speak, but the boy is instructed by his guardian, who talks to him in
a whisper, telling him not to be afraid, but to strike hard. The eyes
of the boys open wide as the Kōk-kō raise their masks and for the
first time familiar faces are recognized. The Kōk-kō leave the
kiva after revealing their identity to the children, and running,
around the village use their switches indiscriminately, with a few
exceptional cases. I saw a woman whipped, she taking the babe from
her back and holding it in her arms. This woman requested the whipping
that she might be rid of the bad dreams that nightly troubled her.
After the Sai-ā-hli-ā leave the kiva the children are called by the
priest of the Kōk-kō and told to sit in front of him and the other
priests, including the High Priest of Zuñi. This august body sits
in the kiva throughout the ceremony. The Priest of the Kōk-kō
then delivers a lecture to the boys, instructing them in some of the
secrets of the order, when they are told if they betray the secrets
confided to them they will be punished by death; their heads will be
cut off with a stone knife; for so the Kōk-kō has ordered. They
are told how the Kōk-kō appeared upon the earth and instructed the
people to represent them. The priest closes by telling the children
that in the old some boys betrayed the secret and told that these
were not the real gods, but men personating the Kōk-kō, and when
this reached the gods the Sai-ā-hli-ā appeared upon the earth
and inquired for the boys. The people then lived upon the mesa
tō-wā-yäl-län-ne. The mothers declared they knew not where they
had fled. The Kōk-kō stamped his feet upon the rocky ground and the
rocks parted, and away down in the depths of the mountain he found
the naughty boys. He ordered them to come to him and he cut off their
heads with his stone knife. This story is sufficient to impress
the children that there is no escape for them if they betray the
confidence reposed in them, for the Kōk-kō can compel the rocks to