Accepting these statements as a correct idea of the “three fundamental religious bodies of Zuñi” I find great difficulty in tracing an intimate relation between them and those of the Hopi system. A large number of the Katcinas are anthropomorphic and likewise ancestral. They bear the names of animals, and in that sense may be called in some instances zoomorphic. Walpi, however, has but five kivas, the members of each of which in the Powámû personify different Katcinas. I have not yet discovered that each of these kivas is associated with a different cardinal world-quarter, as Mrs Stevenson finds to be the case in Zuñi. The esoteric societies of the Zuñi, according to Mrs Stevenson, “with but one or two exceptions have nothing to do with anthropomorphic beings.” I am not able to harmonize my observations of the secret societies in Tusayan with the definition given of the esoteric societies in Zuñi, and must await some clearer insight into the character of the latter before offering any discussion of several resemblances which can be detected. From an examination of Cushing’s article in the Century Magazine, in which the esoteric societies of Zuñi are briefly defined, I am led to believe that the so-called esoteric societies in that pueblo differ a good deal from those in Walpi. The Hopi testify that while some of their secret fraternities are represented in Zuñi several of them are not identical.[130]

Mrs Stevenson does not make it clear who these fourteen (six) so-called Ahshiwanni are, but calls them “rain priests.” She intimates that they appeal directly to the Sun father, their supreme deity, and to the rain makers, while the “societies” address “the beast gods of their worship to intercede with the Sun father and rain makers.” There is apparently no parallelism between these conditions and those at Tusayan, but I can readily find truth in the statement when applied to the Hopi that “no society convenes without giving much time to invocations for rain.” I am sure that some of the societies at Tusayan do not appeal to the beast gods to intercede with the Sun father and rain makers, but address the latter directly in their prayers. In this particular there is certainly a marked difference between the conceptions back of the rites in Tusayan and those ascribed to the Cibolans.[131]

The custom of the Yókimoñwi, or rain chief, retiring alone to a cell to pray for rain was practiced in Tusayan. One of these retreats is to be seen at the Middle mesa. Among the foothills there is a block of sandstone, 15 feet long, 5 feet wide, and 4 feet thick. Its flat face is about horizontal or slightly tilted toward the northeast. Portions of a rough wall are still in place under the block, confirming the story that there was here formerly a chamber of which the block was the roof. An aperture on the northeastern corner, about 20 inches square, is usually closed with loose stones, but the chamber is now filled in with sand to within about 2 feet of the roof or lower surface of the slab. The interior of the chamber was about 8 feet long and 4 feet wide. On the roof, which was painted white, are figures of yellow, green, red, and white rain clouds with parallel lines of falling rain and zigzag lightning symbols in conventional patterns. To this chamber, it is said, the Rain chief of the Water people retired at planting time and lived there sixteen days, his food being brought to him by a girl during his vigils. He was able by his prayers to bring the rain. These visits were made long ago, but even now there are páhos strewn about the chamber, and devout persons visit the place at the present day with a nakwákwoci and pray for rain. Although the Rain chief no longer passes the sixteen days there, it is a holy place for the purposes mentioned.

“The earth,” says Mrs Stevenson,[132] “is watered by the deceased Zuñi of both sexes, who are controlled and directed by a council composed of ancestral gods. These shadow people collect water in vases and gourd jugs from the six great waters of the world, and pass to and fro over the middle plane, protected from view of the people below by cloud masks.”

I find a different conception from this of the rain-making powers of the dead among the Hopi. Among other ceremonials, when certain persons die, after the chin has been blackened, the body washed, and prescribed feathers placed on different parts of it, a thin wad of raw cotton in which is punched holes for the eyes is laid upon the face. This is a mask and is called a rain-cloud or “prayer to the dead to bring the rain.” In general, as many writers have said, the use of the mask transforms the wearer into a deity designated by the symbolism of the same,[133] and as a consequence the dead, we may theoretically suppose, are thereby endowed with supernatural powers to bring rain. The Ómowûhs, however, are the Rain gods, and so far as I can explain the significance of the symbolic rain-cloud mask on the face of the dead and the black color on the chin, it is simply a method of prayer through the divinized dead to the Rain-cloud deities. Among the Hopi the earth is watered by the Rain-gods, but the dead are ceremonially made intercessors to affect them. In this view of the case the Hopi may be said to believe that the earth is “watered by the deceased of both sexes.”

The Hopi believe that the breath body of the Zuñi goes to a sacred place near Saint Johns, called Wénima. There the dead are supposed to be changed into Katcinas, and the place is reputed to be one of the homes of these personages. It is likewise specially spoken of as the house of Cálako, and it is believed that the Zuñi hold the same views of this mysterious place. In lagoons near it turtles are abundant, and not far away Mr Hubbell and others discovered sacrificial caverns in which were large collections of pottery. Tótci, a Hopi resident of Zuñi, is the authority for the statement that the Cibolans do not use the raw cotton mortuary mask, although they blacken the face of the dead chiefs. He says the same idea of divinization of the breath body into a Katcina seems to be current among the Zuñi as among the Hopi.

According to Mrs Stevenson the father of the Kokko is Kaklo (Kyäklu), whose servants are the Sälämobiyas. The name of their mother is not known to me. The Katcinas are said to be the offspring of an Earth goddess,[134] who figures under many names. Their father’s name on comparative grounds is supposed to be Táwa, the sun, or Túñwup, their elder brother.

A study of the group of Katcina ceremonials as compared with the Kóko brings out in prominence the conclusion that while some of them may be identical, as a rule there is considerable difference in the ritual of the Tusayan people and their nearest neighbor, the Zuñi. If variations exist between these neighbors we are justified in the suspicion, which observation as far as it has thus far gone supports, that there are even wider differences between pueblos more distant from each other. The ethnologist fully cognizant with the ritual in one pueblo has a general conception of the character of all, but changes due to suppression of ceremonials, survivals, dying out of societies, and many other causes have modified the pueblos in different ways. The character of the ancient system is adulterated in all. We can form an idea of this modification in no better way than by a minute study of the existing ritual in every pueblo. Upon such comprehensive study science is at the very threshold.

The foregoing pages open many considerations of a theoretical nature which I have not attempted to develop. My greatest solicitude has been to sketch the outline of the Katcina ceremonials as performed at the Hopi village of Walpi in Tusayan.

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