Part 3
At the west wall of the kiva a strange altar had been erected. Lésma had piled against the ledge of this part of the kiva a stack of corn, two or more ears of which had been contributed by the maternal head of each family in the pueblo. At either side and in front of the stack of corn shrubbery had been placed. In the space between the top of the corn pile and the roof wands were placed, and to these wands had been fastened many artificial flowers, 4 or 5 inches in diameter, set close together but in no regular lines. There were over 200 of these flowers of different colors, dark-red and white predominating. Nearly in the center of this artificial shrubbery there was a large gourd shell with the convex side turned toward the audience and having an aperture about 8 inches in diameter in its center. Through this opening had been thrust the head of an effigy[42] of Pálülükoñûh, the plumed-head snake, painted black, with a tongue-like appendage protruding from the mouth. When all the assembled priests were seated a moment of solemn stillness ensued, after which Súpela arose, cast a handful of meal toward the effigy of the snake, and said a short prayer in a reverent tone.[43] Then the head of the snake, which was manipulated by an unseen person behind the altar, was observed to rise slowly to the center of the aperture, and a mellow sounding roar like a blast through a conch appeared to come from the mouth, while the whole head was made to quiver and wave. The sound was of short duration, repeated four times, and then the head reposed again on the lower rim of the ground shell. Presently was heard a sound as of a scapula drawn across a notched stick six times. All the old chiefs in succession cast meal to the effigy and prayed, and in response to each the great snake emitted sounds identical with those mentioned above. The spectators then left the kiva, and a frenzied dance of strange character occurred. The societies from other kivas came in, and the chief of each declaimed in a half-chanting voice which rose to a shriek at the close of a stanza. First, he drew back to the fireplace, and then with a shuffling gait approached the symbolic opening in the floor called the sípapû.
Anawíta then shouted at the top of his voice, and the shuffler sprang in the air and vaulted over the sípapû. Then everybody in the room shouted loudly and a song in concert followed. A moment later the visiting societies dashed down the ladder, each bearing a splendid shield ornamented with the figure of the sun and a rim of radiating eagle feathers. Each society had its distinctive sun shield, which on entering was handed to the chief. As he received it he stamped on the sípapú and a fierce song was sung. Meanwhile two members of the society stood apart from their fellows against the southern wall facing each other, each holding a squash flower emblem in a bouquet of spruce twigs and an ear of corn in his left hand.
Suddenly the fifteen or twenty members of the society drew back from their chief, who then sprang upon the sípapû plank, and quickly turning faced them as all burst forth in an ecstatic shouting, with wild flinging of their arms as they approached the shield-bearers. They naturally formed two clusters, and as the shield-bearer dashed his shield in their faces they surged back, to leap again toward him. This seeming assault, wild though it appeared, was maintained in time with the song. The two chieftains joined their men, all in ecstatic frenzy, and one of them, shaking his shield, sprang from right to left, drawing back his assistants in rhythm with the beating of the feet of all on the floor. After a few moments of most exhaustive movements some of the weaker staggered up the ladder, and shortly after one of the chiefs fell fainting to the floor, overcome by exhaustion and the intense heat of the room. One splendid athlete danced with vigor for fully five minutes, and then swept toward the ladder where the assistant was standing in readiness to receive his shield. Another stride and he reached the foot of the ladder and suddenly became as rigid as a corpse. The men who belonged to the Móñkiva took no part in this exhaustive dance but stood in readiness to carry those who fainted up the ladder to the cool air outside.
It has been suggested that this assault of the men on the bearer of the sun shield dramatizes the attack of hostile powers on the sun, and that the object is to offset malign influences or to draw back the sun from a disappearance suggested by its southern declination.[44] In this possible interpretation it is well to consider that immediately preceding it the archaic offerings and prayers to the great snake were made, as described, in the presence of spectators. The idea of hostility of the great snake to the sun is an aboriginal American conception. In the Maya Codex Cortesianus (33_b_) the plumed snake is represented[45] as swallowing the sun as in an eclipse. If Soyáluña is a propitiatory ceremony to prevent the destruction or disappearance of the sun in winter or to offset the attacks of hostile malevolent deities upon him, we can see a possible explanation of the attacks and defenses of the sun as here dramatized.[46] The evil influences of the great snake are met by the prayers to his effigy; the attacks of other less powerful deities are dramatized in the manner indicated.
The following contains a few suggestions in regard to the character of the dramatization in the December celebration. In the prayers to the Plumed Snake his hostility was quieted, and the chiefs did what they could to propitiate that powerful deity, who was the great cause of their apprehension that the beneficent sun (Táwa) would be overcome. Then followed the dramatization of the conflict of opposing powers, possibly representing other deities hostile to our beneficent father, the sun. Although the struggle involved, so far as the participants were concerned, their highest powers of endurance and bodily suffering, the sun-shield or symbol of Táwa had the good fortune to resist the many assaults made upon it.
The introduction of dramatization as an explanation of the warrior celebration is theoretic, therefore not insisted upon, and is at least plausible until a better interpretation is suggested. It has in its support the evidence drawn from a comparative study of ceremonials. In the light of this theory the return and departure of the Katcina has a new significance, and may be regarded as a modified sun myth. At the winter solstice the sun and his attendant deities have reached their most distant point, and turned to come back to the pueblos. In the mid-summer the solar deity approached them; he was near them, and in appreciation of this fact, which means blessings, the poor Hopi made his offering;[47] danced the Snake dance, asking the snake to bring the rain, believing he was no longer hostile or at enmity with the sun. But the withdrawal of the gods (Farewell Katcinas) could not be delayed by these rites, and the sun each day drew farther from them. The Katcinas (gods) departed; the bright, beneficent summer gave place to cold, dreary winter; life was replaced by death. In this most critical epoch the warriors, the most potent human powers of the pueblo, performed their ceremony to bring back the beneficent god and his train. The Nahuatl priest called a similar ceremony “Teotleco,” the god comes—“The dead god is reborn,” says Duran. The gods (Katcinas) come, say the Hopi (Soyáluña, all assemblage; derived from co, all; yuñya, assemblage). The Nahuatl priest sprinkled meal on the floor of the teocalli, and when he saw in the meal the footprint of the War god, the leader of the divinities, he announced the fact. The Hopi priest still continues to sprinkle sand on the kiva floor during the ceremony.
KATCINA’S RETURN
The first celebration of the Katcinas in the spring, several months after their departure,[48] took place in that division of the year called the Pamüyawû,and is known as Mohti Katcínumyüñya, or “First Katcina assembly.” I have called it the Return Katcina. It follows directly after the winter páho making of the Snake-Antelope or Flute societies, which varies in character according to whether the Snake or the Flute society gives the presentation that year. In 1893 it followed the Snake páho making, and in 1894 that of the Flute. It may be called a composite, abbreviated assembly of Katcinas.
During the day Katcina masks were renovated in the kivas of the mesa, and there were visitations at all the kivas by the personators in the coming celebration. Women and children crowded the spectators’ quarters of these rooms, and the performances lasted from 10 oclock in the evening until 2 oclock of the following morning. Previously to the exhibition in the kivas, men personating different Katcinas visited the following points to make hómoya or meal offerings and to say appropriate prayers:
+------------------+-----------------+------------------- _Kiva_ | _Katcina_ | _Points from | _Prayers directed, | | which prayers | or meal thrown | | are made_ | toward_— -------------+------------------+-----------------+------------------- Moñ | Kütca anák[49] | S. W. Walpi | Nüvátikyaubi | | | Wikwaliobi | Coyóhim momoyamu | do. | do. | | | Nacab | Tcatca kwaína | do. | do. | | | Al | Popkotu | N. E. Walpi | Kicyuba | | | Tcivato | Mücaízru | do. | | | | Puvüñtcomo | Hüiki | | | Hehéa | | | | | Kwinyáptcomo | Avátchoya mana | N. E. Sitcomovi | do. | | | Mónete | Tacáb | N. E. Hano | do. | | | Pendíte | Humís | | -------------+------------------+-----------------+-------------------
On the 24th of this month (Pa), as after the Snake ceremonials,[50] the Nüitiwa, or struggles of the maids with the men for bowls, etc., took place, except that in this instance it was a struggle with a Katcina and not, as in the Snake observance, between girls and young men.
From the foregoing table we learn that in the Return Katcina for 1894 the following[51] were personified:
1. Kütca (white) aña. 2. Coyóhim. 3. Tcakwaína. 4. Pópkotu. 5. Mucaízru. 6. Hü′iki. 7. Hehéa. 8. Avátchoya. 9. Tacáb. 10. Humís.
The accompanying clowns were the Tatcü′kti or knob-head priests. It is an interesting fact that in the celebration of the departure of the Katcinas the clowns took no part, but these priests were important additions to the Síocálako.
The celebration of the Return Katcina, which occurs in the winter Pa moon, is accompanied by elaborate rites performed by either the Snake-Antelope or the Flute fraternity, the society observing it being that which will give its celebration in the summer Pa moon of the same year. A description of these rites naturally falls in an account of the group of unmasked dances. They extend over several days and appear to be wholly distinct from the celebration of the Return Katcina. While these are being performed in the “upper world,” the complemental Flute or Snake observances are supposed to be taking place in the “under world,” where the summer Pa moon then reigns. Precisely the same relationship is thought to exist between the two as that between the seasons of the north and south temperate zones.
POWÁMÛ
This ceremony is one of the most elaborate in which the Katcinas appear, and for want of a better name may be designated a renovation[52] or purification observance. In the year 1893 it took place near the close of January and continued for nine days, and in a previous[53] article I have mentioned and figured the most striking personages, the monsters or Natáckas, who appear in its presentation (plates CV, CVI, CXI). There are, however, certain other personages new to students of Tusayan ceremonials who are introduced, and I have therefore thought it well to describe the presentation in extenso.
The details of this ceremony in 1893 were as follows:[54]
_January 20_—Early this morning Hoñyi went to all the kivas and formally announced that the ceremony was soon to begin. There was no public announcement, as no Katcina celebration is made known in this way, and the Katcinas must not be spoken of in public. Íntiwa and Pauwatíwa began making páhos in the Móñkiva without preliminary ceremony at about 9 a. m., and fifteen other priests removed the masks and redecorated them, after having scraped off the old paint remaining from other ceremonials.
All the masks were finished about 7 p. m., after which Suñoitiwa and the other elders brought fox-skins and other paraphernalia into the kiva, where Kwátcakwa, Kópeli, Tcábi, Kákapti, and four or five other men began to decorate their bodies with pigment, using a pale-red iron oxide (cúta) on their legs, knees, and waists. They daubed the whole upper leg above the knee with a white pigment, and drew two lines across the shins, the fore and upper arms, and on each side of the chest and abdomen. The entrance into the katcínaki, or paraphernalia closet, was open while this took place.
The masks were all ornamented with large clusters of feathers. They were tied to the head with a loose loop across the top which slipped over the crown where the plumage rested, and there were strings at the sides of the mask by which they were attached. The body was ornamented with ribbons, red flannel, and other articles of white man’s make, which are innovations.
Kwátcakwa, who later personated a Tcukúwympkiya, drew a broad band of white clay across his shins, thighs, arms, and body. A great wisp of cornhusks was tied in his hair, which was all brought forward and coiled over the forehead. The others donned their kilts, necklaces, turquoise eardrops, and moccasins. Each one wore a fox-skin hanging tail downward at the loins, and on the left leg below the knee a string of bells, while the majority had garters of blue yarn. Their hair, which was first bound in long cues, wrapped high with strings, was later loosened, hanging in a fine fluffy mass.
Sakwístiwa, who was the púcücütoi or drummer, wore pantaloons held up by a belt of silver disks, and a grotesque mask. All left the kiva immediately after their disguises were completed and assembled in the Móñkiva court.
Íntiwa hurriedly but thoroughly swept the floor of the chamber, during which time a number of women and children came down the ladder, filling the spectators’ part of the room. The assembled group of Katcinas prayed and then went out, but about fifteen minutes later returned to the kiva entrance and shook their rattles at the hatchway. “Yuñya ai,” “come, assemble,” said the old men, and the women invited them to come down, which they did. Kwátcakwa, who personated the Nüvákkatcina, entered, followed by ten others. They assembled in a semicircle, each with a rattle in the right hand and a spruce bough in the left, Íntiwa sprinkled with meal all who came, after which they performed a dance, in which, however, their leader did not join.
Before they finished a band of ten men, disguised as Paiutes, carrying bows and arrows, rabbits, and small game which they wished to trade, came to the hatchway. They had a drummer with a Paiute drum, made of a bundle of skins wrapped in an oblong package, on which he beat with a stick held in both hands. The persons performed a dance, which they accompanied with a song. They likewise talked, cracked jokes, and presented the rabbits to the assembled women.
After them there came others from the Nacabkiva, each with a crook in the left hand and a rattle in the right. These wore grotesque masks, one representing an old woman with a long crooked staff in her hand. Their bodies were whitened and they wore saddle-mat kilts around their loins and tortoise rattles on the right leg. They sang a very spirited song, shaking their rattles as they advanced. These were six in number and were called the Powámûkatcinas. Directly after them there came a band of Tatcü′kti, who sang and danced on the roof of the kiva. The old men within repeatedly invited them to enter the room, and a dialogue of some length ensued. Their leader carried a large basket tray in which were four cones made of wood and each mud-head had in his hand a wooden rod and an eagle leather. The leader placed the cones in the middle of the floor in a pile, one above the other, near the fireplace. The others danced around the pile, roaring a song with much dramatic action, and heaped up ears of corn in the tray.
They then brought a young married woman from those assembled to the middle of the floor, where she knelt and tried without success to lift the cones as high as the staff which the leader held beside them. Four or five other women tried in turn, and all failed. The mud-heads then divided the cones into two piles and one of the women lifted them the required height. All the Tatcü′kti[55] then fell down on the floor and kicked their heels in the air, while certain of them stood on their heads for a minute or two. The woman who was successful in lifting the cones received the contents of the tray. The Tatcü′kti then left the room and the Katcinas returned and unmasked, indicating that this part of the ceremony was over.
_January 21_—During last night there were ceremonials which were not seen in the Móñkiva, in which it was said the Ahü′lkatcina made parallel marks in meal on the four sides of the kiva and upon the ceiling and floor as in the Mamzraúti and other ceremonials. A basin with sprouting beans, which had been planted at the full of the Pamüiya or Pa moon (January 2) and which were about a foot high, was brought from one of the houses opposite the Tcívatokiva. The beans, which were growing in a basin, were plucked from the sand, tied into a separate bundle, and given to Ahü′lkatcina. A large squirrel-skin was filled with meal and given to him, and he was handed also a wooden staff (móñkohu). The large discoidal mask characteristic of this personage had a pouch-like attachment of buckskin which was pulled over the head, upon which was a large cluster of feathers. A white kilt was worn as a cape and the skin of a gray fox hung from the girdle at his loins.
At daylight Ahü′lktacina and Íntiwa returned, passing the gap (Wala) and halting at the pahóki (shrine[56]) to deposit certain nakwákwocis and páhos. Just as the sun rose the two visited a kiva in Hano. Stooping down in front of it, Ahü′l drew a vertical mark with meal on the inside of the front of the hatchway, on the side of the entrance opposite the ladder. He turned to the sun and made six silent inclinations, after which, standing erect, he bent his head backward and began a low rumbling growl, and as he bent, his head forward, raised his voice to a high falsetto. The sound he emitted was one long expiration, and continued as long as he had breath. This act he repeated four times and, turning toward the hatchway, made four silent inclinations, emitting the same four characteristic expiratory calls. The first two of these calls began with a low growl, the other two were in the same high falsetto from beginning to end.
The kiva chief and two or three other principal members, each carrying a handful of meal, then advanced, bearing short nakwákwoci hotomni, which they placed in his left hand while they muttered low, reverent prayers. They received in return a few stems of the corn and bean plants which Ahü′l carried.
Ahü′l and Íntiwa next proceeded to the house of Tetapobi,[57] who is the only representative of the Bear clan in Hano. Here at the right-hand side of the door Ahü′l pressed his hand full of meal against the wall at about the height of his chest and moved his hand upward.[58] He then, as at the kiva, turned around and faced the sun, holding his staff vertically at arm’s length with one end on the ground, and made six silent inclinations and four calls. Turning then to the doorway he made four inclinations and four calls. He then went to the house of Nampíyo’s mother, where the same ceremony was performed, and so on to the houses of each man or woman of the pueblo who owns a típoni or other principal wími (fetich).
He repeated the same ceremony in houses in Sitcomovi and in Walpi, where Íntiwa left him. Ahü′l entered this pueblo by the north street and passed through the passageway to the Móñkiva. He proceeded to the houses of Kwumawumsi, Nasyúñwewe, Samiwiki, and to all the kivas and the houses of all the leading chiefs.
After visiting all the kivas and appropriate houses mentioned above, Ahü′l went to Kowawainovi (the ledge under Talatryuku) and deposited in the pahóki all the offerings that he had received, after which he returned to the Móñkiva, divested himself of his ceremonial disguises, and went home.
At 2 p. m. the Nüvák (snow) Katcinas came from the Nacabki, led by Soyóko. They were nine in number and were accompanied by a drummer. All wore bright plumage on their heads and their masks were painted green and white, but that of the drummer was pink. They were adorned with many necklaces, and wore white kilts and gray fox-skins. Yellow stripes were painted on the shoulders, the forearm, on each breast and the abdomen, and the bodies of all were stained red.
After singing and dancing for about five minutes, nine clowns (Tatcü′kti) came from the Álkiva and danced madly around the court, at first independently, but finally keeping step with the Katcinas. They joined in line one behind the other, each grasping the uplifted leg of the man in front of him, and then tumbled pell-mell over one another, shouting and laughing as they did so.[59]
At 2.20 a personification of Tcavaíyo, arrayed in a conical black mask with globular eyes and great teeth, entered the kiva. He carried a bow and arrows in his left hand and a saw in his right. His forearms and legs were painted black with white spots. This monster dispersed the clowns, during which many Zuñi words were uttered.