After this act another set of performers gives a more remarkable serpent drama. Back of the field of corn on the floor are seen two large pottery vases, and, as if by magic, the covers of the vases fly back, and from them two serpents emerge, swoop down and overthrow the corn hills, struggle with each other and perform many gyrations, then withdraw into the vases. In the dim light of the kiva fire the cords by which the serpents are manipulated cannot be seen, and the realism of the act is wonderful. In other years the acts are even more startling, as when masked men wrestle with serpents which seem to try to coil about their victims. The actor thrusts one arm in the body of the snake in order to give these movements, while a false arm is tied to his shoulder. Sometimes also the corn-maid grinders are represented by joined figures surrounded by a framework. They are made to bend backward and forward and grind corn on small metates. At times they raise one hand and rub meal on their faces, like the Hopi corn grinders in daily life, while above them on the framework two birds carved from wood and painted are made to walk back and forth. On the day of the public dance the corn maids attended by many masked Kachinas grind in the dance plaza.
The Great Plumed Serpent who has control of all the waters of the earth and who frequents the springs, once, as the legend goes, caused a great flood and was appeased only by the sacrifice of a boy and girl. (See Myths.) The home of this monster was in the Red Land of the South, whence some of the Hopi clans came. Dr. J. Walter Fewkes believes that the great serpent of Mexican and Central American mythology is this same being, which shows the debt of the Hopi to the culture of the south.
Now the Kachinas throng the pueblos and a perfect carnival reigns with the joyful Hopi. There is a bewildering review of the hosts of the good things and bad, interwoven with countless episodes. Songs of great beauty, strange masked pageants, bright-tinted piki and Kachina bread attract powerfully three of the senses, and the Hopi enjoy the season to the full with the knowledge that the growing crops thrive toward perfection in the fields below the mesa.
The Kachinas are the deified spirits of the ancestors, who came from San Francisco Mountains and perhaps from the Rio Grande and other places, to visit their people. Their name means the “sitters,” because of the custom of burial in a sitting posture, and they resemble “The watchers sitting below” of Faust. They are believed to guard the interests of the Hopi and to intercede with the gods of rain and fertility. Their first coming is in December at the Soyal ceremony, and others continue to come till August when the great Niman, or Farewell Kachina, is celebrated with songs, dances, and feasting.
These deified spirits, or Kachinas, are personated by Indians who sometimes go outside the town, dress themselves in appropriate costume, present themselves at the gate, and are escorted through the streets with great fun and frolic. Every few days there is a new arrival and a fresh festival. Each year there is something new, and the Indians rack their inventive genius to produce the most startling masks and costumes. The kachinas admit of any character in the extensive Hopi mythology. Almost any character from a clown to a god can be introduced, and there are songs belonging to each. Every male Hopi takes some part in the kachinas, and all dates and distances are cancelled when these dances are in progress.
The kachina dances promote sociability among the pueblos. The Walpi boys, for instance, may give a representation of a kachina at a neighboring pueblo in return for a like expression of good-will on some other occasion. It goes without saying that there is a friendly rivalry among the pueblos, each striving to give the best dance. Like his white brothers, the Indian works harder at his amusement than at almost anything else.
These dances also show the cheerful Hopi at his best,—a true, spontaneous child of nature. They are the most characteristic ceremonies of the pueblos, most musical, spectacular, and pleasing. They are really more worthy of the attention of white people than the forbidding Snake Dance, which overshadows them by the element of horror.
In July the kachinas take their flight, and with a great culminating ceremony the Hopi bid them farewell. The Niman, or Farewell ceremony, begins about July 20th and lasts nine days, like the four great ceremonies between August and November, and like them also having a regular secret ritual in the kivas. Instead, however, of one day or so of public ceremony, the Niman furnishes many surprises and sallyings forth to the amusement of the populace. Delegates hurry on very long journeys for sacred water, pine boughs, and other essentials for the use of the priests. Sad indeed is the state of the Hopi that fate detains, and strong must be circumstances that prevent his reunion with his people at this great festival.
The Niman public dances which follow the eight days of kiva rites are imposing spectacles. The first takes place before sunrise and the second in the afternoon. There are many kachinas in rich costumes, wearing strange helmets and adorned in many striking ways. They carry planting sticks, hoes, and other emblematic paraphernalia. A number are dressed as female kachinas. These furnished an accompaniment to the song by rasping sheep’s scapulæ over notched sticks placed on wooden sounding boxes. The male and female dancers stand in two lines and posture to the music, and the former turn around repeatedly during the dance. The children especially enjoy the dance, because the kachinas have brought great loads of corn, beans, and melons, and baskets of peaches, which are gifts for the young folks, and dolls, bows, and arrows are also given them. The dance is repeated in the afternoon in another plaza, after which the procession departs to carry offerings to a shrine outside the town and the drama of the Farewell kachina is over.
With the coming of the different clans, each having some ceremony peculiar to itself, and held at a certain time in the year, there must have been an adjustment of interests to fit the ceremonies to the moons, as we now see in the Hopi calendar. This may explain the fusing of the Snake-Antelope ceremonies and the two Flutes, which come in August, and the assignment of the two groups to alternate years. It is to be expected also that rain ceremonies would preponderate in the Southwest, and by mutual concessions the clans making up the Hopi would arrange their rites to fit in the month when the rain-makers are needed. Thus, the women’s ceremonies in September and October would not need to be disturbed, perhaps to the relief of the obscure Hopi who, like Julius Cæsar, reformed the calendar.