Meantime the Moquis, men, women, and children, all dressed in their gayest raiment, were gathering in groups on the landings and in the square.

Presently there was a crowd, a thousand or fifteen hundred strong; at last appeared the victims, the performers, or whatever they were.
"Dear me!" murmured Aunt Maria.

"Twenty weddings at once! I hope divorce is frequent." Twenty men and twenty women advanced to the centre of the plaza in double file and faced each other.
The dance began; the performers furnished their own music; each rolled out a deep _aw aw aw_ under his visor.
"Sounds like a swarm of the biggest kind of blue-bottle flies inside the biggest kind 'f a sugar hogset," was Glover's description.
The movement was as monotonous as the melody.

The men and women faced each other without changing positions; there was an alternate lifting of the feet, in time with the _aw aw_ and the rattling of the gourds; now and then there was a simultaneous about face.
After a while, open ranks; then rugs and blankets were brought; the maidens sat down and the men danced at them; trot trot, aw aw, and rattle rattle.
Every third girl now received a large empty gourd, a grooved board, and the dry shoulder-bone of a sheep.

Laying the board on the gourd, she drew the bone sharply across the edges of the wood, thus producing a sound like a watchman's rattle.
They danced once on each side of the square; then retired to a house and rested fifteen minutes; then recommenced their trot.