The great rabbit-hunt, still practised by all the Pueblos several times during each year, is a communal undertaking, a religious ceremony, in which not only the men take part, but the women and children also.  The object is to obtain the skins which the chief penitents use for some sacramental purpose.  It is also a feast and a day of rejoicing and merriment for the whole village.  The hunt is under the direction of the principal war captain, and the leading dignitaries share the sport.  Long prayers around a fire which is started outside of the pueblo opens the performance.  The game is hunted and killed with clubs, and a lively and sometimes amusing rivalry is displayed by both sexes in securing the rabbits, which often gives rise to very ludicrous scenes.  Sometimes the hunt is continued for several days in succession.

When the brothers reached the crest of the undulation, they witnessed sights that to a stranger would have been nearly incomprehensible.  Men, women, and children were running back and forth in every direction, no longer chasing game, but playing, laughing, romping, with loud and boisterous talk.  Small groups were already going home loaded with game, others with empty hands, to the great amusement and merciless jeering of the successful hunters.  Among the former were men dressed in the costume of women, while with the lucky ones women in male attire paraded proudly.  It was an animated picture spread over a wide expanse, but it was moving back to the village in the east; and when the Indians from the Rito stood still to observe, there remained in their immediate vicinity only a few men in female garb.  Beyond them stood a group of five or six persons, laughing and jesting.

Over the broad plain there rested a mild, subdued glow of pleasant twilight; the highest summits of the Sierra glistened in fiery hues.

Hayoue stepped up boldly, his brother keeping alongside watchfully.  He was ready, not to flee, but to hide, and use the bow in case of necessity.  They were noticed by those standing nearest.  The men in women’s garb were busy breaking twigs and branches, or cutting them off with stone implements.  At the sight of strangers, they suspended work and stared.  Hayoue laid aside his bow and quiver, and extended his right hand, calling out,—­

“Queres Tyuonyi!”

No answer came.  Zashue could not control his mirth at the sight of the men in such guise; he broke out in a ringing laugh, pointed at them, and shouted, “Puyatye!” then to himself with the exclamation, “Koshare!”

The salutations called forth no reply.  The Tanos continued to stare.  It was not merely astonishment which caused them to remain motionless; there was quite as much embarrassment on their part.  For these men in women’s wraps had had to assume the costumes as a punishment, because they had allowed women to outwit or out-hunt them in the joint pursuit of the same animal.  Whenever a man and a woman,