but afterward we were glad we had not made any objection.

"It was mid-morning when the Seven walked between the fields, with
little food in their bags and none whatever in their stomachs, all in
rags except Waits-by-the-Fire, who had put on her Shaman's dress, and
around her neck, tied in a bag with feathers, the Medicine of the Sun.
People stood up in the fields to stare, and we would have stared back
again, but we were afraid. Behind the stone house we saw the Hill of the
Sun and the priests moving up and down as Waits-by-the-Fire had
described it.

"Below the hill, where the ground was made high, at one side of the
steps that went up to the Place of Giving, stood the house of the Corn
Goddess, which was served by women. There the Seven laid up their
offering of poor food before the altar and stood on the steps of the
god-house until the head priestess noticed them. Wisps of incense smoke
floated out of the carved doorways and the drone of the priestess like
bees in a hollow log. All the people came out on their flat roofs to
watch--Did I say that they had two and even three houses, one on top of
the other, each one smaller than the others, and ladders that went up
and down to them?--They stood on the roofs and gathered in the open
square between the houses as still and as curious as antelopes, and at
last the priestess of the Corn came out and spoke to us. Talk went on
between her and Waits-by-the-Fire, purring, spitting talk like water
stumbling among stones. Not one word did our women understand, but they
saw wonder grow among the Corn Women, respect and amazement.

"Finally, we were taken into the god-house, where in the half dark, we
could make out the Goddess of the Corn, cut in stone, with green stones
on her forehead. There were long councils between Waits-by-the-Fire and