rubbed his back with the horn, occasionally alternating 
his hands. Hostjoghon put the invalid through the same manipulation. 
The gods then gave him drink four times from the gourd containing 
medicine water composed of finely-chopped herbs and water, they hay- 
ing first taken a draught of the mixture. The soles of the feet, palms, 
breast, back, shoulders, and top of the head of the invalid were touched 
with medicine water, and the gods suddenly disappeared. The patient 
arose and bathed himself with the remainder of the medicine water and 
put on his clothing. The coverings of the entrance, which were gifts 
to the song priest from the invalid, were gathered together by the song 
priest and carried by an attendant to the medicine lodge. An attend- 
ant erased the rainbow by sweeping his hand from the feet to the head, 
drawing the sands with him, which were gathered into a blanket and 
carried to the north and deposited at the base of a pinon tree. The 
song priest placed the wands in a basket, and thus, preceded by the 
invalid, carried them in both hands to the medicine lodge singing a 
low chant. The sweat house was not carelessly torn down, but was 
taken down after a prescribed form. Four men commenced at the sides 
toward the cardinal points, and with both hands scraped the sand from 
the boughs. When this was all removed the boughs were carefully 
gathered and conveyed to a pinon tree some 50 feet distant and fastened 
horizontally in its branches about 2 feet above the ground. The heated 
stones from the interior of the sweat house were laid on the boughs; 
the upright logs which formed the frame work of the house were car- 
ried to a pinon tree, a few feet from the tree in which the boughs and 
heated stones were placed, and arranged crosswise in the tree, and on 
these logs corn meal was sprinkled and on the meal a medicine tube 
(cigarette) was deposited. The tube was about 2 inches long and one- 
third of an inch in diameter, and it contained a ball composed of down 
from several varieties of small birds, sacred tobaceo, and corn pollen. 
It was an offering to Hasjelti. Meal was sprinkled on the tube. The 
ground on which the house had stood was smoothed over, the ashes 
from the fire carefully swept away, and thus all traces of the ceremony 
8 ETH 16 
