One afternoon they take me from Oraibi to Shupaulovi to witness a great religious ceremony. It is the invocation to the gods for rain. We arrive about sundown, and are taken into a large subterranean chamber, into which we descend by a ladder. Soon about a dozen Shamans are gathered with us, and the ceremony continues from sunset to sunrise. It is a series of formal invocations, incantations, and sacrifices, especially of holy meal and holy water. The leader of the Shamans is a great burly bald-headed Indian, which is a remarkable OVER THE RIVER. 339 powell-canyons-210.jpg PRAYING FOR RAIN. sight, for I have never seen one before. Whatever he says or does is repeated by three others in turn. The paraphernalia of their worship is very interesting. At one end of the chamber is a series of tablets of wood covered with quaint pictures of animals and of corn, and overhead are conventional black clouds from which yellow lightnings are projected, while drops of rain fall on the corn below. Wooden birds, set on pedestals and decorated with plumes, are arranged in various ways. Ears of corn, vases of holy water, and trays of meal make up a part of the paraphernalia of worship. I try to record some of the prayers, but am not very successful, as it is difficult to hold my interpreter to the work. But one of these prayers is something like this: "Muingwa pash lolomai, Master of the Clouds, we eat no stolen bread; our young men ride not the stolen ass; our food is not stolen from 340 CANYONS OF THE COLORADO. the gardens of our neighbors. Muingwa pash lolomai, we beseech of thee to dip your great sprinkler, made of the feathers of the birds of the heavens, into the lakes of the skies and sprinkle us with sweet rains, that the ground may be prepared in the winter for the corn that grows in the summer." At one time in the night three women were brought into the kiva. These women had a cincture of cotton about their loins, but were otherwise nude. One was very old, another of middle age, and the third quite young, perhaps fourteen or fifteen years old. As they stood in a corner of the kiva their faces and bodies were painted by the bald-headed priest. For this purpose he filled his mouth with water and pigment and dexterously blew a fine spray over the faces, necks, shoulders, and breasts of the women. Then with his finger as a brush he decorated them over this groundwork, which was of yellow, with many figures in various colors. From that time to daylight the three women remained in the kiva and took part in the ceremony as choristers and dancing performers. At sunrise we are filed out of the kiva, and a curious sight is presented to our view. Shupaulovi is built in terraces about a central court, or plaza, and in the plaza about fifty men are drawn up in a line facing us. These men are naked except that they wear masks, strange and grotesque, and great flaring headdresses in many colors. powell-canyons-211.jpg MASHONGNAVI.