When an Apache or other medicine-man is in full regalia he ceases to be a man, but becomes, or tries to make his followers believe that he has become, the power he represents. I once heard this asserted in a very striking way while I was with a party of Apache young men who had led me to one of the sacred caves of their people, in which we came across a great quantity of ritualistic paraphernalia of all sorts. "We used to stand down here," they said, "and look up to the top of the mountain and see the kan come down." This is precisely what the people living farther to the south told the early Spanish missionaries. The Mexicans were wont to cry out "Here come our gods!" upon seeing their priests masked and disguised, and especially when they had donned the skins of the women offered up in sacrifice.[716] The headdresses worn by the gods of the American Indians and the priests or medicine-men who served them were persistently called "miters" by the early Spanish writers. Thus Quetzalcoatl wore "en la cabeça una Mitra de papel puntiaguda."[717] When Father Felician Lopez went to preach to the Indians of Florida, in 1697, among other matters of record is one to the effect that "the chief medicine man called himself bishop."[718] Possibly this title was assumed because the medicine-men wore "miters." Duran goes further than his fellows. In the headdress used at the spirit dances he recognizes the tiara. He says that the Mexican priests at the feast of Tezcatlipoca wore "en las cabezas tiaras hechas de barillas."[719] The ghost dance headdress illustrated in this paper (Fig. 441) is known to the Chiricahua Apache as the "ich-te," a contraction from "chas-a-i-wit-te," according to Ramon, the old medicine-man from whom I obtained it. He explained all the symbolism connected with it. The round piece of tin in the center is the sun; the irregular arch underneath it is the rainbow. Stars and lightning are depicted on the side slats and under them; the parallelograms with serrated edges are clouds; the pendant green sticks are rain drops; there are snakes and snake heads on both horizontal and vertical slats, the heads in the former case being representative of hail. [Illustration: FIG. 441.--Ghost-dance headdress.] There are feathers of the eagle to conciliate that powerful bird, turkey feathers to appeal to the mountain spirits, and white gull feathers for the spirits of the water. There are also small pieces of nacreous shells and one or two fragments of the "duklij," or chalchihuitl, without which no medicine-man would feel competent to discharge his functions.