The celebration in the December moon has not as yet been described,[41] but a large body of material relating thereto is in my hands. In order to give a general idea of its character a brief outline of a characteristic portion of it is inserted in this place. Soyáluña is distinctly a warriors’ observance, and has been called the Return Katcina. In one sense it may be so designated, but more strictly it is the return of the War god, regarded as a leader of the gods, and in that recalls the Nahuatl Teotleco, as elsewhere pointed out. The singing of the night songs of the warriors is one of the most effective archaic episodes of the ceremonial of the winter solstice.
In the following account a description of a few events in the celebration of 1891 is introduced:
On the 22d of December of that year most of the men of the villages prepared cotton strings, to the end of which they tied feathers and piñon needles. These were given away during the day to different persons, some receiving from one to two dozen, which they tied in their hair. When a maker of these feathered strings presented one to a friend, he said, as translated, “Tomorrow all the Katcinas to you grant your wishes,” holding his bundle vertically and moving it with a horizontal motion. At nightfall each man procured a willow wand from 3 to 4 feet long and looped upon it all the strings which he had received. He then carried his stick to the Móñkiva and placed it in the rafters, thus imparting to the ceiling the appearance of a bower of feathers and piñon needles.
All the kivas were meeting places of the participants, but the Tátaukyamû met at the Móñkiva, where the principal festivities took place. Their chief wore a head-dress decorated with symbols of rain-clouds (plate [CVIII]), and carried a shield upon which was depicted the sun (plate [CIV]). The chief of a second society carried a shield upon which was drawn a star (plate [CIV]), and a third chief bore a shield with an antelope drawn upon it. The head-dress of the chief of the Aáwympkiya was adorned with glistening triplex horns, and on his shield was represented an unknown Katcina (plate [CIV]). The fifth society was Kwákwantû, or warrior, whose chief carried in his hand an effigy of the great snake (Pálülükoñûh) which was carved from the woody stalk of the agave (kwan), from which the society was named. He came from the Tcivato-kiva and on his shield was depicted a Kwákwantû in full costume. The sixth society was the Tatcü′kti or “knobbed heads;” their shield-bearer wore a head-dress like a coronet, while on his shield was drawn a black figure with lozenge-shape eyes. The shield of the chief of the seventh society was adorned with a picture of the Táwamoñwi or sun chief.
After the societies had entered the kiva an invocation to the cardinal points was chanted, and the shield-bearers, in turn, standing over the sípapû, stamped on it. At a signal the society arranged itself into two irregular groups, one on the north, the other on the south side of the main floor. All then vehemently burst forth into a song, the shield-bearer making eccentric dashes among his associates, first to one side and then to the other.
While the song lasted the shield-bearer continued these short, swift rushes, and the assembled groups crouched down and met his dashes by rising and driving him back to the sípapû. He madly oscillated from right to left, that is, from the north to the south side of the room, and swung his shield in rhythm, while those near him beat their feet in time. The shield was dashed from face to face, and the groups made many motions as if to seize it, but no one did more than to touch it with outstretched hands. The movements on both sides were highly suggestive of attack and defense.
At 8 p. m. about one dozen men were collected in the Móñkiva, among whom was Lésma playing a flageolet. The hatchway was guarded by a tyler, and for a nátci there was placed there a wicker skullcap ornamented with a pair of imitation mountain-sheep horns (plate [CX]), Two hours later the room was densely packed with naked men, their bodies undecorated, wearing small eagle plumes attached to the crown of the head. Two women were present. Anawíta, chief of the Kwákwantû, sat alone on the southern side of the main floor which was clear in the middle, and twelve chiefs, among them Címo, Súpela, and Tcubéma, sat opposite him.
Ten novices from the other kivas entered gorgeously arrayed in white kilts, brilliant crowns of feathers, white body decorations, bearing an imitation squash blossom, with spruce sprigs in their left hands and corn in their right hands. As the chiefs took their places Lésma sprinkled the floor of the room near the ladder with moist valley sand, about an inch deep. The novices stepped from the ladder upon this sand and passed up in front of the chiefs, then squatted before them facing the south, their kilts having been lifted so that they sat on the cold floor.
Anawíta then crossed over to the south side of the room and seated himself at the east end of the line of chiefs.
At the west wall of the kiva a strange altar had been erected. Lésma had piled against the ledge of this part of the kiva a stack of corn, two or more ears of which had been contributed by the maternal head of each family in the pueblo. At either side and in front of the stack of corn shrubbery had been placed. In the space between the top of the corn pile and the roof wands were placed, and to these wands had been fastened many artificial flowers, 4 or 5 inches in diameter, set close together but in no regular lines. There were over 200 of these flowers of different colors, dark-red and white predominating. Nearly in the center of this artificial shrubbery there was a large gourd shell with the convex side turned toward the audience and having an aperture about 8 inches in diameter in its center. Through this opening had been thrust the head of an effigy[42] of Pálülükoñûh, the plumed-head snake, painted black, with a tongue-like appendage protruding from the mouth. When all the assembled priests were seated a moment of solemn stillness ensued, after which Súpela arose, cast a handful of meal toward the effigy of the snake, and said a short prayer in a reverent tone.[43] Then the head of the snake, which was manipulated by an unseen person behind the altar, was observed to rise slowly to the center of the aperture, and a mellow sounding roar like a blast through a conch appeared to come from the mouth, while the whole head was made to quiver and wave. The sound was of short duration, repeated four times, and then the head reposed again on the lower rim of the ground shell. Presently was heard a sound as of a scapula drawn across a notched stick six times. All the old chiefs in succession cast meal to the effigy and prayed, and in response to each the great snake emitted sounds identical with those mentioned above. The spectators then left the kiva, and a frenzied dance of strange character occurred. The societies from other kivas came in, and the chief of each declaimed in a half-chanting voice which rose to a shriek at the close of a stanza. First, he drew back to the fireplace, and then with a shuffling gait approached the symbolic opening in the floor called the sípapû.