All throughout these corn-fields temporary brush sun-shelters are seen, under which the young boys and girls sit, scaring away the birds and watching lest any stray burro should enter and destroy that which has grown as the result of so much labor.
An Oraibi Woman shelling Corn in a Basket of Yucca Fibre.
The "Burro" of Hopi Transportation.
Here, too, in the harvesting time one may witness busy and interesting scenes. Whole families move down into temporary brush homes, and women and children aid the men in gathering the crops. Tethered and hobbled burros stand patiently awaiting their share of the common labor.
Yonder is a group of men busy digging a deep pit. Watch them as it nears completion. It is made with a narrow neck and "bellies" out to considerable width below. Indeed, it is shaped not unlike an immense vase with a large, almost spherical body and narrow neck. In depth it is perhaps six, eight, ten, or a dozen feet. On one side a narrow stairway is cut into the earth leading down to its base, and at the foot of this stairway a small hole is cut through into the chamber. Our curiosity is aroused. What is this subterranean place for? As we watch, the workers bring loads of greasewood and other inflammable material, kindle a fire in the chamber, and fill it up with the wood. Now we see the use of the small hole at the foot of the stairway. It acts as a draught hole, and soon a raging furnace fire is in the vault before us. When a sufficient heat has been obtained, the bottom hole is closed, and then scores of loads of corn on the cob are dropped into the heated chamber. When full, every avenue that could allow air to enter is sealed, and there the corn remains over night or as long as is required to cook it,—self-steam it. It is then removed, packed in sacks or blankets on the backs of the patient burros, and removed to the corn-rooms of the houses on the mesa above.
Other fresh corn is carried up and spread out on the house-tops to dry.
All this is stored away in the corn-rooms, into which strangers sometimes are invited, but oftener kept away from. It is stacked up in piles like cord-wood, and happy is that household whose corn-stack is large at the beginning of a hard winter.