[629] The requisites of the Hako were such that only the well-todo and important members of the tribe could assume responsibility for its performance. Two groups were required, who must not be of the same clan, and might even be of different tribes, for it was essentially a social drama, designed to insure friendship and peace between social groups, and to benefit society as a whole by bringing children to individuals. Ritualistic in structure, the Hako exhibits a compactness and progressive unity that could be studied to advantage by modern writers of community masques and pageants. Miss Fletcher's analysis of the ceremony as a whole is so masterly that it would be as unfair to her as to the reader to abridge it. But there are some features that distinguish it as a literary production, which must be mentioned. Each movement is complete in itself, but indispensable. There is a closer relation between the emotional episodes and the rhythm, a finer web of words. Progressive stanza structure characterizes every movement. The verse forms are dramatically logical and rhythmically descriptive, the action leading and largely determining the form. To a very remarkable degree the verse contours conform to the contours of the country traversed, either actually or imaginatively, throughout the performance. It is probable that this correspondence of form is unconscious on the part of the Pawnee authors, for, as with most folk-drama, many minds must have gone to the making of it. The Pawnees and cognate tribes who use the Hako have lived so long exposed to the influence of the open country about the Platte River that their songs unconsciously take the shape of its long undulations. Miss Fletcher has not always been successful in preserving the poetic quality of the songs, but their rhythms are most faithfully worked out, as in the following, one of a series of songs describing the journey of the Father group to the group called The Children:
Dark against the sky yonder distant linewhich accurately represents the jog trot of journey across the rolling prairie. A little later comes the crowding of ponies on the river bank:
Runs before, trees we see, long the line of trees
Bending, swaying in the breeze,
