In the centre of the dancing-place stood a magnificent tree not yet in leaf, called chocote, and there was some shrubbery growing about and around the place, which is very old.  Only a few yards higher up among the rocks is a similar spot, with traces of still greater antiquity.  The Indians had promised me that on this occasion one of their shamans would make a god’s eye for me, and I was shown the stone on which he would sit while making it.  It was near the tree; and back of it, arranged in a circle around the fire, were six similar stones, in place of the stools I had seen in Pueblo Viejo.  The principal men had swept the place in the morning, and since then had been smoking pipes and talking to the gods.

There were also present a female principal, an old woman, with her little granddaughter who represented the moon.  These too, it seemed, had to attend to certain religious duties which they perform for five years, the child beginning at the innocent age of three.  During her term she lives with the old woman, whether she is related to her or not.  The old lady has charge of the large sacred bowl of the community, an office vested only in a woman of undoubted chastity.  This bowl is called “Mother,” and is prayed to.  It consists of half of a large round gourd, adorned inside and outside with strings of beads of various colours.  It is filled with wads of cotton, under which lie carved stone figures of great antiquity.  None but the chief religious authority is allowed to lift up the cotton, the symbol of health and life.  The bowl rests also on cotton wads.  On festive occasions the woman in charge brings the bowl to the dancing-place and deposits it at the middle of the altar.  Parrot feathers are stood up along the inner edge, and each person as he arrives places a flower on top of the cotton inside of the bowl.  This vessel is really the patron saint of the community.  It is like a mother of the tribe, and understands, so the Indians say, no language but Cora.  The Christian saints understand Cora, Spanish, and French; but the Virgin Mary at Guadalupe, the native saint of the Mexican Indians, understands all Indian languages.

Leaving the principales to prepare themselves further for the dance, my friend and I early next morning went to see a sacred cave where the Huichols go to worship.  It was situated in the same hill, outside of the country of that tribe.  There were a great many caves and cavities between the stones over which we made our way, jumping from one to another.  Near the lower edge of this accumulation of stones I noticed, down in the dark, deep recesses, ceremonial arrows which the pious pilgrims from beyond the eastern border of the Cora land had left.  Soon after passing this point We came to a cave, the approach of which led downward and was rather narrow.  With the aid of a pole or a rope it can easily be entered.  I found myself at one of the ancient places of worship of the Huichol Indians, the cave of their Goddess