Portrait of the Author Frontispiece
          
                                         facing page
The East End of the Canon of the Tyuonyi 8
A Modern Indian Dance 18
An Estufa 18
Rito de los Frijoles:  Cavate Rooms in Cliff; Ruins
of Talus Pueblo at the Foot of Cliff 38
A Westerly Cliff of the Habitations of the Tyuonyi,
Showing Second and Third Story Caves, and
Some High Lookout Caves 70
A Navajo Hogan 88
The Heart of the Tyuonyi:  The Excavated Lower
Story of the Great Terraced Communal House 88
Rito de los Frijoles:  A Cliff Estufa of the Snake-Clan 116
The Dance of the Ayash Tyucotz 140
Indian Pueblo Dances of To-day:  Lining Up for the
Dance; The “Clowns” 164
Type of Old Indian Woman 186
Juanico:  A Member of the Modern Village-Council 224
The Hishtanyi Chayan, or Chief Medicine Man 256
Looking Out from One of the Weathered Cave-Rooms
of the Snake-Clan 320
Rito de los Frijoles:  Looking Out from the Ceremonial
Cave 384
Ruins of an Ancient Pueblo 472
A Modern Pueblo 486

* * * * *

THE DELIGHT MAKERS

CHAPTER I.

The mountain ranges skirting the Rio Grande del Norte on the west, nearly opposite the town of Santa Fe, in the Territory of New Mexico, are to-day but little known.  The interior of the chain, the Sierra de los Valles, is as yet imperfectly explored.  Still, these bald-crested mountains, dark and forbidding as they appear from a distance, conceal and shelter in their deep gorges and clefts many a spot of great natural beauty, surprisingly picturesque, but difficult of access.  From the river these canons, as they are called in New Mexico, can be reached only by dint of toilsome climbing and clambering; for their western openings are either narrow gaps, or access to them is barred by colossal walls and pillars of volcanic rocks.  The entire formation of the chain, as far as it faces the Rio Grande, is volcanic, the walls of the gorges consisting generally of a friable white or yellowish tufa containing nodules of black, translucent obsidian.  The rock is so soft that in many places it can be scooped out or detached with the most primitive tools, or even with the fingers alone.  Owing to this peculiarity the slopes exposed to the south and east, whence most of the heavy rains strike them, are invariably abrupt, and often even perpendicular; whereas the opposite declivities, though steep, still afford room for scanty vegetation.  The gorges run from west to east,—­that is, they descend from the mountain crests to the Rio Grande, cutting the long and narrow pedestal on which the high summits are resting.