The three motives which lie at the bottom of Pueblo Indian ceremonies (quite wrongly miscalled dances by American onlookers) are: the desire for rain, which brings fertility and hence abundant crops; for the cure of illnesses, more often in case of epidemic disease; for success in war. How natural are these desires may be judged from the first of them, by anyone who has travelled even a little in Arizona or New Mexico, and who will certainly reëcho in his own heart the prayer for rain. To drive along a shadeless road and notice on the one side green stretches of corn or of alfalfa, while on the other are nothing but desert wastes in which cactus and sage alone can live, is the most graphic object lesson of what a moderate supply of water achieves. I recall a region near Bernalillo (the Tiguex of Coronado) where a pitiful bunch of cattle was staggering over a great area, on which not even a blade of parched grass could be seen, while a dry arroyo tantalized them with a suggestion of where water ought to be. On the other side of that sterile ditch were other cattle and horses, plump and glossy, wading deep in luscious herbage. Such an experience gives one sympathy for a people who recognize in water the nourisher of all life, and who adore the spirits that live in fountains, lakes, and rivers. But much sympathy will hardly help us to interpret the ordered form of any ceremonial we may be allowed to watch. If it is borne in mind, however, that every Pueblo ritual, however named, is fundamentally a prayer for rain, since without water there can be no increase of life, all observation and study will be simplified. The staple food of the Indians, in this infertile land, is maize, which, because it was so preëminently their staff of life, is universally known as “Indian corn.” It does not suffer from the long, dry summers, and requires almost no care. Bancroft writes of it: The maize springs luxuriantly from a warm, new field, and in the rich soil, with little aid from culture, outstrips the weeds; bears, not thirty, not fifty, but a thousand fold; if once dry, is hurt neither by heat nor cold; may be preserved in a pit or a cave for years, and for centuries; is gathered from the field by the hand, without knife or reaping hook; and becomes nutritious food by a simple roasting before a fire.[225] No wonder, then, that corn dances figured equally with the snake dances as prayers for rain, throughout the Indian country.[226] This cult was further developed by a selection of colors to harmonize with the six regions of the world. Since the colors for direction as given by Mrs. Stevenson for Zuñi agree with the names of the original Corn clans of Ácoma, I venture to use her designation: