over both of them. No sooner
has he done so than she doffs her blanket, letting it fall upon the
ground, which is the admission on her part that she loves him, and does
him obeisance as her future lord and master.

Every Indian camp at night is full of such lovers, with wooings as
sweet, lips as willing, embraces as fond, lives as romantic, hearts as
true, and elopements as daring and desperate as ever graced a Spanish
court. The old people come together with their friends and hold a
council. "How many ponies can he pay for her?" has a good deal to do
with the eligibility of the suitor. That night he brings his articles of
dowry to the door of his fiancee. If they are still there next morning,
he is rejected; if not, accepted.

No formal marriage ceremony is gone through as a rule. The heart is the
certificate and the Great Spirit the priest. Under the tribal government
of the Indians, the rights of women were respected and clearly defined.
She was the head of the house, and all property, save an insignificant
amount, descended at death to her. She was in many tribes personified as
the principal object of worship, prayer and adoration, in the tutelary
goddess of the tribe. Now all is changed. The Indian of to-day is not
the Indian of fifty years ago, and cannot be studied in the same light.
His manners, customs and habits are all changed, and polygamy, more and
more, creeps in with all its appalling degradations.

On special occasions an entire tribe is gathered under an open space in
the cottonwoods to celebrate their principal dances. Hands are wildly
waved above the heads of the dancers around a central fire of logs,
piled in a conical heap. Around this blazing pile runs the dark circle
which was built at sunset, inclosing sacred ground, which must not be
trespassed on. The old chanter stands at the gate of the corral and
sings. The men built the dark circle in less than an hour. When done,
the corral measures forty paces in diameter. Around it stands a fence
eight feet high, with a gate in the east ten feet wide.

At night-fall many of the Navajo people move, temporarily, all their
goods and property into the corral, and abandon their huts or hogans.
Those who do not move in are watchers to protect their property, for
there are thieves among the Navajos. At 8 o'clock a band of musicians
enters, and, sitting down, begins a series of cacophonous sounds on a
drum. As soon as the music begins, the great wood pile is