422 THE MOUNTAIN CHANT. 
From time to time, during this and the following days, as the heaps of 
colored powder diminished under the hands of the artists, more stones 
and charcoal were pulverized to replenish them. 
93. About noon they cleared off that portion of the floor of the lodge 
which lay west of the fire, and brought, in blankets, a quantity of dry 
sand, which they spread out over the cleared portion of the floor in a 
layer of the nearly constant depth of 
three inches. They smoothed the sur- 
face with the broad oaken battens used 
in weaving. Now for a time all opera- 
tions were suspended in the lodge while 
the chanter went out to plant the ¢o- 
bolea, or plumed wands, in front of the 
medicine lodge, and to lay beside them 
the collars of beaver skins and the sym- 
bols for wings which the couriers were 
to wearnext day. (Fig. 51.) These ar- 
ticles, it was said, were placed outside 
as a sign to the gods that the holy pict- 
ures were being drawn; butitis not im- 
probable that they were intended also as 
a sign to uninitiated mortals. However 
5.51. The cobolea, or plumed wands, that may be, they were taken in as soon 
n from the door of the medicine ag the picture was finished. The great 
painting was begun about 1 o’clock p.m., 
was finished about 3, and was allowed to remain until the ceremo- 
nies at pight were concluded. It will be described later. (Paragraphs 
160 et seq.) 
94. When the picture was completed food was brougit in, and there 
ras a good deal of eating and sleeping and smoking done. Being in- 
formed that nothing more would be done until after nightfall, I went 
to my own shelter, to elaborate some of my more hasty sketches while 
matters were still fresh in my mind. At 7 o’ciock a messenger came to 
tell me that ceremonies were about to be resumed. During my absence 
the principal character in the night’s performance —a man arrayed in 
evergreens— had been dressed. 
95. I found, on returning to the lodge, a number of spectators seated 
around close to the edge of the apartment. The fire burned in the 
center. The sick woman, with some companions, sat in the south. 
The gagali, with a few assistants who joined him in singing and shaking 
rattles, was seated at the north, at the place where the circumference 
of the lodge was enlarged. (Paragraph 83.) There was a space about 
two feet wide and six feet long between them and the wall, or roof if you 
choose so to call it, of the lodge. I was assigned a place in the west. 
The sick woman was directed to move from the position she occupied 


lodge. 

