[83.] This lodge was a simple conical structure of large, partly hewed piñon logs, set on end and inclined at an angle of about forty-five degrees, so as to join one another on top, where they formed the apex of the lodge. The circle of logs was incomplete in the east, where the openings for the door and the smoke hole were. A passage, or entry, about five feet high and three feet wide, led from the body of the lodge to the outer doorway, where some blankets hung as portières. The frame of logs was covered with sods and loose earth to keep out wind and rain. Internally, the lodge was eight feet in height under the apex of the cone and on an average twenty-five feet in diameter at the base. The diameter was increased at the east (to allow for the entry) and at the north. The irregularity in the circumference in the north was at first conjectured to be a mere accident; but in the ceremonies of the first night its use became apparent as affording a hiding place for the man dressed in evergreens. (Paragraph [96].)
[84.] [The first four days’] ceremonies in this case had been performed during the previous year. Such a division of the work is sometimes made, if more convenient for the patient and his friends, but usually all is done in nine consecutive days. These first days have less of interest than the others. Early each morning, before eating, all who desire, men and women, enter the medicine lodge, where, in a stifling
atmosphere, seated around a fire of dry wood of four different kinds—cedar, big willow, little willow, and spruce—they take the hot emetic infusion of fifteen different kinds of plants mixed together. A little sand is placed in front of each to receive the ejected material. After the emetic has acted the fire is removed, deposited some paces to the north of the lodge, and allowed to die out. Each devotee’s pile of sand is then removed (beginning with that of the man who sat in the east and going round the circle) and deposited, one after another, in a line north of the sacred fire. Each succeeding day’s deposits are placed farther and farther north in a continuous line. Next all return to the lodge, which has been allowed to cool; the shaman spits on each some medicine which has been mixed with hoar-frost and is supposed to cool. When all have left the lodge, a new fire of ordinary wood is kindled, and the kethàwns, or sacrificial sticks, appropriate to the day are made.
[85.] [Fifth day.] The chanter did not arrive until the afternoon of October 23. His ceremonies in the medicine lodge began on the morning of the 24th. The forenoon was devoted to the preparation and sacrifice of certain kethàwns (keçàn)—the sacrificial sticks, to the origin of which so much of the foregoing myth is devoted—and of sacrificial cigarettes. About eight o’clock the sick woman entered the medicine lodge, followed by the chanter. While she sat on the ground, with her limbs extended, he applied some powdered substance from his medicine bag to the soles of her feet, to her knees, breasts, shoulders, cheeks, and head, in the order named, and then threw some of it towards the heavens through the smoke hole. Before applying it to the head he placed some of it in her mouth to be swallowed. Then, kneeling on a sheep skin, with her face to the east, and holding the bag of medicine in her hand, she recited a prayer, bit by bit, after the chanter. The prayer being finished, she arose, put some of the medicine into her mouth, some on her head, and took her seat in the south, while the shaman went on with the preparation of the sacrifices.
[86.] An assistant daubed a nice straight branch of cherry with some moistened herbaceous powder, after which he divided the branch into four pieces with a flint knife. Two of the pieces were each about two inches long and two each about four inches long. In each of the shorter ones he made one slight gash and in each of the longer ones two gashes. The sticks were then painted, a shred of yucca leaf being used for the brush, with rings of black, red, and white, disposed in a different order on each stick. The two cigarettes were made by filling sections of some hollow stem with a mixture of some pulverized plants. Such cigarettes are intended, as the prayers indicate, to be smoked by the gods. (Paragraph [88].)
[87.] While the assistants were painting the sticks and making the cigarettes the old chanter placed on a sheep skin, spread on the floor woolly side down, other things pertaining to the sacrifice: five bundles of assorted feathers, five small pieces of cotton sheeting to wrap the sacrifices
in, and two round flat stones, each about four inches in diameter. The upper surfaces of these he painted, one blue and one black, and he bordered each with a stripe of red. When the kethàwns and cigarettes were ready, the qaçàli distributed them along with the bunches of plumes, on the five pieces of cotton cloth, which were then rolled up around their contents, making five bundles of sacrifices. On the completion of this work there was prayer, song, and rattling; the medicinal powder was applied to the body of the patient as before (paragraph [85]); two of the little sacrificial bundles were placed in her right hand, and while she held them she again repeated a prayer, following again phrase by phrase, or sentence by sentence, the words of the priest. The latter, when the prayer was ended, took the sacrifices from her hand and pressed them to different parts of her body in the order previously observed, beginning with the soles of the feet and going upwards to the head, but on this occasion touching also the back, and touching it last. Each time after pressing the sacrifices to her body he held them up to the smoke hole and blew on them in that direction a quick puff, as if blowing away some evil influence which the sacrifices were supposed to draw from her body. Then the three remaining bundles were put in her hands and the rites observed with the former bundles were repeated in every respect, including the prayer, which was followed by singing and rattling. When the song had ceased some of the assistants took the bundles of sacrifices out of the lodge, no doubt to bury them according to the method proper for those particular kethàwns. The round painted stones were also carried out.
[88.] The prayers which the woman repeated varied but little. They all sounded nearly alike. The night the shaman arrived he rehearsed some of these prayers with the woman, at her own hogán, to make her familiar with them before she repeated them, in the medicine lodge. The prayer addressed to Dsilyi‘ Neyáni, when she held in her hand the offering sacred to him, was as follows:
Reared Within the Mountains!
Lord of the Mountains!
Young Man!
Chieftain!
I have made your sacrifice.
I have prepared a smoke for you.
My feet restore thou for me.
My legs restore thou for me.
My body restore thou for me.
My mind restore thou for me.
My voice restore thou for me.
Restore all for me in beauty.
Make beautiful all that is before me.
Make beautiful all that is behind me.
Make beautiful my words.
It is done in beauty.
It is done in beauty.
It is done in beauty.
It is done in beauty. (Paragraphs [261-4].)