"Really the most important thing we do with this kind of a mask is for
the men to wear when they go round the village and call out the children
and scare them a little bit and tell them to be good so they don't have
to come back with the basket and carry them off. Sometimes they act like
they were going to take some naughty children with them right now, and
ask the parents if they have any bad ones, and the parents are supposed
to be very worried and hide the children and tell the Giants their
children are good, and always the parents have to give these Giants that
come around some mutton and other things to eat, in order to save their
children; and then the children are very grateful to their parents.

"You see, the parents always tell the men who are coming around,
beforehand, of a few of the things the children have been doing, so when
they come looking for bad children they mention these special things to
show the children that they know about it. And parents tell children a
Giant may come back for them if they are pretty bad, and come right down
the chimney maybe.

"My brother is a pretty tall man, and I am the tallest man in Oraibi, so
we are sometimes chosen to act the part of Giants. Then we paint all
black and put on this kind of a mask. It is an enormous black head with
a big beak and big teeth. The time when the Giants go around and talk to
the children is in February.

"There were a good many of these masks, very old and very funny ones.
But a beam fell, killing many giant masks and leaving only two of the
real old ones. So now we have to use some masks made of black felt; one
of these is a squaw mask.

"I don't know if we can wait till February, or not, mine is getting
pretty bad already." (Note: This last was said with a big laugh and a
look around to see where his own boy was. And just then the tall little
son, aged eight, let out a yell exactly like any other little boy who
has cut his finger on Daddy's pocket knife. The buxom mother and two
aunts went scrambling down the ladder to see what was the matter. The
father got up, too, but laughed and remarked, "He be all right," and
came back and sat down. H.G.L.)

* * * * *

One of the most pleasant memories the writer has kept of her Hopi
story-tellers is that of wholesome Mother Sacknumptewa of Oraibi. She
must be middle-aged, and is surprisingly young-looking to be the mother
of her big family of grown-up sons and