The night is passed in dancing hikuli and yumari.  The pile of fresh plants, perhaps two bushels or more, is placed under the cross, and sprinkled with tesvino, for hikuli wants to drink beer, and if the people should not give it, it would go back to its own country.  Food is also offered to the plants, and even money is placed before them, perhaps three silver dollars, which the owner, after the feast, takes back again.

During the year, feasts may be held especially in honour of hikuli, but generally the hikuli dance is performed simultaneously with, though apart from, the rutuburi or other dances.  On such occasions some shamans devote themselves exclusively to the hikuli cult, in order that the health of the dancers may be preserved, and that they may have vigour for their work.

The hikuli feast consists mainly in dancing, which, of course, is followed by eating and drinking, after the customary offerings of food and tesvino have been made to the gods.  It is not held on the general dancing-place, in front of the Tarahumare dwelling, but on a special patio.  For the occasion a level piece of ground may be cleared of all stones and rubbish, and carefully swept with the Indian broom, which is made of a sheaf of straw tied in the middle.

Meanwhile some people go into the woods to gather fuel for the large fire which will be needed.  The fire is an important feature of the hikuli-feast, a fact indicated by the name, which is napitshi nawliruga, literally, “moving (i.e. dancing) around (nawliruga) the fire (napitshi).”  There seems to be a preference for fallen trees, pines or oaks, but this may be because they are found in plenty everywhere, are drier and burn better, and finally save the men the labour and time of cutting them down.  Quite a number of such trunks are brought together, and placed parallel to each other in an easterly and westerly direction; but not until after sunset is the fire lighted.

The master of the house in which the feast is to be held gives some plants to two or three women appointed to the office of shaman’s assistants.  At an ordinary gathering, a dozen or two of the plants suffice.  The women are called rokoro, which means the stamen of the flower, while the shaman is the pistil The women grind the plants with water on the metate, and then take part in the dance.  They must wash their hands most carefully before touching them; and while they are grinding a man stands by with a gourd, to catch any stray drop of liquor that may drip from the metate, and to watch that nothing of the precious fluid is lost.  Not one drop must be spilled, and even the water with which the metate is afterward washed, is added to the liquid.  The drink thus produced is slightly thick and of a dirty brown colour.