ends spread apart like a low tripod. Two straight sticks leaned against
the apex form a narrow entrance, which, as in the hogán, invariably
faces the east. Numerous other sticks and boughs inclose the frame,
and enough bark and earth are laid on to make the structure practically
air-tight when the entrance is closed.

When the place is to be used a fire is made close beside it, and in
this fire numerous stones are heated. The patient to be treated is
then stripped, placed inside the little hut, and given copious drafts
sometimes of warm or hot water. The nearly red-hot stones are rolled in
beside him and the entrance is closed with several blankets, forming in
fact a hot-air bath. In a short time the air in the interior rises to a
high temperature and the subject sweats profusely. When he is released
he rubs himself dry with sand, or if he be ill and weak he is rubbed
dry by his friends. This ceremony has a very important place in the
medicine-man’s therapeutics, for devils as well as diseases are thus
cast out; but aside from their religious use, the _çó‘tce_ are often
visited by the Indians for the cleansing and invigorating effect of
the bath, with no thought of ceremonial. The Navaho, as a race or
individually, are not remarkable for cleanliness, but they use the
_çó‘tce_ freely.

[Illustration: Fig. 240--Low earth-covered shelter]

During the _Yébĭtcai_ dance or ceremony four _çó‘tce_ are set around the
song house, about 40 yards distant from it, one at each cardinal point.
The _qaçál‘i_, or chief medicine-man, sweats the patient in them on four
successive mornings, just at dawn, beginning with the east and using one
each morning. The _çó‘tce_ on the east is merely an uncovered frame, and
after the patient enters it and hot stones have been rolled in it is