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Such was the case at Nambé in March, 1855, when owl's feathers were found buried at several places in the Pueblo. Among Indians any great feast, like the dance of the ayash tyucotz described in the preceding chapter, is not followed by the blue Monday with which modern civilization is often afflicted.
The woman spoke softly, entreatingly, as if she was soothing a sick child. But the object of her sympathy sighed, and continued, in the same tone of utter despondency, "Sister, had you been present at the ayash tyucotz, when all the people danced and sang, your eyes would have seen what the heart could not approve.
But the most valuable piece of news she had heard from the intruders was that three days hence a solemn dance, the ayash tyucotz, was to be performed at the Rito. These ceremonies, which are always of a religious nature, are proposed generally by the principal shamans to the civil chiefs, in council or privately, either on the strength of some presage or dream, or as a public necessity.
Since the rain which followed upon the ayash tyucotz the sky had been blue again as before; the season for daily showers had not yet commenced, and the people were in the corn-patches as busy as possible, improving the bright days in weeding and putting the ground in order. The bottom of the gorge therefore presented an active appearance.
Did Say know anything about the real object of the stormy visit which he and Tyope paid to her home during the dance of the ayash tyucotz?
She despised men most thoroughly, but accepted their attentions if profitable. On the day following the ayash tyucotz Shotaye left her cave in quest of vegetable medicaments. We have seen how she met Okoya, and how they greeted one another. The boy's sullen manner amused her; she attributed his morose ways to the effects of an over-lively night.
This is the signification of the ayash tyucotz when performed about the time of the summer solstice. However clumsy and meaningless it may seem, it is still a solemn performance.
White is the symbolic paint of the Koshare; hence all the actors who have performed their several parts, including the coarse jesters, make up and represent the society of the Delight Makers, whose office it is to open the ayash tyucotz.
"You lie! There is no dance now." Anxiously and eagerly Zashue cried, "There will certainly be a dance. Three days hence we shall dance the ayash tyucotz!" And Hayoue, who until then had quietly enjoyed the dialogue, now interjected emphatically, "Certainly, sanaya, in three days." "What will you give me if I bring them?" came the dull query again from within. "A hide." "Go!
Both right and left of the screen, pine-branches resembling Christmas-trees of to-day were stuck into the floor. This strange decoration expresses symbolically a meaning similar to that intended to be conveyed by the dance of the ayash tyucotz.
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