Many dolls, bows and arrows[30] for children are likewise made in the kivas, and the chiefs prepared prayer emblems and other ceremonial objects.
The culmination of Powamu, when we should expect the acme of the series of rites, occurred on the afternoon of the ninth day (February 21), when the sprouting beans were pulled up, and distributed with dolls and other presents, and when certain personages of supernatural character brought significant gifts to the priests. It is the last event to which I wish especially to call the reader’s attention.
This episode, which seems to me to bring out clearly the aim of the Powamu ceremony, may be called the advent and departure of Hahaiwuqti[31] followed by the Eototo and other supernaturals. The main events of this episode were as follows: The man who personified the “Old Woman” (Hahaiwuqti) having masked and otherwise arrayed himself at a shrine[32] outside the pueblo, began to howl vigorously. Siima the chief of Powamu, made offerings at this shrine and drew on the ground, with sacred meal, several figures of rain clouds about 20 yards nearer the village. Hahaiwuqti, as if tolled along by this mystic sign, moved to it and again began to howl. Siima made another set of rain cloud figures, again about 20 yards nearer the village, and the howling Hahaiwuqti advanced to the second meal figures. Halting thus at intervals, and howling as she went, the “Old Woman” at last stood in the public plaza of Oraibi, and in answer to her cries people came to her, sprinkled her with pinches of meal and took objects from the basket she bore.
She then sought the entrance to the kiva in which the priests were engaged in ceremonial smoking and singing. She stood like a statue at the hatch, howling as if to announce her coming to the priests within the room below. They soon responded, and came out of the kiva headed by Siima with a bowl of medicine and an aspergill, followed by a second priest with a reed cigarette and a coal of fire, and others with bags of sacred meal. Hahaiwuqti was asperged, smoked upon and sprinkled with meal, and presented with a paho accompanied with a prayer, after which the priests returned to their room and the “Old Woman” went away to the west. A few minutes later men disguised as Eototo and Ahul approached the kiva hatch near which some unknown Katcina had made in meal on the ground a cross and rain cloud. Eototo rubbed meal on each of the four sides of the kiva hatchway[33] and poured water into the kiva entrance from the sides, as I have described in my accounts of the Walpi and Cipaulovi Niman Katcina. Ahul followed his example, whereupon the priests again emerged from the kiva and treated these two visitors in the same way they had used Hahaiwuqti. They received corn in return, after which the visitors retired, following the “Old Woman.”
After their departure, two “mudheads” (Koyimse) and three Katcinas, two men wearing Humis, Jemes, Katcina masks and one the maskette and apparel of the female Humis, approached the kiva entrance.[34] Then came personifications of Ana, Hehea, and two Tacab Katcinas. Following these were three lame Howaik Katcinas, masked as their predecessors, and clearly designated by appropriate symbolism.
At each new arrival the priests in the kiva responded, emerged from their room, and treated these visitors as they had their leader, Hahaiwuqti.
As the masked personages left the village they passed westward.[35]
When the priests had retired to their kiva for the last time they smoked on the presents left by their strange visitors, and the chief divided the gift Eototo had brought into 10 bundles, and gave one package to each Powamu priest. Then followed minor events, as taking down the altar, which do not now concern us. The departure of Hahaiwuqti and her band closed the main ceremony.[36]
It certainly seems legitimate to conclude that this acme of the Powamu is a dramatic representation embodying the aim of the whole ceremony. It is a visit of Hahaiwuqti in her disguise as known to Katcinas, followed by her children bringing gifts and receiving prayers. What other prayers are more appropriate to Hahaiwuqti than petitions for abundant crops, or what gifts more desirable than those Eototo[37] gave in a symbolic way, viz: water and sprouting vegetation? The rejuvenescence of nature is always to a primitive mind akin to sorcery, and believed to be brought about by the sorcerer’s arts, and hence this ceremony takes place in the Powako-muyamuh, or Wizard Moon, which gives it its name by syncopation, Powamu.[38]