On a high mesa framed by a fiery desert sky, the dancers appear: with eerie spectral masks, flesh painted in earthy clay and turquoise colors, and swathed in skins. The kachina priests whirl through the dusty streets of the village clacking tortoise rattles, chanting, waving yucca switches. Hopi legends say these "messengers of the Creator" have returned from the San Francisco mountains to begin anew the natural and spiritual cycle of planting and harvest. The desert will be blessed and purified and nourished by rain. An hour's drive north of the high mesa,...
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