So you see in this glorious Southwest we may still follow in the very footsteps of the gods, and regard the world as it seems through the eyes of a primitive and poetic race—see in the lightning the weapon of the red gods, in the rainbows their bridges to traverse chasms withal, in the sunbeams their swift cars of passage. There is something rather exhilarating, I think, to know that in our materialistic America there is a region where the Ancient Ones still haunt as in the youth of the world. To be sure the white man’s schools are operating to break up this primitive faith; but the ingrained genius of a race is not made over in a generation. One may stumble still upon Navajo religious ceremonies, held in the open, with their picturesque rites and maskings and wild music. They differ markedly from the ceremonies of the Pueblos, and are, as a rule, undertaken under the charge of medicine men primarily for the cure of the sick. There are no fixed dates for any of these ceremonies, and casual travelers do not often see them, as they are most likely to be held during the cold weather, when few visitors care to penetrate into the country. An exceedingly interesting adjunct of many of the Navajo rites is the dry sand painting, of a symbolic character and often of striking beauty, made in color upon a prepared flooring of sand. The design is “drawn” on this by dribbling upon it the dry ground pigments—white, red, yellow, black and gray—from between the artist’s thumb and fore-finger. The picture must be done in one day, several men sometimes working upon it at once. When completed the sick man is placed upon it and treated; and after that, the picture is obliterated.[54] CHAPTER IX THE HOMES OF THE HOPIS, LITTLE PEOPLE OF PEACE