Part 9

The _Kachinas_ are the deified spirits of the ancestors, who came from San Francisco Mountains and perhaps from the Rio Grande and other places, to visit their people. Their name means the "sitters," because of the custom of burial in a sitting posture, and they resemble "The watchers sitting below" of _Faust_. They are believed to guard the interests of the Hopi and to intercede with the gods of rain and fertility. Their first coming is in December at the Soyal ceremony, and others continue to come till August when the great Niman, or Farewell _Kachina_, is celebrated with songs, dances, and feasting.

These deified spirits, or _Kachinas_, are personated by Indians who sometimes go outside the town, dress themselves in appropriate costume, present themselves at the gate, and are escorted through the streets with great fun and frolic. Every few days there is a new arrival and a fresh festival. Each year there is something new, and the Indians rack their inventive genius to produce the most startling masks and costumes. The _kachinas_ admit of any character in the extensive Hopi mythology. Almost any character from a clown to a god can be introduced, and there are songs belonging to each. Every male Hopi takes some part in the _kachinas_, and all dates and distances are cancelled when these dances are in progress.

The _kachina_ dances promote sociability among the pueblos. The Walpi boys, for instance, may give a representation of a _kachina_ at a neighboring pueblo in return for a like expression of good-will on some other occasion. It goes without saying that there is a friendly rivalry among the pueblos, each striving to give the best dance. Like his white brothers, the Indian works harder at his amusement than at almost anything else.

These dances also show the cheerful Hopi at his best,--a true, spontaneous child of nature. They are the most characteristic ceremonies of the pueblos, most musical, spectacular, and pleasing. They are really more worthy of the attention of white people than the forbidding Snake Dance, which overshadows them by the element of horror.

In July the _kachinas_ take their flight, and with a great culminating ceremony the Hopi bid them farewell. The Niman, or Farewell ceremony, begins about July 20th and lasts nine days, like the four great ceremonies between August and November, and like them also having a regular secret ritual in the kivas. Instead, however, of one day or so of public ceremony, the Niman furnishes many surprises and sallyings forth to the amusement of the populace. Delegates hurry on very long journeys for sacred water, pine boughs, and other essentials for the use of the priests. Sad indeed is the state of the Hopi that fate detains, and strong must be circumstances that prevent his reunion with his people at this great festival.

The Niman public dances which follow the eight days of kiva rites are imposing spectacles. The first takes place before sunrise and the second in the afternoon. There are many _kachinas_ in rich costumes, wearing strange helmets and adorned in many striking ways. They carry planting sticks, hoes, and other emblematic paraphernalia. A number are dressed as female _kachinas_. These furnished an accompaniment to the song by rasping sheep's scapulæ over notched sticks placed on wooden sounding boxes. The male and female dancers stand in two lines and posture to the music, and the former turn around repeatedly during the dance. The children especially enjoy the dance, because the _kachinas_ have brought great loads of corn, beans, and melons, and baskets of peaches, which are gifts for the young folks, and dolls, bows, and arrows are also given them. The dance is repeated in the afternoon in another plaza, after which the procession departs to carry offerings to a shrine outside the town and the drama of the Farewell _kachina_ is over.

With the coming of the different clans, each having some ceremony peculiar to itself, and held at a certain time in the year, there must have been an adjustment of interests to fit the ceremonies to the moons, as we now see in the Hopi calendar. This may explain the fusing of the Snake-Antelope ceremonies and the two Flutes, which come in August, and the assignment of the two groups to alternate years. It is to be expected also that rain ceremonies would preponderate in the Southwest, and by mutual concessions the clans making up the Hopi would arrange their rites to fit in the month when the rain-makers are needed. Thus, the women's ceremonies in September and October would not need to be disturbed, perhaps to the relief of the obscure Hopi who, like Julius Cæsar, reformed the calendar.

The Snake and Flute ceremonies of the Hopi are most widely known, since at this season of the year most travelers visit Tusayan, and besides, the Snake Dance, from its elements of horror, has overshadowed other ceremonies that are beautiful and interesting. Still, the Snake Dance is unique, and in its unfolding displays virile action and the compelling force of man over the lesser animate creation, giving to the drama a certain grandeur not observed in other ceremonies. No form of language is capable of describing it. Those who have seen it make it an unforgettable episode in their lives. Those who have made it a study declare that the mind of man has never conceived its equal.

When the Snake and Antelope fraternities descend into their respective kivas about the middle of August, the rites commence. The events that attract popular interest begin at once on the first day, when a party of Snake priests, painted and costumed and with snake whips and digging sticks in their hands, descend from the mesa to hunt snakes in the north quarter. These men, keenly watching for snake trails, eagerly search, beating the sage-brush and digging in holes that may harbor their quarry, thrusting their hands into such places with the utmost fearlessness. At sunset, after an exhausting day's work, they return from the hunt with snakes, if they have been successful, which are transferred from their pouches into the snake jars. For four days the hunt goes on, each day to a different world quarter. If a snake is seen it is sprinkled with meal, and as it tries to escape, one of the hunters seizes it a few inches back of the head and places it in his pouch.

When the snakes, big and little, venomous and harmless, have been collected and stowed away in the jars like those used by the women to carry water, there comes the great event of snake washing. The priests assemble in the kiva and seat themselves on stone seats around the wall, holding in the hand a snake whip made of two eagle feathers secured to a short stick. On the floor dry sand has been spread out and on it a medicine bowl of water. The snakes have been placed in bags near by in the care of priests, and the snake washer, arrayed as a warrior, sets himself before the bowl, while back of him stand two men waving snake whips. A weird song begins, and the warrior thrusts his hand into the bag and draws out a handful of snakes, plunges them into the medicine water, and drops them on the sand. Then the snakes are rapidly passed to the warrior, who plunges them and casts them forth, while the priests wave their wands and sing, now low and now loudly and vehemently. Some of the snakes try to escape, but are herded on the sand field, which is for the purpose of drying them. The snakes are left on the floor for a few hours intervening before the public dance, a writhing mass, watched over by naked boys. These boys, barefoot and otherwise entirely naked, sit down on the stones and with their whips or naked hands, play with the snakes, permitting them to crawl over and under their feet, between their legs, handling them, using them as playthings, paying no more attention to the rattlesnakes than to the smallest harmless whip-snakes, creating a sight never to be forgotten. It must be admitted, however, that owing to the absolute abandon and recklessness used by the boys in handling these snakes, all of one's preconceived notions of the dangerousness of the rattlesnake entirely disappear. Occasionally, one of the snakes, being tossed to a distance of four or five feet, apparently resents the insult, but before the snake has had sufficient time to coil, it will be straightened out by one of the other boys or tossed back to its original position, and so the sport (for it was nothing less to these boys) continue, as has been stated, for more than two hours.[5]

[5] The Mishongnovi Ceremonies of the Snake and Antelope Ceremonies. G. A. Dorsey and H. R. Voth. Field Columbian Museum, Chicago, 1902, p. 247-248.

Dr. Fewkes thus describes the Walpi snake washing:

The Snake Priests, who stood by the snake jars which were in the east corner of the room, began to take out the reptiles, and stood holding several of them in their hands behind Su-pe-la, so that my attention was distracted by them. Su-pe-la then prayed, and after a short interval two rattlesnakes were handed him, after which venomous snakes were passed to the others, and each of the six priests who sat around the bowl held two rattlesnakes by the necks with their heads elevated above the bowl. A low noise from the rattles of the priests, which shortly after was accompanied by a melodious hum by all present, then began. The priests who held the snakes beat time up and down above the liquid with the reptiles, which, although not vicious, wound their bodies around the arms of the holders. The song went on and frequently changed, growing louder and wilder, until it burst forth into a fierce, blood-curdling yell, or war-cry. At this moment the heads of the snakes were thrust several times into the liquid, so that even parts of their bodies were submerged, and were then drawn out, not having left the hands of the priests, and forcibly thrown across the room upon the sand mosaic, knocking down the crooks and other objects placed about it. As they fell on the sand picture three Snake priests stood in readiness, and while the reptiles squirmed about or coiled for defense, these men with their snake whips brushed them back and forth in the sand of the altar. The excitement which accompanied this ceremony cannot be adequately described. The low song, breaking into piercing shrieks, the red-stained singers, the snakes thrown by the chiefs, and the fierce attitudes of the reptiles as they lashed on the sand mosaic, made it next to impossible to sit calmly down, and quietly note the events which followed one after another in quick succession. The sight haunted me for weeks afterwards, and I can never forget this wildest of all the aboriginal rites of this strange people, which showed no element of our present civilization. It was a performance which might have been expected in the heart of Africa rather than in the American Union, and certainly one could not realize that he was in the United States at the end of the nineteenth century. The low weird song continued while other rattlesnakes were taken in the hands of the priests, and as the song rose again to the wild war-cry, these snakes were also plunged into the liquid and thrown upon the writhing mass which now occupied the place of the altar. Again and again this was repeated until all the snakes had been treated in the same way, and reptiles, fetiches, crooks and sand were mixed together in one confused mass. As the excitement subsided and the snakes crawled to the corners of the _kiva_, seeking vainly for protection, they were pushed back in the mass, and brushed together in the sand in order that their bodies might be thoroughly dried. Every snake in the collection was thus washed, the harmless varieties being bathed after the venomous. In the destruction of the altar by the reptiles the snake _ti-po-ni_ stood upright until all had been washed, and then one of the priests turned it on its side, as a sign that the observance had ended. The low, weird song of the Snake men continued, and gradually died away until there was no sound but the warning rattle of the snakes, mingled with that of the rattles in the hands of the chiefs, and finally the motion of the snake whips ceased, and all was silent.

On the previous day the Antelope society had celebrated its race and public dance, which duplicate those of the Snake society, except that the former take first place, and instead of snakes, the priests dance about, the leader holding a bundle of cornstalks in the mouth.

Now comes the stirring dawn race of the Snake society. The race is from a distant spring to the mesa and is full of excitement, filling one with surprise at the endurance of the runners. The winner will arrive at the kiva, breathing more freely, perhaps, than usual, but showing almost no traces of his strenuous efforts, and will wait quietly for the award of the prize. In the kiva meanwhile the priests have been enacting a drama of the Snake legend.

After a few hours, when the sun is getting low, the Antelope priests file out and after circling the plaza stand in line awaiting the Snake priests, who advance with tragic strides. They circle the plaza three times, each stamping on a plank in front of the cottonwood bower, _kisi_, to notify the denizens of the underworld that a ceremony in their honor is progressing. They face the Antelope chorus, the rattles tremble with a sound like the warning of the rattlesnake, and a deep, low-toned chant begins like a distant storm. The chant increases in volume, the lines sway, then undulate backward and forward, and at last, in a culminating burst of the chant, the Snake men form in groups of three and dance around the plaza with a strange step like a restrained leap. The snakes have been placed in the _kisi_ in care of the passer hidden among the boughs. As the trios in succession arrive before the _kisi_ the carrier drops to his knees, secures a snake which he grasps in his mouth, rises and dances around in a circular path four times, when the snake is dropped to the ground and is picked up with lightning rapidity by the third member of the trio who retains the squirming reptile in his hands. Thus these groups of _demons_ circle until all the snakes have been carried. The chant ceases; a priest draws a cloud symbol in white meal on the rock floor of the mesa, and with wild action the gatherers throw the snakes on the meal; a fierce scramble ensues, and in a moment one sees the priests running down the trails to deposit their brothers among the rocks a mile or so away.

After all, no ceremony goes on in Hopiland without the aid of the gentler sex. While the dance has focussed the attention of every eye a group of maids and matrons, neat and clean as to hair and costume, and holding trays of sacred meal, have sprinkled the dancers and snakes as they passed by. The Antelopes take up their line, march around the plaza the required number of times, file away to their kiva, and the public dance is over. Those who wish, however, go to the mesa side to see the effects of the powerful emetic taken by the Snake priests as a purification. At Walpi, the old Snake Woman, Saalako, brews the medicine, and she knows how many black bettles must be stewed in this concoction of herbs. Last, but not least, comes the feast consumed with the appetite of youth amid general rejoicing if the August rain cumuli burst over the fields. For several days after the Snake Dance the young and not too old play jolly comes the feast consumed with the appetite of youth, childlike simplicity.

A bite from a venomous snake so rarely occurs that there is no eye witness, so far as is known, to such happening. The fangs are not extracted, nor are the snakes stupefied. Careful handling and the herding of the reptiles with others of their kind before the ceremony perhaps give the explanation.

The Snake Ceremony, whose wild scenes rack the nerves of the onlooker, is a prayer for rain and is based on a legend whose sentiment might be applauded if the other passive actors were not subject to an instinctive enmity. Snakes are blood brothers of the Hopi Snake clan.

The legend relates that a youth, having the curiosity to know where the waters flowed, embarked in a hollow log, closed except a small orifice, and went down the Great Colorado to its mouth, thus antedating the perilous feat of Major Powell by a long time! Here he found the Spider Woman, who prompted him in his dealings with the people living there. After many strange adventures, during which he was taught the rites now practiced by the Snake society, he won the daughter of a Snake chief and brought her to his country. The first fruits of this union were snakes, who bit the Hopi and who were driven away on this account. Later, children were human, and with them originated the Snake clan, whose wanderings brought them at last to Walpi; and tradition affirms that they were among the first arrivals there.

The Flute Ceremony, which alternates with the Snake-Antelope Ceremony, is most pleasing and interesting. Visitors to Hopiland in August of the proper year are always charmed with the dramatic performance and beautiful songs of the Flute society. In Walpi there is only one priesthood of the Flute, but in other pueblos of the Middle Mesa and in Oraibi there are two, one of the Blue Flute and the other of the Gray Flute.

On the first day the sand altar is made and at night the songs are begun. Within the kiva the interminable rites go on, and daily the cycle of songs accompanied with flutes is rehearsed. A messenger clad in an embroidered kilt and anointed with honey runs with flowing hair to deposit prayer-sticks at the shrines, encircling the fields in his runs and coming nearer the pueblo on each circuit. During the seventh and eighth days a visit is made to three important springs where ceremonies are held, and on the return of the priests they are received by an assemblage of the Bear and Snake societies, the chiefs of which challenge them and tell them that if they are good people, as they claim, they can bring rain.

After an interesting interchange of ceremonies the Flute priests return to their kiva to prepare for the public dance on the morrow. When at 3 A. M. the belt of Orion is at a certain place in the heavens the priests file into the plaza, where a cottonwood bower has been erected over the shrine called the entrance to the underworld. Here the priests sing, accompanied with flutes, the shrine is ceremonially opened and prayer-sticks placed within, and they return to the kiva. At some of the pueblos there is a race up the mesa at dawn on the ninth day as in other ceremonies.

On the evening of the ninth day the Flute procession forms and winds down the trail to the spring in order: a leader, the Snake maiden and two Snake youths, the priests, and in the rear a costumed warrior with bow and whizzer. At the spring they sit on the north side of the pool, and as one of the priests plays a flute the others sing, while one of their number wades into the spring, dives under the water, and plants a prayer-stick in the muddy bottom. Then taking a flute he again wades into the spring and sounds it in the water to the four cardinal points. Meanwhile sunflowers and cornstalks have been brought to the spring by messengers. Each priest places the sunflowers on his head and each takes two cornstalks in his hands, and the procession, two abreast, forms to ascend the mesa. A priest draws on the trail with white corn meal a line and across it three cloud symbols. The Flute children throw the offerings they hold in their hands upon the symbols and advance to the symbols, followed by the priests who sing to the sound of the flutes. The children pick the offerings from the ground with sticks held in the hand, and the same performance is repeated till they stand again in the plaza on the mesa before the cottonwood bower, when they sing melodious songs, then disperse.

The Flute legend, of which the ceremony is a dramatization, relates that the Bear and Snake people in early times lived along the Walpi. The Horn and Flute people came that way and halted at a spring. Not knowing whether other people lived in their neighborhood, they sent out a spy who returned and reported that he had seen traces of other peoples. The Flute people set forth to find them, and so they came to the Walpi houses, halting at the foot of the mesa and moving up the trail, as in the ceremony, with songs and the music of flutes.

The Walpi people had drawn a line of meal across the trail, closing it from all comers, and demanded whence the Flutes were going and what they desired. Then the Flute chief said:

"We are of your blood, Hopi. Our hearts are good and our speech straight. We carry on our backs the tabernacle of the Flute Altar. We can cause rain to fall." Four times they challenged the Flute people as they stood before the line of meal and four times this reply was given. Then the Walpians erased the meal barrier and the Flutes passed into the pueblo, set up their altar, sang the cloud-compelling songs and brought the welcome rain. Then the Bear and Snake chiefs said, "Surely your chief shall be one of our chiefs."

It will be seen that this legend, collected by Dr. J. Walter Fewkes, is enacted in the ceremony just described. And the Flute priests also think they are more successful rain makers than the Snake-Antelope priests, and do not hesitate to so declare.[6]

[6] The Walpi Flute Observance, Dr. J. Walter Fewkes, Jour. Am. Folk-Lore, Vol. 7, Oct.-Dec., 1894.

In the September moon the Hopi women of five of the pueblos hold a celebration of their own, which is not the least interesting ceremony in the calendar. It is called the Lalakonti, and like the other ceremonies of this part of the year extends over nine days. Sometimes it is called the Basket Dance--from the great use made of the sacred plaques in the ceremony--a quite appropriate use, since these baskets are peculiarly the product of women's taste and skill. The details of the kiva rites, such as _paho_ making, the construction of a sand altar, initiation of novitiates, dispatching of messengers, songs, etc., need not be entered into, since they belong to all the ceremonies and have much in common.

On the morning of the fourth day, if one is up at the faintest dawn he may see a procession emerging from the kiva and marching single-file to deposit, with much ceremony, offerings at a shrine. At six in the evening of the eighth day a picturesque procession winds down the trail among the rocks to the sacred spring, where _pahos_ are planted and rites performed. Then comes the stirring event, the race up the trail to the kiva. Under the supervision of an old priest an even start is made and the women run up the trail. As Hopi women in contrast with the men are stout, the chances are that a lithe, clean-limbed young girl will win the goal over her breathless sisters.