When the dance is held, twenty or thirty men array themselves in harlequin rig and barbaric paint and put vessels of pitch on their heads; then they secretly go out into the surrounding mountains. These are to personify the devils. A herald goes up to the top of the assembly-house and makes a speech to the multitude. At a signal agreed upon in the evening the masqueraders come in from the mountains, with the vessels of pitch flaming on their heads, and with all the frightful accessories of noise, motion, and costume which the savage mind can devise in representation of demons. The terrified women and children flee for life, the men huddle them into a circle, and, on the principle of fighting the devil with fire, they swing blazing firebrands in the air, yell, whoop, and make frantic dashes at the marauding and bloodthirsty devils, so creating a terrific spectacle, and striking great fear into the hearts of the assembled hundreds of women, who are screaming and fainting and clinging to their valorous protectors. Finally the devils succeed in getting into the assembly-house, and the bravest of the men enter and hold a parley with them. As a conclusion of the whole farce, the men summon courage, the devils are expelled from the assembly-house, and with a prodigious row and racket of sham fighting are chased away into the mountains. After all these terrible doings have exercised their due effect upon the wanton feminine mind, another stage of the proceedings is entered upon. A rattlesnake was captured some days beforehand, its fangs were plucked out, and it was handled, stroked, fed, and tamed, so that it could be displayed with safety. The venerable, white-haired peace-chief now takes his station before the multitude, within the great assembly-house, with the rattlesnake before him as the visible incarnation of the dreadful Yukukula. Slowly and sonorously he begins, speaking to them of morality and feminine obedience. Then warming with his subject, and brandishing the horrid reptile in his hand full in the faces and over the heads of his shuddering auditors, with solemn and awful voice he warns them to beware, and threatens them with the dire wrath of Yukukula if they do not live lives of chastity, industry, and obedience, until some of the terrified squaws shriek aloud and fall swooning upon the ground. Referring again to the "devil dance," as practiced among the Gualala, Powers says:[9]