So when the feathered
messengers of the Old Woman began to arrive in spring the Indians
celebrated the corn-medicine festival of the women. Scaffolds were
set up, on which the people hung dried meat and other things by way
of offerings to the Old Woman; and on a certain day the old women of
the tribe, as representatives of the Old Woman who Never Dies,
assembled at the scaffolds each bearing in her hand an ear of maize
fastened to a stick. They first planted these sticks in the ground,
then danced round the scaffolds, and finally took up the sticks
again in their arms. Meanwhile old men beat drums and shook rattles
as a musical accompaniment to the performance of the old women.
Further, young women came and put dried flesh into the mouths of the
old women, for which they received in return a grain of the
consecrated maize to eat. Three or four grains of the holy corn were
also placed in the dishes of the young women, to be afterwards
carefully mixed with the seed-corn, which they were supposed to
fertilise. The dried flesh hung on the scaffold belonged to the old
women, because they represented the Old Woman who Never Dies.
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