92. While some were making the çobolçà others busied themselves grinding, between stones, large quantities of pigments, coarser than those referred to above, to be used in making the sand pictures or dry paintings of the ceremony. They made five colors: black, of charcoal; white, of white sandstone; red, of red sandstone; yellow, of yellow sandstone; and “blue,” of the black and white, mixed in proper proportions; of course this was a gray, but it was their only cheap substitute for the cerulean tint, and, combined with the other colors on the sanded floor, in the dim light of the lodge, it could not easily be distinguished from a true blue. It may be remarked in passing that the Navajo apply to many things which are gray the term they use for blue (çolíj); thus the gray fox is called màï-çolíj (blue coyote) and a gray sheep is called a blue sheep. Yet that they make a distinction between these colors is, I think, fairly evident from the fact that in painting small articles, such as kethàwns and masks, they use the more costly articles of turquoise, malachite, and indigo. These coarse pigments for the dry paintings were put for convenience on curved pieces of piñon bark. From time to time, during this and the following days, as the heaps of colored powder diminished under the hands of the artists, more stones and charcoal were pulverized to replenish them. 93. About noon they cleared off that portion of the floor of the lodge which lay west of the fire, and brought, in blankets, a quantity of dry sand, which they spread out over the cleared portion of the floor in a layer of the nearly constant depth of three inches. They smoothed the surface with the broad oaken battens used in weaving. Now for a time all operations were suspended in the lodge while the chanter went out to plant the çobolçà, or plumed wands, in front of the medicine lodge, and to lay beside them the collars of beaver skins and the symbols for wings which the couriers were to wear next day. (Fig. 51.) These articles, it was said, were placed outside as a sign to the gods that the holy pictures were being drawn; but it is not improbable that they were intended also as a sign to uninitiated mortals. However that may be, they were taken in as soon as the picture was finished. The great painting was begun about 1 o’clock p.m., was finished about 3, and was allowed to remain until the ceremonies at night were concluded. It will be described later. (Paragraphs 160 et seq.) [Illustration: FIG. 51. The çobolçà, or plumed wands, as seen from the door of the medicine lodge.]