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Show ON THE TRAIL OF BEAUTY 25 ings for the rest of the ceremony. The painting of the Home of the Bear and the Snake showed where Elder Sister had stayed in the mountains. The People of the Myth sandpainting showed some of the mountain people she had visited. The Long Bodies, also called Mountain Goddesses, who live at the tops of the mountains, had their own special painting because they control the mountain medicines and the ceremonies. On the last day, wood was gathered for the Dark Circle of Branches. After the sandpainting of the Great Plumed Arrows was made, the People began to build the corral. By the time darkness had come, the fires in the corral had burned low. Then the Fire Dancers entered the corral. They were followed by the First Dancers who swallowed and spit up the Great Plumed Arrows. After these came the Yei'ii, who danced while drumming their baskets. Many other dancers followed â€" Mountain Sheep, Turkey, Porcupine, Badger, and Mountain People. The ceremony ended just at dawn. When light appeared in the east, exits were cut in the other three sides of the brush corral. Then it was finished, and Elder Sister returned to her own people. This painting of the Blue Corn People was made on the eighth morning of a Red Ant Way Ceremony. Prayersticks (k' et 'an) are planted around the painting. Large willow hoops for the tse bqs lie on calico spreads (upper right). At the base of the painting (upper center), small cinctures for the woltddd rest on a spruce upright. A Charlotte I. Johnson photograph, from Leland C. Wyman, The Red Antway of the Navaho (Santa Fe: Museum of Navajo Ceremonial Art, copyright 1965), p. 271, reprinted by permission of the Wheelwright Museum. |