Two long processions advanced slowly into the plaza. In single file, keeping perfect time, their turtle-shell, leg rattles in absolute unison, dressed all alike in kilts and armlets, with faces and bodies painted white, the dancers approached each other from opposite sides, and wonderful to behold, each dancer with head thrown back supported a tall spruce tree erect in his mouth. Below were the bodies of the white-painted figures, robust and vigorous, and above a moving forest. The processions continued to advance, and curved round the plaza until they displayed their entire length, halted with a loud fanfare of gourd rattles,—and then became still and silent. There were women among them—and one wearing a white, cylinder-shaped mask. Some children, neophytes, followed, and on one side a tiny boy with a miniature spruce brought up the rear. The dancers rested, withdrew the trees from their mouths and held them, butts upward with the top boughs resting on the ground. Then it was that the full significance of the performance was revealed. The butts, rudely chopped to a tapering point eight or more inches in length, had been entirely swallowed.