Upon the completion of the fourth round some one of the runners shouted loudly "ha ... ū ..." and at this signal all lifted the pole vertically into place in the hole. The call was repeated as the pole was about half way up. When in place, the pole was fixed by tramping earth and stones about it.
Within a few minutes after the erection of the pole the Gū´ksū-dancers appeared and stopped about two or three hundred yards away from the dance-house. Some of the men had been attempting to climb the pole, both men and women meanwhile throwing at them balls, gala´l (E), of uncooked meal made of a certain grass seed.
As the Gū´ksū-dancers appeared in the distance the climbing ceased, and the children who were to be initiated were collected about the base of the pole. Boys who were to be thus initiated were called yō´mta (E), while girls were called masa´nta (E). They ranged in age from perhaps five to ten years. The dancers proceeded to the foot of the pole, took the children in hand, and performed the following ceremony, the object of which was to secure for the children good health and to make them grow rapidly. The children were first made to lie down upon the ground and were covered with blankets. Then, under the supervision of the dancers, each child had two cuts made with a broken shell across the small of its back and about an inch apart. The cutting was done by the gaxa´ xale (E), an old man selected for the purpose by the people of the village on account of his long life, good health, and particularly his good heartedness. This was one of the most important phases of the initiation, and upon it depended the effect upon the life of the child. The children were in each case covered completely with the blanket and were not permitted, under any consideration, to look up during this part of the ceremony. They might make any outcry they pleased, but if they attempted to look up from the ground they were threatened and even beaten with the staffs of the dancers. The cutting was done quite deeply, so that blood was always drawn. The children were also prohibited from looking up into a tree from under its branches until after these scarifications had completely healed, else the tree would bear no fruit.