Page:Memoirs of the American Folk-Lore Society V.djvu/63

Rh wear suspended at the waist (plate I.), the limner may, within certain limits, give his god as handsome a pouch as he wishes and embroider it to suit his notion. The naked forms of the mythical characters are drawn first and then the clothing and ornaments are laid on.

101. When the picture is finished a number of ceremonies (differing somewhat in different rites) are performed over it. Pollen or corn-meal may be placed on certain parts of the sacred figures, and one of these substances may be scattered over it. Water or medicinal infusions may be applied to it. At length the patient is brought in and placed sitting on the picture. Moistening his palms, the shaman or an assistant takes the colored dust from various parts of the divine figures and applies it to similar parts of the subject's body. Medicine is then usually administered in four draughts. When the patient leaves, others in the lodge who are ill, or fancy themselves ill, take dust on their palms from the picture and apply it to their own persons. He who has headache takes dust from the head in the picture and applies it to his own head. He who has sore feet takes dust from the pictured feet. When all are done the picture is badly marred; it is then totally obliterated,—the method and ceremony of obliteration differing in different rites,—and the sand on which it was drawn is taken out of the lodge and thrown away. The floor on the lodge is swept, and the uninitiated, entering a moment later, has no evidence of what has taken place.

102. Plate I. shows pictures of five different gods as they appear separately in the dry-paintings. Figure 29 represents, in black, a complete painting (the original of which was done in five different colors) from the rite of the klédzi hatál, or the night chant. It will be observed that some of the gods or yéi of plate I. are to be seen in fig. 29.

103. The medicine-men declare that these pictures have been transmitted from teacher to pupil, unchanged in all the years since they were revealed to the prophets of the rites. There are good reasons for believing that this is not strictly true: the majority of the great ceremonies may be performed only during the coldest part of the year,—the months when the snakes are dormant. No permanent copies of the pictures were ever preserved until the author painted them; they were carried from season to season in the memories of men, and there was no final authority in the tribe to settle questions of correctness. But it is probable that changes, if they occurred, were unintentional and wrought slowly. After the writer made copies of these pictures, and it became known to the medicine-men that he had copies in his possession, it was not uncommon for the shamans, pending the performance of a ceremony, to bring young men who were to assist in the lodge, ask to see the