After this preliminary ordeal my visitors would ask to see the things which I had brought back from the messiah—the rabbit-skin robes, the piñon nuts, the gaming sticks, the sacred magpie feathers, and, above all, the sacred red paint. This is a bright-red ocher, about the color of brick dust, which the Paiute procure from the neighborhood of their sacred eminence, Mount Grant. It is ground, and by the help of water is made into elliptical cakes about 6 inches in length. It is the principal paint used by the Paiute in the Ghost dance, and small portions of it are given by the messiah to all the delegates and are carried back by them to their respective tribes, where it is mixed with larger quantities of their own red paint and used in decorating the faces of the participants in the dance, the painting being solemnly performed for each dancer by the medicine-man himself. It is believed to ward off sickness, to contribute to long life, and to assist the mental vision in the trance. On the battlefield of Wounded Knee I have seen this paint smeared on the posts of the inclosure about the trench in which are buried the Indians killed in the fight. I found it very hard to refuse the numerous requests for some of the paint, but as I had only one cake myself I could not afford to be too liberal. My friends were very anxious to touch it, however, but when I found that every man tried to rub off as much of it as possible on the palms of his hands, afterward smearing this dust on the faces of himself and his family, I was obliged in self-defense to put it entirely away.