In making his toilet as Flute Messenger, to which the writer was a witness, John found it necessary to have his bang trimmed. This service was performed by an old fellow who picked up from the floor a dubious looking brush made of stiff grass stems, moistened it with his tongue occasionally as he brushed John's hair, and finally with a pair of rickety scissors cut the bang to regulation shape. Sikyabotoma, in spite of the drawbacks pointed out, is one of the lions of Walpi by birth; he also belongs to the first families. Divested of civilized garb, and as a winged Mercury flying with messages to the good beings, he is an object to be gazed on with admiration, disposing one to be lenient with his besetting vanity. VI BIRTH, MARRIAGE, AND DEATH A blanket hangs over the usually opened door and a feeble wail issuing from within the dusky house betokens that a baby has come into the world, and awaits only a name before he becomes a member of the Hopi commonwealth. The ceremony by which the baby is to be dedicated to the sun and given a name that will bind him indissolubly to the religious system of his people is interesting from the light it casts on the customs of the Hopi and the parallels it offers to the natal rites of other peoples. On the mud-plastered wall of the house, the mother has made, day by day, certain scratches which mark the infant's age, or perhaps reckons the time on her fingers till nineteen days have passed. The morning of the twentieth day brings the ceremony. Meanwhile the little one has been made to know some of the trials of life. On the first day of his entrance into this arena, his head has been washed in soaproot suds and his diminutive body rubbed with ashes, the latter, it is alleged, to kill the hair, and his mother must also undergo the ceremonial head washing, which must be repeated on the fifth, tenth, and fifteenth days with the amole root, which is the only soap known to the Hopi. Besides, the mother must never be touched by the direct rays of the sun during the first five days, which explains the blanket often hung before the doorway; nor may she put on her moccasins, for fear of ill luck.