“They just saved his head, and carried it to the Hopi at Oraibi.  They arrived just when the people were having breakfast, at about ten in the morning.  So they reported to the second chief and presented him with the Giant’s head.

“The second chief was well pleased and said he was glad and very thankful, and then he said, ’I don’t know what I can give you for a proper gift, but I have two daughters and, if you want them, you can take them along.’

“The boys smiled and whispered, ’They look pretty good, let’s take them for squaws.’  So they said they would take them.

“‘All right,’ said their father, ‘come on the fourth day and get them.’

“So they went home and told their grandmother, and on the fourth day they came back and got their wives.

“The Hopi always kept the head of this Giant to use as a mask in some dances.

“Really the most important thing we do with this kind of a mask is for the men to wear when they go round the village and call out the children and scare them a little bit and tell them to be good so they don’t have to come back with the basket and carry them off.  Sometimes they act like they were going to take some naughty children with them right now, and ask the parents if they have any bad ones, and the parents are supposed to be very worried and hide the children and tell the Giants their children are good, and always the parents have to give these Giants that come around some mutton and other things to eat, in order to save their children; and then the children are very grateful to their parents.

“You see, the parents always tell the men who are coming around, beforehand, of a few of the things the children have been doing, so when they come looking for bad children they mention these special things to show the children that they know about it.  And parents tell children a Giant may come back for them if they are pretty bad, and come right down the chimney maybe.

“My brother is a pretty tall man, and I am the tallest man in Oraibi, so we are sometimes chosen to act the part of Giants.  Then we paint all black and put on this kind of a mask.  It is an enormous black head with a big beak and big teeth.  The time when the Giants go around and talk to the children is in February.

“There were a good many of these masks, very old and very funny ones.  But a beam fell, killing many giant masks and leaving only two of the real old ones.  So now we have to use some masks made of black felt; one of these is a squaw mask.

“I don’t know if we can wait till February, or not, mine is getting pretty bad already.” (Note:  This last was said with a big laugh and a look around to see where his own boy was.  And just then the tall little son, aged eight, let out a yell exactly like any other little boy who has cut his finger on Daddy’s pocket knife.  The buxom mother and two aunts went scrambling down the ladder to see what was the matter.  The father got up, too, but laughed and remarked, “He be all right,” and came back and sat down.  H.G.L.)