Page:Journal of American Folklore vol. 12.djvu/98

 So Journal of American Folk-Lore.

figures he had drawn. The women then advanced and picked them up, after which they made their way to the middle of the ring of basket bearers, who meanwhile were singing and posturing with their baskets. The throwing of the corncobs was repeated in this inclosure, and then the priest, dipping his aspergil into a bowl of medicine which he carried, asperged to the cardinal points in sequence, and retired.

The basket throwers then took baskets from their bundles and held them aloft, standing on opposite sides of the space encircled by the basket bearers, facing each other. They exchanged places once or twice, holding their baskets aloft as if to throw them. Meanwhile, with loud cries, many young men of the pueblo among the spectators shouted to the Lakone manas to throw them a basket. Their arms were raised in expectancy, but often they were deceived, for the women only pretended to throw the basket in the direction indicated. After a while, however, the basket was thrown, and then took place a scramble for it which was often continued for a half hour, the basket being sometimes torn to pieces and the clothing of the young men becoming more or less damaged in the rough scuffle.

The episode of the struggle for the baskets continued long after the participants left the plaza. In some instances a fine bowl or basket was simply handed to a friend, and relatives or others en- tered the circle of dancers to receive them.

ALTAR OF THE CIPAULOVI LALAKONTI.

The Lalakonti altar at this pueblo is poor in fetiches as compared with that at Walpi, a condition not unlike that of other altars of Cipaulovi, as I have elsewhere pointed out. It was erected in the main kiva of the village and consisted of upright wooden slats con- nected by a transverse upon which rain-cloud emblems were de- picted. The uprights were held in place by a ridge of sand in which were inserted seven shorter slats, upon which symbols of corn, rain- clouds, and other emblems were depicted.

There were no figurines on this altar and no sand picture on the floor. A single tiponi was placed upright a little to the right of the middle line, and near by on the floor there was a bundle of black sticks called the koaitcoko, which correspond with the four objects of the same name in the Walpi altar. An elaborately carved stick of wood near by was called a natci. These objects and the medicine- bowl, feathers, ears of maize, common to all altars, were placed in their customary positions.

The simplicity of this altar and the poverty of fetiches are readily explained by the small size of Cipaulovi, and the fact that it was a

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