MATTHEWS. j CEREMONIES: PAINTING PICTURE. 423 
in the south, and sit, with her face to the east, at the junction of the 
two white serpents that cross one another on the picture. (Plate XV.) 
96. When she was seiited the qacali began a song, accompanied by 
the usual rattling and drumming. Ata certain part of the song the 
chanter was seen to make a slight signal with his drumstick, a rapid 
stroke to the rear, when instantly a mass of animate evergreens—a 
moving tree, it seemed—sprang out from the space behind the singers 
and rushed towards the patient. A terrifying yell from the spectators 
greeted the apparition, when the man in green, acting as if frightened 
by the noise, retreated as quickly as he came, and in a moment nothing 
could be seen in the space behind the singers but the shifting shadows 
cast by the fire. He was so thoroughly covered with spruce twigs that 
nothing of his form save his toes could be distinguished when he rushed 
outin the full glare of the fire. This scene was repeated three times, at 
due intervals. 
97. Some time after the third repetition, the chanter arose, without 
interrupting his song, and proceeded to erase the picture with his rat- 
tle. He began with the mountain in the west (paragraph 162), which 
he completely leveled; next in order he erased the track of the bear; 
next, the hole in the center; and then, one by one, the various other 
figures, ending with the serpents on the outside. In erasing the ser- 
pents, he began with the figures in the east and followed the apparent 
course of the sun, ending with the figures in the north. When the pict- 
ure was completely obliterated, the sand on which it had been drawn 
was collected, put in a blanket, and carried out of doors, to be thrown 
away. 
98. Then the sick woman was lifted by two other women and laid on 
her side where the picture had been, with her face to the east. While 
she lay there, the medicine man, amid much singing, walked around 
her, inscribed on the earth at her feet a straight line with his finger 
and erased it with his foot, inscribed at her head a cross and rubbed it 
out in the same manner, traced radiating lines in all directions from her 
body and obliterated them, gave her a light massage, whistled over her 
from head to foot and all around her, and whistled towards the smoke 
hole, as if whistling something away. These acts were performed in 
the order in which they are recorded. His last operation on her was a 
severe massage, in which he kneaded every part of her body forcibly 
and pulled her joints hard, whereat she groaned and made demonstra- 
tions of suffering. This concluded, she rose. A blanket was spread on 
the ground on the north of the fire, near where the man in evergreens 
was concealed. At the last appearance of the man in evergreens the 
woman fell back apparently paralyzed and suffering from difficulty of 
breathing, all of which was probably feigned, but was supposed to be 
a sign that the right remedy or ceremony for her ailment bad been found 
and that none other need be tried. The medicine man now proceeded 
to restore her to consciousness by drawing zigzag lines from her body 
