Part 6
The effigies which were used in personifications were made up of masks or helmets of the ordinary size for the heads and a crinoline-like[99] framework of willow hoops for the bodies. These masks were made from narrow shreds of leaves of the agave plaited together diagonally, and this plaited frame was covered with a painted buckskin upon which the symbolism of the Síocálako was delineated. The projecting beak of the face had a movable under jaw, which was hinged and manipulated with a string. The helmet was attached to a staff forming a backbone, 3½ feet long, by which it was carried. The series of crinoline hoops or supports of the blankets which formed the body were about fifteen in number, the upper being about the size of the helmet, the lower 4½ feet in diameter. A tü′ihi or large white embroidered mantle was draped about the upper hoops or the shoulders, and a gray fox-skin was hung around the neck, which was likewise profusely decorated with shell necklaces.
The man who acted the part of bearer walked inside the crinoline, freely supporting the effigy by the staff or backbone, holding it at such a height as to permit the lowest hoop with its attached feathers to reach to his knees. Each effigy bearer was bareheaded, and although hidden from view, was decorated with the white kilt of a typical Katcina.
An uncostumed chief led the four giants in single file toward the mesa, followed by a large number of men dressed as mud-heads or Tatcü′kti, who were called “Koyímse,” a term adapted from their Zuñi name.[100] All who had sufficient knowledge of the idiom spoke Zuñi, and the procession reached the Sun spring (Tawápa) at about sunset. It was there met by two priests, Taláhoya and a nephew of Masiúmtiwa, who were to act as conductors. All were welcomed and homoya (prayers) were recited and much sacred meal was sprinkled. Headed by the two conductors the procession climbed the trail to the top of the mesa, and from thence marched into the main court of Sitcomovi by the northeastern entrance, near which the men bearing the four giant effigies, together with the mud-heads, halted. The latter were closely huddled together in four groups, drumming with deafening noise on as many drums.
The Katcina chief, Íntiwa, and a man personifying Eótoto[101] then drew four circles with intersecting lines of meal on the ground at the north side of the court in the positions indicated. This was followed by a command of Hahaíwüqti, who signaled with an ear of corn for the first (kwiníwi, north) Cálako effigy to advance. He did so with a short, rapid step, and halted over the first circle of meal. The “bearer” bobbed the effigy up and down so that the feathers which had been fastened to the lower hoop of the crinoline touched the ground. The bearer then stooped and rested the end of his staff on the ground, holding it upright. The other three giant impersonators were then brought up, one at a time, by Hahaíwüqti. As each settled to its position the bearer cried “Ho!” six times in a shrill falsetto, and rapidly snapped the beak of the effigy he bore by means of a string. The Cálakos were then sprinkled with meal by the chiefs and others, after which the effigies were moved one by one to circles of meal on the southern side of the plaza. Six times this removal was repeated, each time attended by ceremonials similar to those mentioned above.
At the conclusion of this observance in the plaza the four giants were conducted by the chiefs of the Lizard, Ása, Badger, and Water gentes to the houses of the elder sisters of the respective clans. The Cálako effigies were suspended by the mask from the rafters of each room, and as the length of each was 7 feet 6 inches the tips of the radiating feathers on the head and those on the last hoop of the framework of the body just touched the roof and floor of the chamber. The same ceremony look place in each house and there were prayers by the elders, dancing by the effigy bearers, and singing and drumming by the “Koyímse.” At sunrise—for the exhibitions in the houses lasted all night—a final presentation in the court similar to that which opened the ceremonies took place, after which the Cálakos and mud-heads went to the cliff and unmasked at the Kachinaki. There they performed purification ceremonies (navótciwa) and dismantled the effigies. They donned their ordinary habiliments and smuggled the paraphernalia back into the chamber in Sitcomovi, where it is ordinarily kept.
On the 8th and 9th of the month, following the demise of the Cálakos, a most elaborate Wáwac or Racing Katcina was performed.[103]
PAWÍKKATCINA
The Pawíkkatcina, which I observed at Sitcomovi in 1892, had certain differences from any abbreviated Katcina dance which I have yet described, and illustrated the ceremonial reception of these personages after they had visited another pueblo. A priest of Sitcomovi suggested that his fellow villagers should send a delegation of young men to Cipaulovi to return a dance with which they had previously been honored by the latter pueblo. Accordingly the masks were painted and the preliminary ceremonials took place in one of the Sitcomovi kivas, those who were to participate in the ceremonial beginning their work on the 25th of June. The visitors danced all day of the 27th at Cipaulovi, rested on the 28th, and continued their dance on the 29th at Sitcomovi. The ceremonials on their return at the trail approaching Sitcomovi took place on June 28th, an hour before sunset.
This dance differed very little from that of other Katcinas, to which attention has hitherto been directed.[104] There were twenty-three Katcinas and five[105] Katcinamanas, and the masks of both are illustrated in figures 43, 44, and 45, while one of the staffs which they bore is represented in figure 46. They sang five songs called Ómowûh (cloud), Yoivíkka (swift), Pakwa (frog), Pawykia (duck), and Patzro (quail). An interesting feature which I had never before seen in Tusayan abbreviated Katcinas was the unmasked dance in the kiva.[106]
The secret ceremonials in the kiva were as follows: The three priests, who had previously bathed their heads in their own houses, made the páhos and nakwákwocis. Two of these men made four prayer sticks similar to those described in the Walpi ceremonial, and one made a long single páho. These were deposited in a flat basket tray and smoked upon by those present. Before beginning the manufacture of the páhos the makers prepared themselves by a ceremonial smoke.[107] At the same time that the páhos were made twenty-three nakwákwocis for the Katcinas and five for the Katcinamanas were likewise manufactured.
At midday food was passed down into the kiva, but before partaking of it one of the priests took a pinch of each kind of food (dunópna) and went with it to a cleft in the mesa on the north side of Sitcomovi. He there deposited it with a páho, a pinch of each kind of pigment used in painting the paraphernalia, a little tobacco,[108] but no sacred meal. This was an offering, it was said, to the Grand Canyon of the Colorado sípapû. He then went to the southern side of the mesa and placed in a similar cleft a nakwákwoci, said to be an offering to Másauwûh.
At sunrise on the 29th two offerings were deposited, and each of the twenty-three Katcinas placed his nakwákwoci in a shrine.
Ceremonials attending visits of people from adjacent or remote pueblos are simple but interesting. The following reception ceremony of visitors from a distant pueblo not of their own people was noted: In the progress of the summer dances of Walpi in 1892 I observed the ceremonial reception of several Zuñis who came over to assist in the Húmiskatcina. They were formally “received” in the Wikwaliobi kiva by Íntiwa,[109] Kópeli, Hóñyi, Pauatíwa, and Lésma. Íntiwa gave their headman a twig of spruce, to which Lésma tied four nakwákwocis.[110] Íntiwa sprinkled it with sacred meal and laid it in front of the Zuñis, and finally all smoked together. This was said to be a formal act of reception.[111]
The reception ceremony of the Pawíkkatcinas when they returned from Cipaulovi was as follows: At 4 p. m. Pauatíwa’s father, a very old man, sat on the edge of the mesa looking west and north toward Cipaulovi. He called my attention to a line of men coming along the trail. When the line halted on the last rise before the trail ascends to the top of the mesa we went down to welcome them.
Each Katcina placed his helmet in one of two parallel lines arranged along the trail, and in front of the two lines he laid the spruce bough which he carried. In front of this pile of spruce boughs an ear of corn was placed in the trail not far from the helmets. All the Katcinas then marched around the line in a sinistral circuit, sprinkling sacred meal upon the masks, corn, and spruce boughs and throwing a pinch along the trail in advance of the ear of corn. The circuit around the line of helmets was sinistral, as in all Hopi ceremonials.
Nine old men then formed a circle at the left of the corn and smoked, sitting in a squatting posture.[112] No one was allowed to go up the trail before this ceremony was completed, and one who attempted to do so was warned back. A short address of welcome was spoken by the priests to the leader of the Katcinas, and at sunset they put on their masks and marched to the plaza of Sitcomovi. They first danced on the southern, then on the eastern, and lastly on the western sides of the plaza, omitting the northern side. The priests sprinkled the Katcinas with sacred meal, observing the sinistral ceremonial circuit as they passed around the line. A small spruce tree, upon which nakwákwocis were tied, had been placed near the middle of the plaza.
The Katcinas and Katcinamanas then adjourned to the kiva, where they unmasked, placing their helmets in a row and the spruce boughs in the middle of the kiva.[113] The two priests seated themselves on the uprise, one on each side of the ladder.
On the following day the dance was continued from sunrise to sunset. In the afternoon there appeared the Tcúkuwympkiya, Muñ′we (Owl Katcina), two Tcósbüci, Pü′ükoñhoya (the Little War God), and a Navaho Katcina.
ÁÑAKATCINA
The celebration of the Áñakatcina at Hano, in the Nimán of 1892, gave me the following additional data to that already mentioned in the description[114] of the Áña of 1891. These are due in part to the variations in ceremonial customs, and are not regarded as essentials.
The Hopi Áñakatcina was invited to Hano by Kálakwai, and its public presentation was identical with that of 1891 and that of the Zuñi Kókokci. The antics of the gluttons were very much more complicated. This I ascribe to two causes—the rarity with which Katcinas are celebrated in Hano, and the great need of rain at the time.
One interesting but highly disgusting part of the show of these priests was the slaughter of a huge dog and the use of his entrails and blood in distinguishing one of their number as Másauwûh,[115] the Death god. The details of this may be had by consultation with the author.
About 4 oclock on the morning of the public dance of the Áña the participants danced in the Hano plaza, destitute of all clothing or helmets and accompanied by the clowns, also without masks. This feature I had not previously observed. After this early dance páhos were deposited at the shrine situated in the middle of the dance plaza.
As no account of the ceremonial deposit of offerings to the winds has ever been published, the following observations are given to fill this gap in our knowledge. Probably the object of the wind offerings is propitiatory, for high wind, it is believed, blows away the rain, to produce which is the main object of the observance. Kwálakwa took for this purpose in a blanket the following objects: Nakwákwocis, native tobacco, paper bread, píkami (pudding mush), sugar, and peaches. He deposited a packet containing a pinch of each of these in six shrines situated at cardinal points, beginning at the east.[116] The Hopi begin their ceremonial circuit ordinarily at the north, but the Tewa, it would seem, place their offerings in the following order: East, northwest, southwest by south, southwest, southeast by east, southeast.
In the interval between two of the dances, while the Katcinas were unmasked, and had halted under an overhanging rock on the trail a few feet below Hano, I observed a test of endurance which I had never before seen. Kópeli, the Snake chief, took a bundle of yucca branches, and different volunteers from the Katcinas, stepping up to him, first held out one arm, then the other; Kópeli struck the outstretched limb with more or less force, and at the conclusion presented his own arm and naked body for this trying ordeal. The Áñakatcina is illustrated in figure 40.
COMPARATIVE STUDY OF KATCINA DANCES IN CIBOLA AND TUSAYAN
The published material which can be used as a basis of comparison in the study of Katcinas in other villages is meager and insufficient. Even of the nearest pueblo, Zuñi, which has been more studied than many of the others, and in which Katcina observances closely akin to those of Tusayan are performed, the published accounts are very limited. In a general way it seems to me that the Tusayan ceremonials are more showy and elaborate than those at Zuñi. There is, however, one marked exception;[117] the powerful war society, called the Priesthood of the Bow, has more elaborate ceremonials in Zuñi than in Walpi, where this organization is weak. It is not possible from my limited knowledge of Zuñi ceremonials to declare that it is less complicated than that of Tusayan, but I believe that the powerful organization mentioned has had much to do with many of the differences between the two.
One source of information in regard to the differences and likenesses between the Zuñi and Hopi ceremonials is the testimony of the chiefs themselves. This does not hold in regard to modified ceremonials primarily the same or derived from a common source, and is only hearsay, not science.
All the Hopi priests say that the Siotü (Zuñis) have no knowledge of the Tcütcübwimi (Snake-Antelope mysteries). The same chiefs likewise claim that the Zuñis have no Mamzraúti, Lálakoñti,[118] Wüwütcímti, and no societies corresponding to the Tátaukyamû, Áaltû, or Kwákwantû.
Although they may not reproduce some of these ceremonials in the form celebrated by the Hopi, it is not clear to me that some of those which they observe may not be differentiations of the same ceremony, as I have shown in my accounts of the women’s dances.[119] There is a marked similarity in many of the myths, which would seem to imply resemblances in ritualistic dramatizations of the same.
It is possible to verify historical data and legendary history by a study of the same ceremony. For instance, the five oldest Tusayan pueblos of which we have accounts in the earliest records are Awatobi, Walpi, Micoñinovi, Cuñopavi, and Oraibi.[120] Awatobi was destroyed in 1700, so that but four original communities of the time of Vargas still remain. It is in these four and at Cipaulovi that the Snake ceremony is still celebrated, and Sitcomovi and Hano are ascribed by Hopi legends to a much later time than the first appearance of the Spaniards; their names do not appear in the early descriptions of the province.
It is a mistaken idea, and one which has led to many misconceptions, to suppose that what is true of one group of pueblos is true of all. While in a general way the mythology and ritual of all may be said to have general resemblances, there is far from an identity between the ceremonials, for instance, of the Hopi and the Zuñi, or those of the Rio Grande pueblos and Tusayan. It is not a question of knowing all by an intimate knowledge of one; but each branch, even individual pueblos, must be investigated separately before by comparative knowledge we can obtain an adequate conception of the character of the pueblo type of mythology and ritual. Moreover, there is evidence that this difference existed in ancient times, and while the differentiation of the manners and customs of different pueblos may have been less rapid in the past than today they were far from being identical. It does not follow, except in certain limits, that the most primitive pueblos today show in their survivals a better picture of the character of life in another pueblo than the existing state of things in the latter. To reconstruct the probable character of the ancient culture we must trace similarities by comparative studies.
In a comparative study of the ceremonials of different pueblos, it is important to decide which are most primitive or nearest the aboriginal condition and which are least affected by foreign influences. The purer the present aboriginal culture, the greater worth will it have in our approximation to a true conception of the primitive pueblo culture. Many of the Pueblos practice a religious system which may be rightly called aboriginal, but in some it has been modified by outside influences. I think no one, for instance, would say that the present Zuñi custom of burial in a churchyard was not due in part to the influence of Catholic priests, for Spanish narratives of three and a half centuries ago are quite explicit in their statement that the Zuñi burned their dead. If one custom has been changed, how are we to distinguish the modified from the primitive? It can be shown that strong influences have been used for the direct purpose of destroying the Katcina worship. Take, for instance, Zuñi, the least changed of all the pueblos except those of Tusayan. It is pagan today, and probably never was profoundly modified by Christianity, but Roman Catholic fathers, with the avowed determination to Christianize it, could not have lived there continuously for over a century and caused the great missions to be built without modifying the religious customs of the Zuñians. It is said that after the priests were driven out the Pueblos returned to their ancient practices, but it must be admitted that no one has yet shown how the pure Katcina practices were preserved over three generations. They returned to an old worship, but who has evidence to say that it was the same as that of their great-great-grandfathers?
In some instances the natives have very willingly adopted Christian teachings and the Christian God, believing that by so doing their own religion would necessarily become strengthened by an addition to their pantheon. Such adoption, however, no matter how regarded by them, made a permanent impression on their primitive condition by changing their mode of thought and life.
They apparently may have abandoned all that the church taught; but what means could have been used to restore the pure worship of pre-Columbian times? The culture which was revived was aboriginal, but could never be identical[121] with that of the times before Coronado.
The question then resolves itself into a historical one—which pueblos were the home of Catholic priests for the shortest time, and in which were their influences least powerful? The historian will of course answer the Tusayan pueblos, and ethnology contributes her quota of facts to indicate that the purest form of Pueblo ceremonials are now practiced by these villagers.
Although there are several ceremonials which the Hopi claim are not performed at Zuñi, and conversely others performed at Zuñi which are not observed in Tusayan, there is a similarity, differing in details, between the Kóko and Katcina dances close enough to show their identity. The Hopi recognize this fact, and to prove it I need only mention that the Áñakatcina in 1891 was danced at Zuñi by some of the Hopi as a Kóko. I have already pointed out the identity of the masks, paraphernalia, and songs of the Kókokshi, performed by the Zuñians, and the Áñakatcina at Walpi. There is no doubt in my mind that they are the same, but I can not accept the dictum that what is observed in one is identical with what exists in the other. There are slight modifications which exist likewise in different Hopi villages, as will be seen by a comparison of my descriptions of the two. One marked difference is that several Kókokshi dances were performed in the summer I spent at Zuñi, and that this identical Katcina (the Áña) is performed but once each summer in any one Hopi village.
The only other Kóko[122] dance which I know of from personal observation is the tablet dance, which is in many respects homologous with the Húmiskatcina. The symbolism of the mask and tablet, however, differs from the Húmis, and while in a speculative way I regard them the same we must await more research to prove them identical. The subject is still more complicated by the fact that the Hopi have a tablet mask with still a third symbolic character, which they call the Zuñi or Síohúmiskatcina.
I think we need have no hesitation in supposing that the so-called Sío (Zuñi) Katcina, which I have elsewhere described, is a Zuñi celebration derived from that pueblo. I do not know whether it is ever performed there in the same way as at Walpi, since it has not been described by any of the students of the Zuñians.
We have, however, as before mentioned, a partial description by Cushing of the Zuñi Shálako, and from his account we can gather a few of the main points of difference between it and the Síocálako performed at Walpi and described in the preceding pages. The Hopi, however, have a Cálako of their own. They distinguish it from the Síocálako, which they not only recognize as of Zuñi origin, but are also able to designate the family which brought it from the Zuñians. The name of the celebration and the use of Zuñi words in it both point to this conclusion.
The correspondence between the Héemashikwi, or last[123] dance—the tablet dance described by me elsewhere as occurring at the close of the series of Kókos—is probably the same as the Nimánkatcina. There are many similarities to indicate this fact, and, although as yet we know nothing of the secret observances connected with it, I suspect that a similarity between them and those described in the Móñkiva will later be made known.
Dolls in imitation of the Héemashikwi are reported in the catalogue of Colonel James Stevenson’s collection from Zuñi in 1881, and I have no doubt it will be found that there formerly was, and possibly still survives, at the celebration of this dance at Zuñi the characteristic habit in Tusayan of distributing dolls as presents at the departure of the Katcinas.
Mrs Stevenson has given short descriptions of some of the Zuñi Kókos and figures of the masks of the same. While it is not possible for me to use them in a comparison with Katcina celebrations, they are interesting in studies of symbolism. The “flogging Kókos,” for instance, seem to function the same as Túñwup among the Hopi, but as the symbolism of the mask of the floggers, Saiāhlias, is not given by Mrs Stevenson I am not able to express an opinion whether the same personage is intended or not. The time of year when the flagellation is inflicted by the Saiāhlia of Zuñi would be an interesting observation, and the accompanying ceremonials would also be of great interest for comparison with the Powámû.