The Mamzrauti ceremony, held at the October moon, is a harvest dance, and fortunate are the Hopi when they can celebrate it with joyful heart and abundant feasting. The Mamzrau resembles in many points the Lalakonti, but the differences are more important. A sand picture is made, a frame of painted slabs erected back of it, and fetiches placed around the medicine bowl and sand picture. Novices are initiated in a tedious ceremony lasting through several days, and messengers are sent to springs and shrines to deposit prayer-sticks. There are ceremonial head washings as in other ceremonies, and various secret rites are performed in the kiva. On the fourth day the final initiation of the novices takes place, and the priestesses dance around a pile of peaches on the kiva floor, and, what is more, enjoy a good feast of this prized fruit. On the sixth day a public dance is held by actors who imitate certain _kachinas_, and on the seventh day, just at sunset, the priestesses, some disguised as men, dance the spirited buffalo dance. On the eighth day, disguised as clowns, they parade around the pueblo and are attacked by the men who throw water none too clean and various unpleasant things upon them, and after much noise and fun, the women run home. There is no dawn race on the morning of the ninth day, but early the priestesses have donned their costumes and assemble in the court where they dance and throw green cornstalks among the men who crowd around. Later in the day comes the concluding dance, when the celebrants, holding gaily painted slabs of wood in each hand, march into the plaza and form a horseshoe figure with the opening toward the east. From the kiva now come two women dressed as men, having bows and arrows in their hands. As they advance they throw before them a package of corn husks and shoot their arrows at it, the act representing lightning striking and fertilizing the fields. Thus they advance by stages to the circle of dancers and throw the bundle in their midst, shooting at it, then shooting two arrows in the air they return to the kiva. In a few minutes they appear again, carrying trays of dumplings of sweet corn meal which they toss one by one to the eager spectators. Then the circle of dancers disperse, but again and again throughout the day, the distributors return to dispense their offerings. At sunset, the sand pictures, fetiches, and altar slabs are removed by Saalako and the Mamzrau is over. At night there is a serenade by two parties of men, each party singing loudly as though to drown the voices of the other. This serenade is said to be in honor of the women for their pious celebration of the Mamzrau.[7] [7] The Mamzrauti: A Tusayan Ceremony, by J. Walter Fewkes and A. M. Stephen, American Anthropologist, Vol. 5, No. 3, July, 1892.