SOCIETY OF THE QUER´RÄNNA.
The Society of the Quer´ränna has a reduced membership of three—the ho´naaite, vicar, and a woman; and there is at the present time a novitiate, a boy of 5 years. Three generations are represented in this society—father, son, and grandson. The elder man is one of the most aged in Sia, and, though ho´naaite of the Quer´ränna and vicar of the Society of Warriors, and reverenced by his people as being almost as wise as the “Oracle,” his family is the most destitute in Sia, being composed, as it is, of nonproducing members. His wife is an invalid; his eldest son, the vicar of the Quer´ränna Society, is a paralytic, and a younger son is a trifling fellow. The third child is a daughter who has been blind from infancy; she is the mother of two children, but has never been married. The fourth child is a 10-year-old girl, whose time is consumed in the care of the children of her blind sister, bringing the water for family use, and grinding the corn (the mother and sister occasionally assisting in the grinding) and preparing the meals, which consist, with rare exceptions, of a bowl of mush. During the planting and harvest times the father alone attends to the fields, which are their main dependence; and he seeks such employment as can be procured from his people, and in this way exchanges labor for food. Every blanket of value has been traded for nourishment, until the family is reduced to mere tatters for garments. For several years this family has been on the verge of starvation, and the meagerness of food and mental suffering tells the tale in the face of each member of the household, excepting the worthless fellow (who visits about the country, imposing upon his friends). Even the little ones are more sedate than the other children of the village.
Nothing is done for this family by the clan. Close observation leads the writer to believe that the same ties of clanship do not exist with the Sia as with the other tribes. This, however, may be due to the long continued struggle for subsistence. Fathers and mothers look first to the needs of their children, then comes the child’s interest in parents, and brothers and sisters in one another. No lack of self-denial is found in the family.
The ho´naaite of the Quer´ränna is the only surviving member of the Eagle clan, but his wife belongs to the Corn clan, and has a number of connections. When the writer chided a woman of this clan for not assisting the sufferers she replied: “I would help them if I could, but we have not enough for ourselves,” a confirmation of the opinion that the clan is here secondary to the nearer ties of consanguinity. The care of one’s immediate family is obligatory; it is not so with the clan.
Bureau of Ethnology.
Eleventh Annual Report. Plate. XXVIII
ALTAR OF QUER´-RÄN-NA SOCIETY.
The house in which this family lives is small and without means of ventilation, and the old man may be seen, on his return from his daily labors, assisting his invalid wife and paralytic son to some point where they may have a breath of pure air. They are usually accompanied by the little girl leading her blind sister and carrying the baby on her back by a bit of an old shawl which the girl holds tightly around her.
Always patient, always loving, is the old man to those of his household, and the writer was ever sure of a greeting of smiles and fond words from each of these unfortunates. Not wanting in hospitality even in their extremity, they invited her to join them whenever she found them at their frugal meal.
The only medicine possessed by the Quer´ränna is se´-wili, which is composed of the roots and blossoms of the six mythical medicine plants of the sun, archaic white shell and black stone beads, turkis, and a yellow stone.
The preparation of this medicine and that of the other cult societies is similar to the mode observed by the Zuñi. Women are dressed in sacred white embroidered Tusayan blankets, and they grind the medicine to a fine powder amid great ceremony. When a woman wishes to become pregnant this medicine is administered to her privately by the ho´naaite, a small quantity of the powder being put into cold water and a fetich of Quer´ränna dipped four times into the water. A dose of this medicine insures the realization of her wish; should it fail, then the woman’s heart is not good. This same medicine is also administered at the ceremonials to the members of the society for the perpetuation of their race; and the ho´naaite, taking a mouthful, throws it out through his teeth to the cardinal points, that the cloud people may gather and send rain that the earth may be fruitful.
RAIN CEREMONIAL OF THE QUER´RÄNNA SOCIETY.
During the day hä´chmoni and plume offerings are prepared by the ho´naaite, and in the afternoon he arranges the altar, which is quite different from those of the other cult societies, and makes a meal painting symbolic of clouds. Six fetiches of Quer´ränna are then arranged in line, the largest being about 6 inches, the smallest 3, the others graduating in size; a medicine bowl is set before the line of fetiches; antlers are stood to the east of the meal painting; and baskets of cereals, corn on the cob, medicine bags, and a basket of hä´chamoni and plume offerings are arranged about the painting. Pl. xxxviii shows photograph at time of ceremonial; Pl. xxix, made in case of failure of the first, shows the meal painting, symbolic of clouds, which is completely hidden in the first photograph, and illustrates more definitely the feather decoration of the altar. The birds surmounting the two posts are wood carvings of no mean pretensions; the feathers by the birds are eagle plumes, and the bunches of plumes suspended from the cord are tail feathers of the female sparrow hawk (Falco sparverius) and the long-crested jay (Cyanocetta macrolopha).
The men and child have their forelocks drawn back and tied with ribbons of corn husks, the men each having a bunch of hawk and jay feathers attached pendent on the left side of the head. They wear white cotton breechcloths and necklaces of coral and kohaqua (archaic shell heads).[21] The woman wears her ordinary dress and several coral necklaces, her feet and limbs being bare.
The ho´naaite, removing a bowl of meal from before the altar and holding it in his left hand, together with his eagle plumes and a wand,—the wand being a miniature crook elaborately decorated with feathers,—sprinkled a line of meal from the painting to the entrance of the chamber, for the being of Quer´ränna to pass over.
The ho´naaite, his vicar, and the woman sat back of the altar, the ho´naaite to the west side, the vice to his right, and the woman to the east side. At this time a child was sleeping near the altar.
The ho´naaite filled an abalone shell with corn pollen and holding the shell, his two eagle plumes, and wand in his left hand and rattle in the right, offered a long prayer to Quer´ränna to invoke the cloud people to water the earth, and sprinkled the altar several times with pollen. At the close of the prayer he handed the shell of pollen to the woman, who passed to the front of the altar and east of the meal line and sprinkled the altar with the pollen. The song now began, and the woman, retaining her position before the altar, kept time by moving her wand right and left, then extending it over the altar; each time before waving it over the altar she rested it on the shell for a moment; after repeating the motion several times, she extended the wand to the north, moving it right and left, and after resting it on the shell she extended it to the west, and the wand was in this way motioned to the cardinal points, zenith and nadir. The waving of the wand to the points was repeated four times; and the woman then returned the shell to the ho´naaite, who had at intervals waved his plumes and wand over the altar. At this time the child awoke, and making a wad of his blanket sat upon it between the ho´naaite and the vicar; the latter supplying the child with a wand and rattle, he joined in the song.
The vicar being afflicted with paralysis could add little to the ceremony, though he made strenuous efforts to sing and sway his palsied body. The group presented a pitiful picture, but it exhibited a striking proof of the devotion of these people to the observance of their cult—the flickering fire-light playing in lights and shadows about the heads of the three members, over whom Time holds the scythe with grim menaces, while they strained every nerve to make all that was possible of the ritual they were celebrating; the boy, requiring no arousing to sing and bend his tiny body to the time of the rattle, joined in the calls upon the cloud people to gather to water the earth with as much enthusiasm as his elders.
Bureau of Ethnology.
Eleventh Annual Report. Plate. XXIX
ALTAR OF QUER´-RÄN-NA SOCIETY.
The song continued, with all standing, without cessation for an hour. The woman then brought a vase of water and gourd from the southwest corner of the room and placed it in front of the altar on the line of meal, and the ho´naaite took from the west side of the altar four medicine bags, handing two to the man and two to the boy (pollen being in one bag and meal in the other), and giving the shell containing the pollen to the woman. She stood in front of the altar east of the line of meal swaying her body from side to side, holding her wand in the right hand and the shell in the left, keeping time to the rattle and the song. She emptied a gourd of water from the vase into the medicine bowl, imploring Quer´ränna to intercede with the cloud people to assemble; the ho´naaite then sprinkled se´wili into the medicine bowl; then the little boy sprinkled pollen into the bowl, invoking the cloud people to gather, and the vicar, with the same petition, sprinkled the pollen. The woman then emptied a second gourd of water, first waving it to the north, into the medicine bowl, with a call for the cloud people to gather; the ho´naaite again deposited a portion of the se´wili into the bowl and his vicar and the boy sprinkled in meal, with an appeal to the cloud people; again the woman lifted a gourdful of water and waved it toward the west and emptied it into the bowl, invoking the cloud people to gather; and the others sprinkled corn pollen, the vicar and boy calling upon the cloud people to gather; the woman then waved a gourd of water to the south and emptied it into the bowl, and again the others sprinkled pollen, the vicar and boy repeating their petition; another gourdful was lifted and waved to the east and emptied into the bowl and the sprinkling of the pollen was repeated. The woman returned the vase to the farther end of the room (she officiated in the making of the medicine water, as the vicar, being a paralytic, was unable to perform this duty), and resumed her seat back of the altar; reaching forward, she removed two small medicine bags, and taking a pinch of pollen from one and a pinch of meal from the other, sprinkled the medicine water; after repeating the sprinkling, she tied the bags and returned them to their place by the altar. The ho´naaite, dipping his plumes into the medicine bowl, sprinkled the altar three times by striking the top of the plumes held in the left hand with the rattle held in the right. The sprinkling was repeated three times by the others while the ho´naaite sang a low chant. All now rose, and the ho´naaite continuing the song, moved his body violently, the motion being from the knees; as he sang he extended his eagle plumes over the altar and dipped them into the medicine water with a call for the cloud people to gather; he then dipped the bird feathers attached to his wand into the medicine water with a similar exhortation; the boy dipped the feathers attached to his wand into the water, striking them with the rattle, calling upon the cloud people to gather and water the earth; the ho´naaite dipped his eagle plumes twice consecutively into the medicine water, invoking the cloud people to water the earth; and the vicar dipped his feathers into the medicine water, making the most revolting sounds in his efforts to invoke the cloud people; the boy sprinkled with the invocation to the cloud people. The sprinkling was repeated alternately six times by each of the members, the ho´naaite pointing to the cardinal points as he continued his exhortation to the cloud people. After resuming their seats they sang until midnight, when the ho´naaite placed the ends of his feathers into his mouth and drew a breath and the woman laid her wand to the east side of the meal painting. The ceremonial closed with administering the medicine water, the ho´naaite dipping it with a shell. Owing to the depleted condition of the society, the duty of depositing the hä´chamoni and plume offerings fell to the ho´naaite himself.