Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 39.djvu/56

46 will be three or four hundred mounted Indians dressed in the gayest colors. All is now ready; each rider has his eye on his favorite side, an old priest rides in advance and sprinkles sacred meal over the course, the starters kick the sticks, and the wildest excitement prevails. As each racer left his home he put into his mouth two shell beads—the one he drops as a sacrifice as he starts, the other when he has covered about one half the course. The stick is tossed rather than kicked, and a good racer will toss it from eighty to one hundred feet. Over the heads of the runners it goes and falls beyond the first man. He simply points to where it lights, and runs on. The next man tries to kick it, but should he fail to get under it he goes on, and the next man takes it. The race is not to the swift alone, although this has much to do with it. The stick can in no case be touched with anything but the foot, and should it fall into a cactus bush, a prairie-dog hole, or an arroyo, much valuable time is lost in getting it out. Not infrequently it happens that one side will be several miles in advance of the other when the stick falls into some unnoticed hole. The wild and frenzied yelling which takes place as those who were behind come up and pass can only be imagined and not described. So skill in tossing it plays a prominent part. On, on they go to the southern hills, east to Ta-ai-yal-lo-ne, north to the mesas, follow these west for miles, then to the southern hills, and back again to the starting-point. The distance traversed is nearly twenty-five miles, and they pass over it in about two hours. Racing is indulged in by the excited horsemen as they approach the goal, and it is not unusual to see a pony drop over dead from exhaustion as they near the village. The successful runner crosses the river and runs around the heap of wagered goods near the church, then, taking up the tik-wa in his hands for the first time, he inhales, as he thinks, the spirit of the tik-wa, and thanks it for being so good to him. He then runs to his home, and, if he finds a woman awaiting him, hands the stick to her, who breathes on it twice, and he then does the same. Returning it to the woman, she places it in a basket which she has ready for it; and the next day one of the racers wraps it up with some sacred meal in a corn-husk and deposits it about six inches below the surface of the ground in an arroyo, where it will be washed away by the rains. Meanwhile the winners have claimed their stakes, and, should another estufa have a set of men to put up, the winners of the first race must compete with them until all have had a chance, and the great Zuñi races are over for that year.