id on a
slender stick which ran horizontally. The first reed painted was laid to
the north. Three dots were put upon each blue reed to represent eyes and
mouth; two lines encircled the black reeds. Four bits of soiled cotton
cloth were deposited in line on the east of the rug. The three
attendants under the direction of the song-priest took from the medicine
bag, first two feathers from the Arctic blue bird (_Sialia arctica_),
which he placed west of the bit of cloth that lay at the north end of
the rug; he placed two more of the same feathers below the second piece
of cloth; two under the third, and two below the fourth, their tips
pointing east. Then upon each of these feathers he placed an under
tail-feather of the eagle. The first one was laid on the two feathers at
the north end of the rug; again an under tail-feather of the turkey was
placed on each pile, beginning with that of the north. Then upon each of
these was placed a hair from the beard of the turkey, and to each was
added a thread of cotton yarn. During the arrangement of the feathers
the tube decorator first selected four bits of black archaic beads,
placing a piece on each bit of cloth; then four tiny pieces of white
shell beads were laid on the cloths; next four pieces of abalone shell
and four pieces of turquois.

In placing the beads he also began at the north end of the rug. An aged
attendant, under the direction of the song-priest, plucked downy
feathers from several humming-birds and mixed them together into four
little balls one-fourth of an inch in diameter and placed them in line
running north and south, and south of the line of plume piles. He
sprinkled a bit of corn pollen upon each ball; he then placed what the
Navajo term a night-owl feather under the balls with its tip pointing to
the northeast. (See Pl. CXIII). The young man facing west then filled
the colored reeds, beginning with the one on the north end. He put into
the hollow reed, first, one of the feather balls, forcing it into the
reed with the quill end of the night-owl feather. (A night-owl feather
is always used for filling the reeds after the corn is ripe to insure a
warm winter; in the spring a plume from the chaparral cock, _Geococcyx
californianus_, is used instead to bring rain). Then a bit of native
tobacco was put in. When the reed was thus far completed it was passed
to the decorator, who had before him a tiny earthen bowl of water,
a crystal, and a small pouch of corn p