The shaman (sometimes there are two) takes his seat on the ground to the west of the fire, about two yards off.  On the opposite side of the dancing-place, toward the east, the cross is placed.  The shaman’s male assistants, at least two in number, seat themselves on either side of their principal, while the women helpers take a position to the north of the fire.  On one occasion I observed that the men grouped themselves on one side of the shaman, the women on the other.  Close by the shaman’s seat a hole is dug, into which he or his assistants may spit, after having drunk or eaten hikuli, so that nothing may be lost.  After this improvised cuspidor has been used, it is always carefully covered with a leaf.

As soon as the shaman has seated himself, he takes a round drinking-gourd, and by pressing its rim firmly into the soil and turning the vessel round, makes a circular mark.  Lifting up the bowl again, he draws two diametrical lines at right angles in the circle, and thus produces a symbol of the world.

In the centre he puts a hikuli, right side up; or he may dig a hole in the centre, to the depth of five or six inches, and place the hikuli in this.  He then covers it up with the gourd, bottom up, so that the plant stands within a hollow sphere.  The gourd may be replaced by a wooden vessel of similar shape; but in any case it is firmly planted in the ground to serve as a resonator for the musical instrument,—­the notched stick, which the shaman leans against the vessel, and on which with another stick he rasps an accompaniment to his songs.  If he does not plant the gourd carefully in the ground, it will make a discordant sound, which will vex the demi-god, and he will cause someone in the house to die.  The noise produced by the rasping is enjoyed by Hikuli; that is why he is placed beneath the bowl.  He is powerful, and manifests his strength by the noise produced.

The notched stick, as well as the rasping-stick, is made from the heavy, hard Brazil-wood, brought from the vicinity of San Ignacio, the hikuli country.  The shaman holds the notched stick in his left hand, a little away from himself, so that it touches the vessel at a point below the middle of its length, the part between the shaman’s hand and the point of contact being a little longer than the portion from that point to the end of the stick.

The notched sticks which are shown in the illustration, from a Tarahumare burial-cave, are apparently of considerable age.  The Indians to whom I showed them did not know them, but they all affirmed that they were rasping-sticks.  On two sides of one of them are slanting lines, which symbolize the road of Tata Dios; on the intervening sides are transverse lines which represent falling rain.  As the implements were found near Baborigame, they may possibly have belonged to the Tepehuanes, the northern members of whom also have the hikuli cult.