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Keams Canon, Arizona
Feb 10, 1898

My own true loving little wife,

I received two letters from you & glad to hear from you. I am sorry Katie & Matie got hurt so bad & hope they are all right now. I wrote to have $25.00 sent to you for February.

I have got 29 pictures finished now ,16 of them are Moqui. Tomorrow commence to paint a girl named Quang. She is a pretty girl. McNeil made a bust of her and sold lots of them. She says she is my girl. She is 14 years old.

I had to loaf this afternoon on account of a big ceremony that commences tomorrow at noon, (2) so I can’t work tomorrow afternoon. They have been making preparations for this dance for several days.

I was on the Mesa this afternoon and such a queer thing I saw which commences the day before the big ceremony. There were 8 Moqui men dressed in the most hideous and frightful way I ever saw. A human(?) person dressed in, and each fellow represented a certain God. 4 of them had things like alligators. One of them, the most hideous of all, represented or looked like a person who had been dead for 50 years. There was a leader among them and they would go from house to house begging for things to eat and it seems the things had to be given to them (3) through some little child. They would go to a house and the leader, a terrible looking fellow, (all had masks on made by themselves out of skins, etc.) would say something, in a voice like a God, would talk and these 4 fellows (with alligator heads with long jaws sticking out with teeth on them and they could make the jaws go up and down) would dance a queer step all the time.

The old woman didn’t want to give anything and the leader would be asking in this queer voice. Pretty soon the old woman would give something in this way - she had her little child in front of her, and the child would hand it out, just scared to death. It would yell and cry as loud as it could, so scared, I felt sorry for the little things. (4) After the child would give the leader something, the old woman & child would start to leave and the leader would call them back to give them some more, and the old woman would kick and make a fuss, but no matter. These fellows insisted, and if she made any more fuss another fellow, who looked like the devil, would grab the child and tie a rope around him and the old woman would grab the child. Then another terrible looking fellow would come up and put a rope around the old woman, and you ought to have heard the yelling, but the woman would give in and take her child after something more and the child would have it in it's hand, (5) and hand to the leader, and if the leader wasn’t satisfied (which in most all cases he wouldn’t be, as the woman were so stingy, they wouldn’t give any more then was possible), he and two others would make the cussedest noise you ever heard. When through with the noise this fellow who was gotten up the worst, and scariest thing I ever saw, would make a long noise which sounded like a dead man coming to life. Then he would go to the child and grab the child. His hands all covered with blood, and a terrible looking knife in his hand, with blood on it, and sharpen the knife on a stone and two other fellows would grab the child & woman and the (6) fellow with a knife would make believe he was going to cut them up.

Well, I tell you, it was exciting. The fellow with the knife making that fearful noise all the time. That last act would bring the old woman around and she would get things for them until they were satisfied and they would go to the next house. Each of the three villages up there had these same kind of men fixed up to beg. I felt so sorry for the four little children. They were just scared to death. If you should meet these 8 fellows and not know what they were, I believe you would die from fright.

Tomorrow there will be nearly 100 of these fellows, (7) gotten up in the most hideous manner, representing different Gods and they give some kind of a dance which lasts 6 hours. I pity the little children. They really think these fellows are Gods coming from different places.

The picture I finished today is of one of them called the Ma-chow-ba-at-tah, which means God of the upper world. These Moqui are the queerest people I believe in the world, so original.

We are having regular summer weather here now, nice & warm. I generally sleep good. Well I must close. Good night darling. Your own true loving husband.

Lots of love, hugs & kisses,

Elbridge