“Madam,” replied the attaché, “I am waiting for the verb!”
And that is about as far as I ever got toward exact knowledge of the clowns in any dance. I have tried it many times. The interpreter always enjoyed the show for himself, first, and left me in outer darkness. Occasionally he would attempt to explain some part of the horseplay in progress, probably such simple portions as he thought my feeble intellect would rise to. [[279]]
“You see,” he would begin, pointing, “he is one of the uncles!”
And apparently there are always two, paternal and maternal, I suppose. The uncle is the great man of the Hopi family. The father does not amount to much—he can be divorced in a jiffy and, while the mother is the household boss, she is always dominated by the grandmother, if living, and dictated to by the uncle in matters concerning alliances with other families. Perhaps one should call him a social arbiter. He has a great deal to say about weddings, marriage portions, and the like. Whenever I have watched the clowns at these smaller dances, and have asked their rôles in the play, invariably they have been of the uncles. Perhaps the Hopi in this manner square themselves at the expense of the family martinet.
I could not see that there was anything to cause suspicion of evil in this little scene. In old Navajo dances the clowns would often engage in dialogue that interpreters feared to translate. This is the charge too against the clowns of certain Pueblo and Zuni dances; and the clowns of the Hopi have been known to indulge in antics that were not elevating. I cannot bring myself to believe, however, that the clowns of the Dolls’ Dance were relating anything other than crude witticisms, for the little children laughed as loudly as the others, and it seemed sheer fooling. Had a slapstick been in evidence, I should have been sure of the nature of the proceedings; but the Indians have not developed exactly this form of humor.
Then the dancers filed out, up the ladder, and away.
“They go to another kiva,” said my companion.
And almost immediately came another and different set of fun-makers. They took the centre of the kiva and [[280]]soon had all laughing at similar jokes and grimaces. So, I thought, the old tiresome reel over again, to be continued throughout the night. For I had seen this dancing in relays last an entire day, only stopping for hasty meals and new costumes or make-up, and to one who does not understand the differences in scenes it becomes an intense boredom. As I once heard a man remark: “They are three days making ready for one day’s dancing, and the rest of the week getting over it.” This critic was not too severe, for there is much to be said about the time lost in Hopi spectacles, when one is seriously engaged in thrusting them along the pathway of progress. I arose and was about to depart; but my interpreter pulled me down.
“Wait!” he urged. “They will put out the lights.”
This time the dancers did not leave the kiva. One of them came to the lamp just above me, and at a signal all the lights were dimmed. The kiva was in thick darkness. One could hear childish sighs of expectation. Perhaps the lights were off for thirty seconds, although it did not seem so long. Then they flared up, to reveal a curious little scene that had been constructed in the dark. I had not noticed that the dancers packed anything in with them. The setting may have been in that crowded kiva all the time; but where had it been concealed?