Saint Dominic is waiting—he lies prone on the ground. St. Dominic will be invoked at the Breaking of Bread; Sanctus, sanctus, "Oh Santo Domingo, where art thou at this hour—we'll reach thee." Tinkle, tinkle, goes the church bell, and then suddenly, dum-a-dum-dum-dum-keroah, go the drums and horns of the Indians, and spludge, spludge, they fire their rifles in air.
The bearers raise St. Dominic on high. He seems veritably to rise from the dead as he gradually ascends above the worshipers' heads. He is golden and patriarchal and benign, and they carry in front of him a little gilt dog. Domini canes, the dogs of the Lord, the Dominicans used to be called, and the pun has endured.
As St. Dominic is carried to every Indian house and byway of the gray mud built pueblo the horns and the drums accompany him, and spludge, spludge, goes the accompaniment of fired guns. And when all the visiting has been done the figure is placed in the alcove of green boughs—the street shrine before which two hundred Indians will dance a prayer for rain.
And now onward all the day the Indians dance. First come the Koshare, who represent the spirits of their ancestors. All but naked, they are painted a dull gray—to look either like corpses or invisible as ghosts. There are strange black bands and traceries on their limbs and bodies, and their faces are painted to affright; they grimace, they insinuate, they strike terror, and also they make mirth. They have corn stalks in their hair, and sandals on their feet.
As for the rest they all wear their long hair hanging so that men look like women, but the men have branches of green tassels on their heads and the women wear green wooden crowns. The men have armlets of green with pine twigs in them. The upper parts of their bodies are all exposed, but are painted dark brown and seem as of stone. The men wear fox skins hanging behind them, like tails. The drums beat, the men incant, the Koshare wave their hands to heaven and make every gesture that means falling rain.
The living dance in ranks, but the wild Koshare, the spirits of the dead, dance in and out at will and seem to improvise all they do. They lead the dance, they dominate. It becomes an orgy of marvelous beauty, dimpling, dazzling; a great moving phantasmagoria. It is like the manes of a hundred black horses plunging together on the prairie; it is like running shadows and sunshine over mountain meadows of flowers. And all the while the drums, and all the while the incantations—
Strangest of all is the body of earnest old men at one side, not dancing, and yet somehow contributing to the dance. They are all farmers. They want the rain for their crops. They are terribly intent. They never cease turning from the heavens to the earth and back again and making with their fingers the gesture of trickling water and dropping rain, calling all the while something like—
"Ukky-ukky-you-you, ukky-ukky-yah-yah, ukky-ukky-yum-yum, ukky-ukky-you-you!"
How they want it to rain! There's no doubt of the sincerity of their prayers.
The dance is in two sections; one represents Winter, the other Summer. They dance separately and then come in together in one grand bacchanalia, the Koshare exceeding themselves in yelling at visitors and sightseers, booing into their faces and kicking their shins.