ashes held in the palm of the hand and moistened with water.  This process is repeated every morning during infancy and the same paste is put upon the face of the child until it is several years old.  I would remark that this paste is seldom noticed upon the older children because it is put on in the morning and drying soon is brushed off by the child.  It is asserted by the Zuni that in four days after the birth of a child the first skin is removed by exfoliation and is supplanted by a new one.  After applying the ashes, the paternal grandmother places the infant in the arms of the maternal grandparent, who performs other offices for the little one and wraps it in a piece of cotton cloth.  The paternal grandmother prepares a bed of warm sand by the right side of the mother (leaving a cool spot for the child’s head); she then receives the infant and lays it upon its bed, and over it she arranges the little blanket which she brought; she then places upon the sand and at the right side of the child an ear of white corn; if the child be a girl, the mother, or a three-plumule, corn is selected; if a boy, the father, or single ear, corn.  The fourth day after the birth the child is again bathed in the yucca root suds by the same grandmother, who again repeats a long prayer.  During the first ten days of the child’s life the paternal grandmother remains in the daughter-in-law’s house, looking after the mother and helping in the preparation of the feast that is to occur.  On the morning of the tenth day the child is taken from its bed of sand, to which it is never to return, and upon the left arm of the paternal grandmother it is carried for the first time into the presence of the rising sun.  To the breast of the child the grandmother carrying it presses the ear of corn which lay by its side during the ten days; to her left the mother of the infant walks, carrying in her left hand the ear of corn which lay by her side.  Both women sprinkle a line of sacred meal, emblematic of the straight road which the child must follow to win the favor of its gods.  Thus the first object which the child is made to behold at the very dawn of its existence is the sun, the great object of their worship; and long ere the little lips can lisp a prayer it is repeated for it by the grandmother.

The Zuni are polytheists; yet, while they have a plurality of gods, many of whom are the spirits of their ancestors, these gods are but mediums through which to reach their one great father of all—­the Sun.

[Plate XX:  Zuni masks and K[=O]-Y[=E]-M[=E]-shi.

2 P[=A]-oo-T[=I]-wa. 1 K[=O]-Y[=E]-M[=E]-shi. 3 Sai-[=A]-hli-A.]