<p>My friend went with me in the afternoon to the place where the mitote was to be given. As the preparations of the principal men consume two days, and I was bent on seeing everything, I went to the place the day before the dance was to come off. It was a few miles away in a remote locality, on top of a hill the upper part of which was composed mainly of huge stones, some of them as regular in shape as if they had been chiselled. Here and there in the few open spaces some shrubbery grew. An opening in the midst of the great mass of stones had been prepared to serve as a dancing-place. The big stones looked dead enough, but to the Indians they are alive. They are what the Coras call T&aacute;quats or ancient people. Once upon a time they went to a mitote, just as we were doing now, when the morning star arose before they arrived at their destination, and all were changed into stone, and ever since have appeared like stones. My companion pointed out the various figures of men, women, and children, with their bundles and baskets, girdles, etc., and in the waning light of day it was not difficult to understand how [519] the Indians had come to this conception of the fantastic forms standing all around the place. Even a mountain may be a Taquat, and all the Taquats are gods to whom the Coras pray and sacrifice food; but it is bad to talk about them.</p>
<p id="d0e6951">It had often been a puzzle to me why primitive people should make for themselves stone idols to whom they might sacrifice and pray; but what is to us a rock or stone may be to the Indian a man or a god of ancient times, now turned into stone. By carving out features, head, body, or limbs, they only bring before their physical eyes what is in their mind&#39;s eye. This peculiar kind of pantheism can never be eradicated from the Indian&#39;s heart unless he is from infancy estranged from his tribal life.</p>
<p id="d0e6953">In the centre of the dancing-place stood a magnificent tree not yet in leaf, called <i>chócote</i>, and there was some shrubbery growing about and around the place, which is very old. Only a few yards higher up among the rocks is a similar spot, with traces of still greater antiquity. The Indians had promised me that on this occasion one of their shamans would make a god&#39;s eye for me, and I was shown the stone on which he would sit while making it. It was near the tree; and back of it, arranged in a circle around the fire, were six similar stones, in place of the stools I had seen in Pueblo Viejo. The principal men had swept the place in the morning, and since then had been smoking pipes and talking to the gods.</p>
<p id="d0e6958">There were also present a female principal, an old woman, with her little granddaughter who represented the moon. These too, it seemed, had to attend to certain religious duties which they perform for five years, the child beginning at the innocent age of three. During her term she lives with the old woman, whether she [520] is related to her or not. The old lady has charge of the large sacred bowl of the community, an office vested only in a woman of undoubted chastity. This bowl is called &quot;Mother,&quot; and is prayed to. It consists of half of a large round gourd, adorned inside and outside with strings of beads of various colours. It is filled with wads of cotton, under which lie carved stone figures of great antiquity. None but the chief religious authority is allowed to lift up the cotton, the symbol of health and life. The bowl rests also on cotton wads. On festive occasions the woman in charge brings the bowl to the dancing-place and deposits it at the middle of the altar. Parrot feathers are stood up along the inner edge, and each person as he arrives places a flower on top of the cotton inside of the bowl. This vessel is really the patron saint of the community. It is like a mother of the tribe, and understands, so the Indians say, no language but Cora. The Christian saints understand Cora, Spanish, and French; but the Virgin Mary at Guadalupe, the native saint of the Mexican Indians, understands all Indian languages.</p>