Dramatic Elements in American Indian Ceremonials 19 



He wks dressed in an old and woe- 

 fully ragged suit and wore a high, 

 pointed hat. His face was whitened 

 and he bore a short crooked, wooden 

 bow and a few crooked, ill-made 

 arrows. His mere appearance pro- 

 voked the stoic audience to screams 

 of laughter, and his subsequent 

 ' low comedy business ' . . . failed 

 not to meet with uproarious dem- 

 onstrations of approval. Slowly 

 advancing as he enacted his part, 

 he in time reached the place where 

 the yucca stood, and in his imbecile 

 totterings, he at length stumbled 

 on the plant and pretended to have 

 his flesh lacerated by the sharp 

 leaves. He gave a tremulous cry 

 of pain, rubbed saliva on the part 

 supposed to be wounded, and mut- 

 tered his complaints in a weak and 

 shaking voice. ... At length, kneel- 

 ing on the ground, with his face 

 buried in the leaves, he feigned to 

 discover it and rejoiced with quer- 

 ulous extravagance over his suc- 

 cess. When he had marked the 

 spot and the way back to it with 

 an exaggerated burlesque of the 

 Indian methods of doing things, he 

 went of¥ to find his ' old woman ' 

 ... to pick the fruit. Soon he re- 

 turned with a stalwart man, dressed 

 to represent a hideous, absurd look- 

 ing old granny," who played a 

 skillful part in the somewhat coarse 

 " low comedy " following. 



Thus, at intervals, shov^ followed show throughout the night, 

 the fire-dance or fire-play coming as a culmination to the various 

 exhibitions when the fire was fast dying out and the dawn was on 

 the verge of breaking — " the most picturesque and startling of 

 all," Dr. Matthews declares. But the alilis cited will suffice to 

 illustrate how, out of the complexes of religious practices, definite 

 dramatic conventions emerge. There is a certain conformity of 

 dress to long-established rules, especially among the character im- 

 personators; for instance, the paraphernalia of the actors in the 

 Second Dance, the blue buck-skin mask of the Yaybichy in the 

 Third Dance, the sun and moon disks worn by those playing the 



395 



