During the killing and dressing
neither of the two men who prepared the feast hurried, yet scarcely
five minutes passed from the time the first blow was struck on the
wing of the squawking fowl until the work was over and the meat in
the boiling pot. The cooking of a fowl always brought a crowd of boys
who hung over the fragrant vessel, and they usually got their share
when, in about twenty minutes, the meat came forth. Three times in
the afternoon a fowl was thus distributed. Cooked pork was passed
among the people, and rice was always being brought. Twice a man went
through the crowd with a large winnowing tray of cooked carabao hide
cut in little blocks. This food was handed out on every side, people
tending children receiving double share. The people gathered and ate
in the congested spaces about the dwelling. The heat was intense --
there was scarcely a breath of air stirring. The odor from the body
was heavy and most sickening to an American, and yet there was no
trace of the unusual on the various faces.
New arrivals came to take their last look at Som-kad', now a black,
bloated, inhuman-looking thing, and they turned away apparently
unaffected by the sight.
The sun slid down behind the mountain ridge lying close to the pueblo,
and a dozen men armed with digging sticks and dirt baskets filed along
the trail some fifteen rods to the last fringe of houses.
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