assemblage of the Bear and Snake Societies, the chiefs of which
challenge them and tell them that if they are good people, as they
claim, they can bring rain.

[Footnote 25: Hough, Walter, Op. cit., pp. 156-158.]

"After an interesting interchange of ceremonies, the Flute priests
return to their kiva to prepare for the public dance on the morrow. When
at 3:00 a.m. the belt of Orion is at a certain place in the heavens, the
priests file into the plaza, where a cottonwood bower has been erected
over the shrine called the entrance to the underworld. Here the priests
sing, accompanied with flutes, the shrine is ceremonially opened and
prayer-sticks placed within, and they return to the kiva. At some of the
pueblos there is a race up the mesa at dawn on the ninth day, as in
other ceremonies.

"On the evening of the ninth day the Flute procession forms and winds
down the trail to the spring in order: A leader, the Snake maiden, two
Snake youths, the priests, and in the rear a costumed warrior with bow
and whizzer. At the spring they sit on the south side of the pool, and
as one of the priests plays a flute the others sing, while one of their
number wades into the spring, dives under water, and plants a
prayer-stick in the muddy bottom. Then taking a flute he again wades
into the spring and sounds it in the water to the four cardinal points.
Meanwhile sunflowers and cornstalks have been brought to the spring by
messengers. Each priest places the sunflowers on his head and each takes
two cornstalks in his hands and the procession, two abreast, forms to
ascend the mesa. A priest draws a line on the trail with white corn meal
and across it three cloud symbols. The Flute children throw the
offerings they hold in their hands upon the symbols, followed by the