The final decoration of masks with ribbons, plumes, etc., began at sunrise
and consumed most of the morning. About noon two sticks 1 inch in diameter
and 6 inches long were colored; one, of piñon, was painted black, the
other, of cedar, was colored red. Three medicine tubes were made, one
black, one red, and one blue. These were placed in a basket half filled
with meal; the basket stood in the niche behind the song-priest. Two men
personated Naiyenesgony and Tobaidischinni. Naiyenesgony's body was
painted black (from the embers of a burnt weed of which specimens were
procured) and on the outside of his legs below the knee, on the upper
arms, breast and scapula were bows in white but without arrows.
Tobaidischinni had his body painted with the scalp knot in white in
relative positions to the bows on Naiyenesgony. A third man, personating
the turquois hermaphrodite Ahsonnutli, wore the usual squaw's dress with a
blanket fastened over the shoulders reaching to the ground. Her mask was
blue. The three left the lodge carrying their masks in their hands.
Passing some distance down the avenue to the east they put on their masks
and returned to the lodge. A buffalo robe had been spread in front of the
lodge. Just as the maskers returned, the invalid, wrapped in a fine red
Navajo blanket and bearing a basket of sacred meal, stepped upon the robe;
he had before stood in front of the lodge by the side of the song-priest.
The many spectators on foot and horseback clad in their rich blankets
formed a brilliant surrounding for this ceremony, which took place just at
the setting of the son. Naiyenesgony carried in his right hand a large
lava celt which was painted white. Tobaidischinni followed next carrying
in his right hand the black wood stick which had been prepared in the
morning, and in his left hand the red stick. Ahsonnutli followed with bow
and arrow in the left hand and an arrow in the right with a quiver thrown
over the shoulder.
Naiyenesgony drew so close to the invalid that their faces almost touched
and pointed his celt toward the invalid. Tobaidischinni then approached
and in the same manner pointed the sticks toward him, after which he was
approached by Ahsonnutli with her bow and arrows. This was repeated on the
south, west, and north sides of the invalid; each time the invalid
partially turned his arm, shoulder, and back to sprinkle meal upon the
gods. The gods then rushed to the entrance of the medicine lodge repeating
the ceremony there, when they hurried to the south side of the lodge (the
invalid having returned to the lodge; the buffalo robe was carried in by
an attendant). The gods went from the south side of the lodge to the west
and then to the north performing the same ceremony. As the invalid had
spent many days in the lodge and the disease at each day's ceremony exuded
from his body, it was deemed necessary that these gods should go to the
four points of the compass and draw the disease from the lodge. When they
entered the lodge the buffalo robe had been spread in front of the
song-priest with its head north. Upon this robe each god knelt on his left
knee, Naiyenesgony on the north end of the robe, Ahsonnutli on the south
end, and Tobaidischinni between them, all facing east. The song-priest,
followed by the invalid, advanced to the front of the line carrying the
basket containing the medicine tubes. He sprinkled Naiyenesgony with corn
pollen, passing it up the right arm over the head and down the left arm to
the hand. He placed the black tube in the palm, of the left hand of the
god, the priest chanting all the while a prayer. The red tube was given
with the same ceremony to Tobaidischinni, and the blue tube with the same
ceremony to Ahsonnutli. The quiver was removed from Ahsonnutli before she
knelt. The song-priest, kneeling in front of Naiyenesgony, repeated a long
litany with responses by the invalid, when the gods left the lodge led by
Naiyenesgony who deposited his tube and stick in a piñon tree,
Tobaidischinni depositing his in a cedar tree, and Ahsonnutli hers in the
heart of a shrub.