Anawíta then shouted at the top of his voice, and the shuffler sprang in the air and vaulted over the sípapû. Then everybody in the room shouted loudly and a song in concert followed. A moment later the visiting societies dashed down the ladder, each bearing a splendid shield ornamented with the figure of the sun and a rim of radiating eagle feathers. Each society had its distinctive sun shield, which on entering was handed to the chief. As he received it he stamped on the sípapú and a fierce song was sung. Meanwhile two members of the society stood apart from their fellows against the southern wall facing each other, each holding a squash flower emblem in a bouquet of spruce twigs and an ear of corn in his left hand.
Suddenly the fifteen or twenty members of the society drew back from their chief, who then sprang upon the sípapû plank, and quickly turning faced them as all burst forth in an ecstatic shouting, with wild flinging of their arms as they approached the shield-bearers. They naturally formed two clusters, and as the shield-bearer dashed his shield in their faces they surged back, to leap again toward him. This seeming assault, wild though it appeared, was maintained in time with the song. The two chieftains joined their men, all in ecstatic frenzy, and one of them, shaking his shield, sprang from right to left, drawing back his assistants in rhythm with the beating of the feet of all on the floor. After a few moments of most exhaustive movements some of the weaker staggered up the ladder, and shortly after one of the chiefs fell fainting to the floor, overcome by exhaustion and the intense heat of the room. One splendid athlete danced with vigor for fully five minutes, and then swept toward the ladder where the assistant was standing in readiness to receive his shield. Another stride and he reached the foot of the ladder and suddenly became as rigid as a corpse. The men who belonged to the Móñkiva took no part in this exhaustive dance but stood in readiness to carry those who fainted up the ladder to the cool air outside.
It has been suggested that this assault of the men on the bearer of the sun shield dramatizes the attack of hostile powers on the sun, and that the object is to offset malign influences or to draw back the sun from a disappearance suggested by its southern declination.[44] In this possible interpretation it is well to consider that immediately preceding it the archaic offerings and prayers to the great snake were made, as described, in the presence of spectators. The idea of hostility of the great snake to the sun is an aboriginal American conception. In the Maya Codex Cortesianus (33b) the plumed snake is represented[45] as swallowing the sun as in an eclipse. If Soyáluña is a propitiatory ceremony to prevent the destruction or disappearance of the sun in winter or to offset the attacks of hostile malevolent deities upon him, we can see a possible explanation of the attacks and defenses of the sun as here dramatized.[46] The evil influences of the great snake are met by the prayers to his effigy; the attacks of other less powerful deities are dramatized in the manner indicated.
The following contains a few suggestions in regard to the character of the dramatization in the December celebration. In the prayers to the Plumed Snake his hostility was quieted, and the chiefs did what they could to propitiate that powerful deity, who was the great cause of their apprehension that the beneficent sun (Táwa) would be overcome. Then followed the dramatization of the conflict of opposing powers, possibly representing other deities hostile to our beneficent father, the sun. Although the struggle involved, so far as the participants were concerned, their highest powers of endurance and bodily suffering, the sun-shield or symbol of Táwa had the good fortune to resist the many assaults made upon it.
The introduction of dramatization as an explanation of the warrior celebration is theoretic, therefore not insisted upon, and is at least plausible until a better interpretation is suggested. It has in its support the evidence drawn from a comparative study of ceremonials. In the light of this theory the return and departure of the Katcina has a new significance, and may be regarded as a modified sun myth. At the winter solstice the sun and his attendant deities have reached their most distant point, and turned to come back to the pueblos. In the mid-summer the solar deity approached them; he was near them, and in appreciation of this fact, which means blessings, the poor Hopi made his offering;[47] danced the Snake dance, asking the snake to bring the rain, believing he was no longer hostile or at enmity with the sun. But the withdrawal of the gods (Farewell Katcinas) could not be delayed by these rites, and the sun each day drew farther from them. The Katcinas (gods) departed; the bright, beneficent summer gave place to cold, dreary winter; life was replaced by death. In this most critical epoch the warriors, the most potent human powers of the pueblo, performed their ceremony to bring back the beneficent god and his train. The Nahuatl priest called a similar ceremony “Teotleco,” the god comes—“The dead god is reborn,” says Duran. The gods (Katcinas) come, say the Hopi (Soyáluña, all assemblage; derived from co, all; yuñya, assemblage). The Nahuatl priest sprinkled meal on the floor of the teocalli, and when he saw in the meal the footprint of the War god, the leader of the divinities, he announced the fact. The Hopi priest still continues to sprinkle sand on the kiva floor during the ceremony.
BUREAU OF ETHNOLOGY.
FIFTEENTH ANNUAL REPORT. CVI.
HAHAÍWÜQTI, NATÁCKA, AND SOYÓKMANA