These prey fetishes of the Zuñis belong to the Prey-God Brotherhood, and when not in use they are guarded by the “Keeper of the Medicine of the Deer.” Before they are employed in a hunt, there is an assembly for their worship; and, after ceremonial prayer to them for their assistance, they are taken out for service by members of the Brotherhood to which they belong. “The fetich is then placed in a little crescent-shaped bag of buckskin which the hunter wears suspended over the left breast (or, heart) by a buckskin thong, which is tied above the right shoulder.” When the trail of the animal hunted is discovered by the hunter, he finds a place where the animal has lain down, and there he makes an oblation by depositing his offering “in exactly the spot over which the heart of the animal is supposed to have rested.” Then he brings out his fetish and with certain ceremonies and invocations he puts it on the track of the prey. “As soon as the animal is dead, he [the hunter] lays open its viscera, cuts through the diaphragm, and makes an incision in the aorta, or in the sac which incloses the heart. He then takes out [of its bag] the prey fetich, breathes on it, and addresses it thus: ... ‘Si! My father, this day of the blood [literally of the ‘life fluid’] of a game-being, thou shalt drink, ([shalt] water thyself). With it thou shalt enlarge (add unto) thy heart.’ He then dips the fetich into the blood which the sac still contains, continuing meanwhile the prayer, as follows: ... ‘Likewise, I, a “done” being [a living human being], with the blood [the “life-fluid,” which is] the flesh of a raw being (game animal), shall enlarge (add unto) my heart.’ Which [prayer] finished, he scoops up, with his hand, some of the blood and sips it; then tearing forth the _liver_, ravenously devours a part of it [as the blood-flesh, or, the blood which is the flesh], and exclaims, ‘_É-lah-kwá!_’ (Thanks).” After all this, he deposits a portion of the clot of blood from within the heart, commingled with various articles, in a grave digged on the spot where the animal has died; repeating, as he does this, a prayer which seems to show his belief that the slain animal still lives in this buried heart-blood. Again, when the game is at the hunter’s home, the women “lay on either side of its body, next to the heart, an ear of corn (significant of renewed life), and say prayers” over it. Finally “the fetich is returned to the Keeper of the Deer Medicine, with thanksgiving and a prayer, not unlike that uttered on taking it forth.”[691]