MALLERY.] PICTOGRAPHS IN SAND. 211 
sojourn with the Zuni, I found this art practice in vogue among the tribal priest 
magicians and members of cult societies, I named it dry or powder painting. I 
could see at a glance that this custom of powder painting had resulted from the 
effort to transfer from a vertical, smooth, and stable surface, which could be painted 
on, to a horizontal and unstable surface, unsuited to like treatment, such symbolic¢ 
and sacramental pictographs as are painted on the walls of the kivas, temporarily, 
as appurtenances to the dramaturgic ceremonials of the cult societies, and as sup- 
posed aids to the magical incantations and formule of all the monthly, semiannual, 
and quadrennial observances and fasts of the tribal priests; sometimes, also, in the 
curative or “Betterment” ceremonials of these priests. It is noteworthy that, with 
the exception of the invariable “ Earth terrace,” “Pathway of (earth) life,” and a 
few other conventional symbols of mortal or earthly things (nearly always made of 
scattered prayer meal), powder painting is resorted to amongst the Zuni only in 
ceremonials pertaining to all the regions or inclusive of the lower region. . In such 
cases paintings typical of the North, West, South, and East are made on the four 
corresponding walls of the kiva, whilst the lower region is represented by appropri- 
ately powder or paint colored sand on the floor, and the upper region either by 
paintings on the walls near the ceiling or on stretched skins suspended from the lat- 
ter. Thus the origin of the practice of floor powder painting may be seen to have 
resulted from the effort to represent with more dramatic appropriateness or exact- 
ness the lower as well as the other sacramental regions, and to have been incident 
to the growth from the quaternary of the sextenary or septenary system of world 
division so characteristic of Pueblo culture. Hence it is that I attribute the art of 
powder or sand painting to the Pueblos, and believe that it was introduced both by 
imitation and by the adoption of Pueblo men amongst the Navajos. Its greater 
prevalence amongst them to-day is simply due to the fact that having, as a rule, no 
suitable vertical or wall surfaces for pictorial treatment, all their larger ceremonial 
paintings have to be made on the ground, and can only or best be made, of course, 
by this means alone. 
It is proper to add, as having a not inconsiderable bearing on the absence gen- 
erally of screen or skin painting among the Navajos, that, with the Pueblos at least, 
these pictures are—must be—only temporary; for they are supposed to be spiritually 
shadowed, so to say, or breathed upon by the gods or god animals they represent, 
during the appealing incantations or calls of the rites; hence the paint substance of 
which they are composed is in a way inearnate, and at the end of the ceremonial must 
be killed and disposed of as dead if evil, eaten as medicine if good. 
Further light is thrown on this practice of the Zuni in making use of these sup- 
positively vivified paintings by their kindred practice of painting not only fetiches 
of stone, etc., and sometimes of larger idols, then of washing the paint off for use as 
above described, but also of powder painting in relief; that is, of modeling effigies in 
sand, sometimes huge in size, of hero or animal gods, sacramental mountains, etc., 
powder painting them in common with the rest of the pictures, and afterwards re- 
moving the paint for medicinal or further ceremonial use. 
The construction of the effigies in high relief last above mentioned 
should be compared with the effigy mounds mentioned below in this 
section. 
In connection with the ceremonial use, for temporary dry painting 
on the ground, of colored earth and sand and also that of sacred corn 
meal, a remarkable parallel is found in India. Mr. Edward Carpenter 
(a) mentions that the Devadasis, who are popularly called Nautch girls, 
as a part of their duty, ornament the floor of the Hindu temples with 
quaint figures drawn in rice flour. 
