blankets by beating them in the flowing water. Go up the succession of ladders to the very top of a five storied house, and look out. You can see the pasture fields, where the herds graze in common. On the outskirts of the village, men and boys are threshing, that is--they are chasing ponies round and round inside a kraal, with a flag stuck up to show which way the wind blows, one man forking chaff with the wind, another scraping the grain outside the circle. Glance inside the houses. The upstairs is evidently the living-room; for the fireplace is here, and the pot is on. Off the living-room are corn and meal bins, and you can see the _metate_ or stone on which the corn is ground by the women as in the days of Old Testament record. Though there is a new Mission church dating from the uprising in the forties, and an old Mission church dating almost from 1540, you can see from the roof dozens of _estufas_, where the men are practicing for their dances and masked theatricals. Tony, the assistant governor, an educated man of about forty who has traveled with Wild West shows, acts as our guide, and tells us about the squatters trying to get the Indian land. How would you like an intruder to sit down in the middle of your farm and fence off 160 acres? The Indians didn't like it, and cut the fences. Then the troops were sent out. That was in 1910--a typical "uprising," when the white man has both troops and courts on his side. The case has gone to the courts, and Tony doesn't expect it to be settled very soon. In fact, Tony likes their own form of government better than the white man's. All this he tells you in the softest, coolest voice, for Tony is not only assistant governor: he is constable to keep white men from bringing in liquor during the festal week. They yearly elect their own governor. That governor's word is absolutely supreme for his tenure of office. Is there a dispute over crops, or cattle? The governor's word settles it without any rigmarole of talk by lawyers. "Supposing the guilty man doesn't obey the governor?" we ask. "Then we send our own police, and take him, and put him in the stocks in the lock-up," and he takes us around and shows us both the stocks and the lock-up. These stocks clamp down a man's head as well as his hands and feet. A man with his neck and hands anchored down between his feet in a black room naturally wouldn't remain disobedient long. The method of voting is older than the white man's ballot. The Indians enter the _estufa_. A mark is drawn across the sand. Two men are nominated. (No--women do not vote; the women rule the house absolutely. The men rule fields and crops and village courtyard.) The voters then signify their choice by marks on the sand.