Here we found people from far and near who had come to see the dance. There was Jesus, the Mexican, and French Dan, Falstaffian and dissolute. There was the Missionary whom later I was to know better and the Field Matron, a wraith of a woman who went silently among the Indians and gave them some drug she had discovered through an advertisement in the “boiler plate” of her home paper. There were the Indians who fraternize with the whites, like the Albino and the old Mormon, or to give him his full name, Ten Cent Mormon, because he had been baptized by the Mormons in the early days and received ten cents to bind the bargain.
The conversation at the dinner table where we had a hearty, steaming meal was all about the dance, and even the sheriff was moved to express himself. It was the first time this particular dance had been performed for years. The Arrow-Swallowing society had given public exhibitions, but on this occasion there was to be tree-swallowing as well. It was plain enough that the agent and the sheriff really believed that the Indians had supernatural powers.
The agent accompanied me to the village that afternoon and guided me to a place in the large, central court where I could see the dance to advantage. A red blanket was spread for us to sit upon, and we took our places with the expectant crowd. Every living soul in the pueblo, dressed in their best and gayest clothes, lined the roofs of the terraced houses.
Few plays are staged more effectively than these performances. The adobe walls of the houses furnish a perfect background. The court seems entirely inclosed and the processions of dancers enter and return by passageways set at right angles on either side. In the centre of the plaza was a long, white, wooden box painted in colors with cloud-terrace and rain symbols which the musicians used as a resonator for their notched-stick rattles. While we talked, the agent pointed out familiar faces like Niña, the pretty granddaughter of old Nayuchi the war chief, and Lusalu, the fat governor. The small children played on the edges of the crowd and mud-bedaubed clowns lolled around the painted box. Two old men dressed in gala attire, with white smocks and gay bandas and sashes, took up the notched instruments and began scraping them in a rhythmic motion with plectra made of sheep bone. There are few more mysterious and disturbing sounds than this same scraping. The time is perfect, the rhythm inexorable. Something was about to happen.