But before the dance a certain decorum prevailed. This Rain dance, we were told, was especially sacred. Then, whooping and performing monkey antics, two strange figures, mostly naked except for some horizontal stripes painted with grease paint on their legs and bodies, leaped down the outside stairway of the priesthouse. Horns adorned their heads, and a tail apiece eked out their scanty costume. They turned somersaults, seized women by the waist and waltzed with them, hit each other playfully over the head with sticks, rushed into houses, and came out with pails of food, whereat they squatted in the plaza, and ate with simulated gusto. They were the _koshari_, or delight-makers,--the hereditary clowns who open the dance ceremonies. Like the ancient Lords of Misrule, they are king for the day, and all must obey their fantastic whims. They are licensed plunderers, privileged to rush into any house, which must be left open, and run off with anything which takes their fancy. Possibly because the _koshari_ availed themselves too enthusiastically of this part of their priestly office, it is now the custom to set out food for them, to which they are supposed to confine themselves. [Illustration: SANTA DOMINGO WOMAN.] [Illustration: TAOS WOMAN.] [Illustration: KOSHARI: RAIN DANCE: SAN YLDEFONSO.] One _koshari_ was tottering and blind, steering himself with a cane, and the brusque aid of his companion, a fat young rascal who would have been funny in any language. He, poor soul, no longer amusing, contented himself with rushing about on his withered legs, and uttering feeble yelps in concert with his colleague. The dancers followed, all young men,--some in their teens,--and began a solemn march around the village preceding the dance. Necklaces of evergreen wreaths comprised their costume from the waist up, two eagle feathers topped their hair, short white hand-woven skirts reached to the knee, with an occasional fox skin hanging behind, and at the side red, white and green tassels of wool. The limbs and bodies were painted; at the ankles tortoise shells rattled, and gourds in their hands shook with silvery precision. In moccasins edged with skunk fur, they stamped in light, unvarying rhythm, first on one foot, then the other, wheeling in sudden gusts, not together, but in a long rhythmic swell so accurately timed to undulate down the line that each foot was lifted a fraction higher than the one in front. They sang quietly, with the same shuddering little accent their gourds and feet maintained, at intervals stressing a note sharply, in absolute accord. Two women, young and comely, in the heavy black squaw dress and white doeskin leggins of the Pueblo woman, squatted midway before the line of lithe dancers, and beat, beat all through the day on their drums, while all through the day, lightly, sharply, the moccasined feet were planted and lifted, with a snap and re-bound as if legs and rippling bodies covered not sinews, but springs