ucing rain and good crops. Abstinence from
drinking water for two days during droughts is sometimes observed. The
principal men on such occasions may undertake to do the fasting for
the rest of the people. They then shut themselves up in La Comunidad,
sit down, smoke, and keep their eyes on the ground.

The Coras of the canon are not always in summer in accord with Father
Sun, because he is fierce, producing sickness and killing men and
animals. Chulavete, the Morning Star, who is the protecting genius of
the Coras, has constantly to watch the Sun lest he should harm the
people. In ancient times, when the Sun first appeared, the Morning
Star, who is cool and disliked heat, shot him in the middle of the
breast, just as he had journeyed nearly half across the sky. The
Sun fell down on earth, but an old man brought him to life again,
so that he could tramp back and make a fresh start.

The Morning Star is the principal great god of the Coras. In the
small hours of the morning they frequently go to some spring and wash
themselves by his light. He is their brother, a young Indian with bow
and arrow, who intercedes with the other gods to help the people in
their troubles. At their dances they first call him to be present,
and tell their wants to him, that he may report them to the Sun and
the Moon and the rest of the gods.

A pathetic story of the modern adventures of this their great hero-god
graphically sets forth the Indian's conception of the condition in
which he finds himself after the arrival of the white man. Chulavete
was poor, and the rich people did not like him. But afterward they took
to him, because they found that he was a nice man, and they asked him
to come and eat with them. He went to their houses dressed like the
"neighbours." But once when they invited him he came like an Indian
boy, almost naked. He stopped outside of the house, and the host came
out with a torch of pinewood to see who it was. He did not recognise
Chulavete, and called out to him: "Get away, you Indian pig! What are
you doing here?" And with his torch he burned stripes down the arms and
legs of the shrinking Chulavete. Next day Chulavete received another
invitation to eat with the "neighbours." This time he made himself
into a big bearded fellow, with the complexion of a man half white,
and he put on the clothes in which they knew him. He came on a good
horse, had a nice blanket over his shoulder, wore a sombrero and a
good sabre.