386 _- '‘)HE YOKUTS. 
and keen, little, basilisk eyes, stepped forth into the quadrangle and began 
to walk slowly to and fro around its three sides, making the opening proc- 
lamation. He spoke in extremely short, jerky sentences, with much repeti- 
tion, substantially as follows : 
“Make ready for the mourning. Let all make ready. Everybody 
make ready. Prepare your offerings. Your offerings to the dead. Have 
them all ready. Show them to the mourners. Let them see your sym- 
pathy. The mourning comes on. It hastens. Everybody make ready.” 
He continued in this manner for about twenty minutes, then ceased 
and entered his booth; after which silence, funereal and profound, again 
brooded over the encampment. By this proclamation he had formally 
opened the proceedings, and he took no further part in them, except in a 
short speech of condolence. By this time the Indians had collected in con- 
siderable numbers on the embankment, and they kept slowly coming for- 
ward until the circle was nearly completed, and the fire was only visible 
shooting up above their heads. A low hum of conversation began to buzz 
around it, as of slowly awakening activity. The slow piston-rod of 
aboriginal dignity was begmning to ply; the clatter and whizzing of the 
machinery were swelling gradually up. No women had yet come out, for 
they took no part in the earlier proceedings. It was now quite ten o’clock, 
and we were getting impatient. 
Presently the herald, a short, stout Indian, with a most voluble tongue, 
came out into the quadrangle with a very long staff in his hand, and paced 
slowly up and down the lines of booths, proclaiming : 
“Prepare for the dance. Let all make ready. We are all friends. 
We are all one people. We were a great tribe once. We are little now. 
All our hearts are as one. We have one heart. Make ready your offer- 
ings.. The women have the most money. The women have the most 
offerings. They give the most. Get ready the tobacco. Let us chew the 
tobacco.” 
This man spoke with an extraordinary amount of repetition. Jor 
instance, he would say : ‘The women—the women—the women—have the 
most—have the most—the most money—have the most money—the 
