Few plays are staged more effectively than these performances. The adobe walls of the houses furnish a perfect background. The court seems entirely inclosed and the processions of dancers enter and return by passageways set at right angles on either side. In the centre of the plaza was a long, white, wooden box painted in colors with cloud-terrace and rain symbols which the musicians used as a resonator for their notched-stick rattles. While we talked, the agent pointed out familiar faces like Niña, the pretty granddaughter of old Nayuchi the war chief, and Lusalu, the fat governor. The small children played on the edges of the crowd and mud-bedaubed clowns lolled around the painted box. Two old men dressed in gala attire, with white smocks and gay bandas and sashes, took up the notched instruments and began scraping them in a rhythmic motion with plectra made of sheep bone. There are few more mysterious and disturbing sounds than this same scraping. The time is perfect, the rhythm inexorable. Something was about to happen.