The procession is a long one; couple follows couple, the men gravely stamping, the women gracefully tripping. At the head are the tallest and most robust youths, the best developed and most buxom girls. Following these, the dancers are less and less carefully assorted and matched, while boys and old women, little girls and old men, bring up the rear.
As the last couple emerges, the chorus bursts out in full force, the choristers themselves issuing from the dark passage-way. These are twelve in number, all men, dressed or undressed as each one's fancy dictates, their faces whitened like the dancers'. Their rude chant or rhythmic shouting is in the minor key. They advance in a body, keeping time with their feet, gesticulating in a manner intended to convey the meaning of their song. In their midst goes the drum-beater, an aged man adorned with an eagle's feather behind each ear. Like the rest, his face is daubed with white paint; his drum, which he thumps incessantly with a single stick, being manufactured from a hollow tree. Both ends of it are covered with rawhide, and the whole instrument is painted yellow. We recognize easily in this musician the head of the Koshare, Shyuote's late tormentor.
At no great distance from the exit, the chorus comes to a halt, but the singing, gesticulation and beating of the drum proceed. The dancers meanwhile move about the whole court to the same step, but the couples separate and change places; man steps beside man, woman joins woman, all turning and passing each other, suggesting by their movements the flexures of a closely folded ribbon. The couples then re-form, the double rank strings out as at first, tramping and tripping in a wide circle to the rhythm and measure of the monotonous music.
This solemn perambulation and primitive concert is witnessed by numerous interested spectators, and listened to by a large and attentive audience. The Rito's entire population is assembled, eagerly, at times almost devoutly, gazing and listening. The assemblage crowds the roofs and lines the walls below, all confusedly gathered together. There is every imaginable posture, costume, or lack of costume,—men, women, children clothed in bright wraps or embroidered skins, scantily covered with dirty rags, or rejoicing in the freedom of undress. The several roofs of the large house, rising in successive terraces three stories high, form an irregular amphitheatre filled with humanity of all sizes, shapes, ages, clothing, in glaring contrast with one another. In the arena formed by the court-yard, form and colour intermingle with more order and regularity; and at the same time greater brilliancy is exhibited. The fantastic headdresses of the women nod and vibrate like waving plants of Indian corn; the lustrous hair and the gaudy costumes glisten and sparkle in the sunlight, fox pelts wag back and forth, plumes and feathers flit and dance, the monotonous chanting, the dull thumping and drumming rise into the deep blue sky, re-echoing from the towering cliffs, whose pinnacles look down upon the weird scene from heights far above the uppermost tier of spectators.
Among those looking on we may recognize some of our acquaintances. Seated upon one of the terraces, his chin resting on his hand, is Topanashka, who looks down upon the actors with a grave, cold, seemingly indifferent gaze. Say Koitza stands in the doorway of her dwelling, her wan face wearing an immobile expression. Her little girl, elegantly arrayed in a breech-clout and turquoise necklace, clings to her mother's wrap with one hand while the other disappears in her gaping mouth. The child is half afraid, half curious; and has an anxious, troubled look. Shyuote, however, evinces no sign of embarrassment or humility. Planted solidly on his feet, with legs well apart and both arms arched, he gapes and stares at everybody and everything, occasionally fixing his glance upon the resplendent sky overhead. In vain we search for Zashue and his elder son, Okoya.
The mass of spectators—hundreds are here already and more are coming constantly—do not content themselves with devout and reverent admiration. Criticism is going on, and it is exercised with the most unlimited freedom. Should any one attract attention to himself, either by the perfection or imperfection of his dress measured by the standard of the critic, he is not only mentioned by name and his garb audibly criticised, but pointed at approvingly or derisively. The men are made the butt of their own sex among the audience; while the women praise or depreciate, according as the occasion may seem to require, the female members of the procession. Frequently, when the costume of some dusky beauty in the arena is the object of publicly expressed admiration, some other within hearing may be seen casting a covert glance of disappointment at her own less successful apparel. Or she fixes her eyes upon her gorgeous necklace with evident gratification, satisfied that her own get-up is handsomer than the one that the others so much admire, while she soothes her injured vanity with haughty contempt for the taste of those who see so much in her rival to admire.
The beat of the drum ceases, the wild song is hushed, and the dancers break rank, seeking rest. They collect in groups or mingle with the bystanders, chatting, laughing, panting. Their violent exercise has played sad havoc with the paint upon their faces and bodies, rendering them less fantastic but more ludicrous. The drummer occasionally raps his instrument to satisfy himself that it is in order, otherwise there is a lull of which all avail themselves to take part in the general conversation. Children resume their sports in the court-yard.
Suddenly loud peals of laughter are heard on every side, and all eyes turn simultaneously toward the passage-way whence are issuing half a dozen strange-looking creatures. They do not walk into the polygon, but rather tumble into it, running, hopping, stumbling, cutting capers, like a troop of clumsy, ill-trained clowns. When they have reached the centre of the open space, laughter becomes louder and more boisterous all around. Such expressions of mirth do not merely signify amusement, but are meant as demonstrations of applause. The Indian does not applaud by clapping his hands or stamping his feet, but evinces his approbation by laughter and smirks.
The appearance of the six men who have just tumbled into the arena is not merely strange, it is positively disgusting. They are covered with white paint, and with the exception of tattered breech-clouts are absolutely naked. Their mouths and eyes are encircled with black rings; their hair is gathered in knots upon the tops of their heads, from which rise bunches of corn husks; a string of deer-hoofs dangles from each wrist; fragments of fossil wood hang from the loins; and to the knees are fastened tortoise-shells. Nothing is worn with a view to ornament. These seeming monstrosities, frightful in their ugliness, move about quite nimbly, and are boldly impudent to a degree approaching sublimity. Notwithstanding their uncouth figures and mountebank tricks their movements at times are undoubtedly graceful, and they appear to exercise a certain authority over the entire pageant.
White is the symbolic paint of the Koshare; hence all the actors who have performed their several parts, including the coarse jesters, make up and represent the society of the Delight Makers, whose office it is to open the ayash tyucotz. The association whose name has been selected as the title of our story is now before us fully represented, arrayed in its appropriate dress and engaged in the discharge of some of its official duties. The clowns, too, the most agile and sprightly, in a word the most amusing of the company, are only an exaggeration of the rest, whose joint task it is to diffuse mirth, joy, buoyancy, delight, throughout the whole tribe. The jesters are also the heralds and marshals of the celebration. They gather together in the centre of the court and carry on a boisterous conversation accompanied with extravagant gestures. No one interrupts their noisy garrulity, but the entire assemblage listens eagerly, hailing their clumsy attempts at a joke and their coarse sallies of wit with shrieks of laughter. Their jests are necessarily of the coarsest; nevertheless excellent local hits are made and satiric personalities of considerable pungency are not infrequently indulged in. One of the clowns has tumbled down; he lies on his back, feet in the air; another takes hold of his legs and drags him around in the dust. The peals of laughter that greet this effort give testimony to the estimation in which it is held by the lookers-on. If one of the spectators has the misfortune to display immoderate enthusiasm, forthwith he is made the target of merciless jeering. One of the merrymakers goes up to him and mimics his manner and actions in the crudest possible way. The people on the terraced roofs exhibit their joy by showering down corn-cakes from their perches, which the performers greedily devour. These things are delightful according to Indian notions, and are well fitted to show how much of a child he still is,—a child however, it must be remembered, endowed with the physical strength, passions, and appetites of adult mankind.