The deer skins which hang over the entrance of the sweat houses (a different skin being used for each sweat house) must be from animals which have been killed by being smothered. The deer is run down and secured by ropes or otherwise. Corn pollen is then put into the mouth of the deer and the hands are held over the mouth and nostrils until life is extinct. The animal now being placed upon his back, a line is drawn with corn pollen, over the mouth, down the breast and belly to the tail. The line is then drawn from the right hoof to the right foreleg to the breast line. The same is done on the left fore leg and the two hind legs. The knife is then passed over this line and the deer is flayed. Skins procured in this way are worth, among the Navajo, $50 each. Masks are made of skins prepared in the same manner. If made of skins of deer that have been shot the wearer would die of fever. Buckskin over the entrance to an eastern sweat house denotes dawn; over a southern, denotes red of morning; over a western, sunset; over a northern, night. PREPARATION OF THE SACRED REEDS (CIGARETTE) AND PRAYER STICKS. Before noon two sheepskins were spread one upon the other before the song-priest. Upon these was laid a blanket, and on the blanket pieces of cotton. These rugs extended north and south. The theurgist then produced a large medicine bag, from which a reed was selected. The reed was rubbed with a polishing stone, or, more accurately speaking, the polishing stone was rubbed with the reed, as the reed was held in the right hand and rubbed against the stone, which was held in the left. It was then rubbed with finely broken native tobacco, and afterwards was divided into four pieces, the length of each piece being equal to the width of the first three fingers. The reeds were cut with a stone knife some 3-1/2 inches long. An attendant then colored the tubes. The first reed was painted blue, the second black, the third blue, and the fourth black. Through all these, slender sticks of yucca had been run to serve as handles while painting the tubes and also to support the tubes while the paint was drying. The attendant who cut the reeds sat left of the song-priest, facing east; a stone containing the paints was placed to the north of the rug; and upon the end of the stone next to himself the reed-cutter deposited a bit of finely broken tobacco. In cutting the reeds occasionally a bit splintered off; these scraps were placed by the side of the tobacco on the northeast end of the rug. [Illustration]