The associates of the katcinas are the so-called "mud-heads" or clowns, an order of priests as widely distributed as the Pueblo area. In Tusayan villages they are called the Tcukuwympkia, and are variously personated. As they belong especially to the katcina cult, which is naturally supposed to have been in vogue at Awatobi, I was greatly interested in the finding of a fragment representing a grotesque head which reminded me of a glutton of the division of the Tcukuwympkia called Tcuckutû. While there may be some doubt of the validity of my identification, yet, taken in connection with the fragment of a vase with the face of Wupamo, I think there is no doubt that the katcina cult was practiced at Awatobi.
STONE IMPLEMENTS
Comparatively few stone implements, such as mauls, hammers, axes, and spearpoints, were found; but some of those unearthed from the mounds are finely finished, being regular in form and highly polished. There were many spherical stones, resembling those still sometimes used in Tusayan on important occasions as badges of authority. These stones were tied in a buckskin bag, which was attached to a stick and used as a warclub. Many of the axes were grooved for hafting; one of the specimens was doubly grooved and had two cutting edges. By far the largest number were blunt at one pole and sharpened at the opposite end. A single highly polished specimen ([plate clxxi], f) resembles a type very common in the Gila Salado ruins.
Arrowheads, some of finely chipped obsidian, were common, being frequently found in numbers in certain mortuary bowls. Three or four specimens of other kinds of implements fashioned from this volcanic glass were picked up on the surface of the mounds.
Metates, or flat stones for grinding corn, were dug up in several houses; they were in some instances much worn, and were eagerly sought by the Indian women who visited our camp. These specimens differ in no respect from similar mealing stones still used at Walpi and other modern Tusayan pueblos. Many were made of very coarse stone[89] for use in hulling corn preparatory to grinding; others were of finer texture, and both kinds were accompanied by the corresponding mano or muller held in the hand in grinding meal.
The modern Hopi often use as seats in their kivas cubical blocks of stone with depressions in two opposite sides which serve as handholds by which they are carried from place to place. Two of these stones, about a cubic foot in size, were taken out of the chamber which I have supposed to be the Awatobi kiva. In modern Tusayan these seats are commonly made of soft sandstone, and are so few in number that we can hardly regard them as common. They are often used to support the uprights of altars when they are erected, and I have seen priests grind pigments in the depressions. Incidentally, it may be said that I have never seen priests use chairs in any kiva celebration; nor do they have boxes to sit upon. During the droning of the tedious songs they have nothing under them except a folded blanket or sheepskin.
Excavations in the Awatobi rooms revealed several interesting shallow mortars used for grinding pigments, but no one of these is comparable in finish with that shown in the accompanying illustration ([plate clxxii], a). This object is made of a hard stone in the form of a perfect parallelopipedon with slightly rounded faces. The depression is shallow, and when found there was a discoloration of pigment upon its surface.
In almost every house that bore evidence of former occupancy, beautifully made mullers and metates were exhumed. These were ordinarily in place in the corner of the chamber, and were much worn, as if by constant use. In one grave there was found a metate reversed over a skeleton, probably that of a woman—although the bones were so disintegrated that the determination of the sex of the individual was impossible. Several of these metates were taken by Indian women, who prized them so highly that they loaded the stones on burros and carried them ten miles to Walpi, where they are now applied to the same purpose for which they were used over two centuries ago.
On the surface of the mesa, beyond the extension of the ground plan of the ruin, there are many depressions worn in the rocks where the Awatobi women formerly whetted their grinding stones, doubtless in the manner practiced by the modern villagers of Tusayan. These depressions are especially numerous near the edge of the cliff, between the eastern and western sections of the ruin.[90]