their heads behind the flaps, and the performance ended with a prolonged roar from behind the screen. In the darkness which followed, made by hanging blankets before the fire, the actors packed their paraphernalia, gathered their effigies, and quietly left the room.
The accompanying plate[1] represents this fifth act, or the struggle of the mudhead with the serpent effigies. The framework, which is supported by two men, is decorated with zigzag symbols representing lightning; the row of semicircular bodies on the crossbeam symbolizes the rain clouds, from which descend parallel marks, the falling rain. These six semicircular rain-cloud symbols are of different colors of the cardinal points, and all have animal designs representing frogs and birds painted upon them. The manipulators of the serpent effigies are hidden from view by pine or cedar boughs inserted into a log on the floor, which is covered with figures of rings, symbolic of the earth. At the right of a median vertical line a serpent effigy is seen protruded through an opening, above which is a circular flap raised to a horizontal position. The serpent effigy on this side is searching for a youthful "mudhead," who has crawled below the disk. The left-hand serpent is represented in conflict with an adult mudhead, who has grasped it about the body and neck; the serpent appears to be biting at its opponent. We are looking at this strage contest from the raised spectators' floor of the kiva; the miniature cornfield, which one of the serpents knocked down a short time before, has been removed, and the clay pedestals which remained are distributed among the spectators. The weird effects of the light from the fireplace in the middle of the room have been brought out by the artist, Mrs Gill, who has successfully drawn these screens from the author's kodak photographs and sketches.
Sixth Act
There was yet another exhibition of serpent effigies in this continuous performance, and the actors were announced in much the same way as their predecessors. They appeared shortly after the departure of the Spider woman and her associates, and arrange their paraphernalia in the darkened room, holding up an additional blanket to conceal their preparations. When the blankets were dropped from before the fire, a miniature field of corn was seen on the kiva floor, and back of it were two vases surrounded, except on the side toward the fire, by a row of squatting mudheads. A song immediately began, and suddenly the four lappets[2] which covered the orifice of each vase were turned back automatically, when out of the vases slowly
- ↑ Plate XXXIII, Proc. Wash. Acad. Sci., vol. II, 1900.
- ↑ These four semicircular flaps, symbols of rain clouds, were painted in four colors, yellow, green, red, and white. On the necks of the vases were parallel lines, symbols of falling rain, and on their sides were stars and tadpole decoration. Each vase was placed on a bed of cedar or pine boughs to make it more stable.
