with warm ashes held in the palm of the hand and moistened with water.
This process is repeated every morning during infancy and the same
paste is put upon the face of the child until it is several years
old. I would remark that this paste is seldom noticed upon the
older children because it is put on in the morning and drying soon
is brushed off by the child. It is asserted by the Zuñi that in
four days after the birth of a child the first skin is removed by
exfoliation and is supplanted by a new one. After applying the ashes,
the paternal grandmother places the infant in the arms of the maternal
grandparent, who performs other offices for the little one and wraps
it in a piece of cotton cloth. The paternal grandmother prepares a bed
of warm sand by the right side of the mother (leaving a cool spot for
the child's head); she then receives the infant and lays it upon its
bed, and over it she arranges the little blanket which she brought;
she then places upon the sand and at the right side of the child
an ear of white corn; if the child be a girl, the mother, or a
three-plumule, corn is selected; if a boy, the father, or single ear,
corn. The fourth day after the birth the child is again bathed in
the yucca root suds by the same grandmother, who again repeats a long
prayer. During the first ten days of the child's life the paternal
grandmother remains in the daughter-in-law's house, looking after the
mother and helping in the preparation of the feast that is to occur.
On the morning of the tenth day the child is taken from its bed
of sand, to which it is never to return, and upon the left arm of
the paternal grandmother it is carried for the first time into the
presence of the rising sun. To the breast of the child the grandmother
carrying it presses the ear of corn which lay by its side during the
ten days; to her left the mother of the infant walks, carrying in her
left hand the ear of corn which lay by her side. Both women sprinkle
a line of sacred meal, emblematic of the straight road which the child