The Moki maidens, like those of a few other tribes, do not leave their straight black hair hanging down their backs. These maidens put up their locks in huge puffs over each ear. These puffs are to represent squash blossoms. The married women braid their hair and sometimes fasten it in a knot at the back of the head.
All the water used in this elevated pueblo is carried up the seven hundred feet in clay ollas by the women. It is like a scene in Asia to see them gathered at evening about the springs at the foot of the mesa. [[55]]
The Mokis are a very devout people, and their young men are taught daily in the kivas, or secret rooms, by the wise old men all the sacred rites and wisdom of their fathers.
Interior of Kiva with Sacred Altar
Among the Mokis the kiva, or estufa, as the Spanish call it, is underground; among the Zuñis it is above the ground, but entered at the top by a ladder. In it is a sacred flat altar, usually surrounded by prayer-sticks called bahos. These sticks have a feather fastened at the top, to show that prayer rises.
These bahos are always planted two or three times a year by the water ways, to do reverence to the water god who shows himself in the lightning. They believe [[56]]a serpent is the form lightning takes when on earth; hence the pictures of these on the prayer-sticks, and sometimes on the sides of rocks.
There is an order of nuns among the Pueblos called Ko-Ko. These go to the springs in the early morning and place the bahos in the banks, so that rain may come on the corn, beans, and pumpkins which have been planted. No one dares to remove one baho.
The Moki Indians have stories of Coronado’s people, who battled with them in 1540. [[57]]