One of the most complicated ceremonies of the Hopi is the New Fire, which occurs in November at five of the pueblos. Every fourth year the ceremony is extended by the initiation of novices, but in ordinary years it is abbreviated. Four societies take part and these include almost every male adult in the villages, so there is no lack of performers. The first event that is noteworthy is the making of new fire by two of the societies. Two pairs of fire makers each place a piece of cottonwood on the kiva floor and drill upon it with a slender rod revolved between the palms of the hands, until the friction of the drill on the wood ignites the dust which has been ground off. The little coal of fire is fed with shredded bark until flame is produced; from this the fuel on the kiva fireplace is lighted and with a bark fuse is carried to the kivas of the three other societies. This fire is sacred and no one may blow upon it, or take a light from it, and after the end of the ceremony it is suffered to go out and the ashes are thrown over the mesa with prescribed rites. Sacrifices of pine needles are made to the sacred fire soon after it is kindled. Most of the Hopi are familiar with the ancient method of making fire by the friction of wood, and it is not many years since they knew no other way. Now matches of a particularly sulphurous variety are easy to get, and the primitive fire drill is in force only in the New Fire ceremony. From day to day there are processions of the celebrating societies, who dance through the pueblo, forming a line with locked hands and moving with a sidelong halting step forward and backward, while the women from the houses drench them with water and shout rude jests. At night there are patrols of the celebrants, who ring cowbells or beat on tin cans and make night hideous. The novices take their nocturnal rounds at breakneck speed led by a priest, somewhat in the way of a college initiation. These poor fellows have a hard life of fasting and vigils; one of their ordeals is to go to a mountain about fifteen miles away to dig soap root and white earth with which they return gaunt and worn. This ceremony presents more life and public exhibition than almost any other in Hopiland, hence a description of it in brief compass is impossible. To an onlooker it must exhibit a chaos of acts by the four powerful fraternities that perform it, a bewildering pageant by day and alarms and sallying forth by night, with rites also in progress in all the kivas.