The final decoration of masks with ribbons, plumes, etc., began at sunrise and consumed most of the morning. About noon two sticks 1 inch in diameter and 6 inches long were colored; one, of piÑon, was painted black, the other, of cedar, was colored red. Three medicine tubes were made, one black, one red, and one blue. These were placed in a basket half filled with meal; the basket stood in the niche behind the song-priest. Two men personated Naiyenesgony and Tobaidischinni. Naiyenesgony's body was painted black (from the embers of a burnt weed of which specimens were procured) and on the outside of his legs below the knee, on the upper arms, breast and scapula were bows in white but without arrows. Tobaidischinni had his body painted with the scalp knot in white in relative positions to the bows on Naiyenesgony. A third man, personating the turquois hermaphrodite Ahsonnutli, wore the usual squaw's dress with a blanket fastened over the shoulders reaching to the ground. Her mask was blue. The three left the lodge carrying their masks in their hands. Passing some distance down the avenue to the east they put on their masks and returned to the lodge.[pg 270] A buffalo robe had been spread in front of the lodge. Just as the maskers returned, the invalid, wrapped in a fine red Navajo blanket and bearing a basket of sacred meal, stepped upon the robe; he had before stood in front of the lodge by the side of the song-priest. The many spectators on foot and horseback clad in their rich blankets formed a brilliant surrounding for this ceremony, which took place just at the setting of the son. Naiyenesgony carried in his right hand a large lava celt which was painted white. Tobaidischinni followed next carrying in his right hand the black wood stick which had been prepared in the morning, and in his left hand the red stick. Ahsonnutli followed with bow and arrow in the left hand and an arrow in the right with a quiver thrown over the shoulder.

Naiyenesgony drew so close to the invalid that their faces almost touched and pointed his celt toward the invalid. Tobaidischinni then approached and in the same manner pointed the sticks toward him, after which he was approached by Ahsonnutli with her bow and arrows. This was repeated on the south, west, and north sides of the invalid; each time the invalid partially turned his arm, shoulder, and back to sprinkle meal upon the gods. The gods then rushed to the entrance of the medicine lodge repeating the ceremony there, when they hurried to the south side of the lodge (the invalid having returned to the lodge; the buffalo robe was carried in by an attendant). The gods went from the south side of the lodge to the west and then to the north performing the same ceremony. As the invalid had spent many days in the lodge and the disease at each day's ceremony exuded from his body, it was deemed necessary that these gods should go to the four points of the compass and draw the disease from the lodge. When they entered the lodge the buffalo robe had been spread in front of the song-priest with its head north. Upon this robe each god knelt on his left knee, Naiyenesgony on the north end of the robe, Ahsonnutli on the south end, and Tobaidischinni between them, all facing east. The song-priest, followed by the invalid, advanced to the front of the line carrying the basket containing the medicine tubes. He sprinkled Naiyenesgony with corn pollen, passing it up the right arm over the head and down the left arm to the hand. He placed the black tube in the palm, of the left hand of the god, the priest chanting all the while a prayer. The red tube was given with the same ceremony to Tobaidischinni, and the blue tube with the same ceremony to Ahsonnutli. The quiver was removed from Ahsonnutli before she knelt. The song-priest, kneeling in front of Naiyenesgony, repeated a long litany with responses by the invalid, when the gods left the lodge led by Naiyenesgony who deposited his tube and stick in a piÑon tree, Tobaidischinni depositing his in a cedar tree, and Ahsonnutli hers in the heart of a shrub.