The following diagnosis may be made of these great nine days’ ceremonials: Duration of the ceremony, nine consecutive days and nights; no masked dancers in secret or public exhibitions; no Katcinas; no Tcukúwympkiyas.[18] Altars and sand mosaics generally present. Individual ceremonials either annual or biennial, but in either case at approximately the same time of the year; sequence constant. Típoni[19] generally brought out in the public dance. Many páhos,[20] ordinarily of different length (Snake, Flute, Lálakoñti, Mamzraúti), to deposit in shrines at varying distances from the town. Ceremonial racing, generally in the morning of the eighth and ninth days.
The following are the important nine days’ ceremonies:
1. The Antelope-Snake celebration, alternating biennially with the Lélenti or Flute observance.
2. The Lálakoñti. This ceremony lasts nine days and as many nights, and is celebrated by women. The details of the celebration at Walpi in 1891, together with the altars, fetiches, and the like have already been published.[21] It has some likenesses with the Mamzraúti, which follows it in sequence. There are four priestesses, the chief of whom is Kótcnümsi. Three típonis were laid on the altar in the celebration of 1891, although it is customary for each society to have but one típoni, which, with the other paraphernalia, is in the keeping of the chief priest.
Fig. 39—Tablet of the Palahíkomana mask.
3. The Mamzraúti. This ceremonial has likewise been described.[22] In some celebrations of this festival girls appear with tablets on their heads personifying maids called Palahíkomanas. In 1891 these personages were represented by pictures[23] of the same on slabs carried in the hands of girls. In this way the variations of their celebrations in different years may be explained; sometimes women are dressed to impersonate the Palahíkomanas, at others only pictures of the same are carried.
BUREAU OF ETHNOLOGY.
FIFTEENTH ANNUAL REPORT. PL. CIV.
