stone knife some 3-1/2 inches
long. An attendant then colored the tubes. The first reed was painted
blue, the second black, the third blue, and the fourth black. Through all
these, slender sticks of yucca had been run to serve as handles while
painting the tubes and also to support the tubes while the paint was
drying. The attendant who cut the reeds sat left of the song-priest,
facing east; a stone containing the paints was placed to the north of the
rug; and upon the end of the stone next to himself the reed-cutter
deposited a bit of finely broken tobacco. In cutting the reeds
occasionally a bit splintered off; these scraps were placed by the side of
the tobacco on the northeast end of the rug.

[Illustration]

The attendant who colored the reeds sat facing west; and as each reed was
colored it was placed on the rug, the yucca end being laid 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