The Fiesta Procession, Leaving the Chapel for the Headgate of the Irrigation Ditch.
Pala Indian Women Dancing at the Fiesta.
Again the italics are mine. There is no comparison in the art work of basketry and that of lace-making, yet it is a good thing the latter has been introduced. It brings these poor people money easier and quicker than basket-making, and, as they must earn to live, it aids them in the struggle for existence.
In the lace work-room, the last time I was there, thirty-nine weavers in all, varying from bright-eyed children of seven years, to aged grandmothers, were intently engaged upon the delicate work. The bobbins were being twisted and whirled with incredible rapidity and sureness, in the cases of the most expert, and all were as interested as could possibly be.
CHAPTER XIV.
The Religious and Social Life of the Palas.
It would require many pages of this little book even to suggest the various rites, ceremonies and ideas connected with the ancient religion of the Palas. It was a strange mixture of Nature worship, superstition, and apparently meaningless rites, all of which, however, clearly revealed the childlike worship of their minds. In the earliest days their religious leaders gained their power by fasting and solitude. Away in the desert, or on the mountain heights, resolutely abstaining from all food, they awaited the coming of their spirit guides, and then, armed with the assurance of direct supernatural control, they assumed the healing of the sick and the general direction of the affairs of the tribe.
Then, later, this simple method was changed. The neophytes sought visions by drinking a decoction made from the jimpson weed—toloache—and though the older and purer-minded men condemned this method it was gaining great hold upon them when the Franciscan Missionaries came a century or so ago.
Even now some of their ceremonies at the period of adolescence, especially of girls, are still carried on. One of these consists of digging a pit, making it hot with burning wood coals, and then "roasting" the maiden therein, supposedly for her physical good.