Personations of Alósaka as Escorts
In the Flute and New-fire ceremonies the role of the personators of Alósaka is that of an escort who leads the columns of dancers or processions of priests.
The personation of Alósaka in the Walpi Flute-dance was by a member of the Ása clan, who, on the fifth day of the ceremony, drew a line of ground corn and made rain-cloud symbols along the path by which altar objects were carried from one place to another. He made a line of meal across the trail by which one enters Walpi, in order to symbolically close it to visitors on the seventh day, when the historic reception of the Flute chief by the Bear and Snake chiefs was dramatized, and brushed away this meal when the Flute chief was invited to enter the pueblo at that time. He also “closed” the trail a second time when the Flute priests marched into the pueblo, and brushed the meal away as they proceeded. On the last day he led a procession of priests to the Sun spring (Táwapa), where a ceremony of wading into the water was performed, and escorted it back to Walpi on the afternoon of the last day, when the public Flute exercises were conducted. He sprinkled a line of meal over which certain sacred objects were carried from the Flute altar to the roof of the house, and led the priests as they bore these objects from place to place. There are only obscure hints regarding the nature of the Alósaka cult in these acts.
In the New-fire ceremonies we find Alósaka filling the role of escort, and also that of tyler at the kiva hatches. He escorted the public dancers, visited the trails, and drew lines of meal across them to prevent strangers from entering the pueblo. He inspected these trails from time to time, guarded the ladder while the new fire was being kindled, and carried it to the other kivas. These duties are those of warriors, but Alósaka was not armed, nor is the mountain sheep which he represents a probable personation of a warrior.
It is interesting to note that there is no Alósaka escort of the Flute priests in their public dances at the Middle Mesa, and, judging from photographs, it would seem that there is a like absence at Oraibi, which may be due to the absence of certain clans. Thus, one of the chiefs of the Aaltû or Alósaka society at Walpi belongs to the Ása clan of Tanoan extraction limited to the East Mesa. The first colonists of this clan were essentially warriors, and their performance of escort duty may be a survival of former times.
As there are two chiefs of equal standing in the Aaltû priesthood, one of the Ása and the other of the Bear clan (one of the oldest in Walpi), it would seem that there are two phases of the cult, and that the function of Alósaka as an escort is distinct from an older one common to other Hopi villages.