The first event that is noteworthy is the making of new fire by two of the societies. Two pairs of fire makers each place a piece of cottonwood on the kiva floor and drill upon it with a slender rod revolved between the palms of the hands, until the friction of the drill on the wood ignites the dust which has been ground off. The little coal of fire is fed with shredded bark until flame is produced; from this the fuel on the kiva fireplace is lighted and with a bark fuse is carried to the kivas of the three other societies. This fire is sacred and no one may blow upon it, or take a light from it, and after the end of the ceremony it is suffered to go out and the ashes are thrown over the mesa with prescribed rites. Sacrifices of pine needles are made to the sacred fire soon after it is kindled. Most of the Hopi are familiar with the ancient method of making fire by the friction of wood, and it is not many years since they knew no other way. Now matches of a particularly sulphurous variety are easy to get, and the primitive fire drill is in force only in the New Fire ceremony.
From day to day there are processions of the celebrating societies, who dance through the pueblo, forming a line with locked hands and moving with a sidelong halting step forward and backward, while the women from the houses drench them with water and shout rude jests. At night there are patrols of the celebrants, who ring cowbells or beat on tin cans and make night hideous. The novices take their nocturnal rounds at breakneck speed led by a priest, somewhat in the way of a college initiation. These poor fellows have a hard life of fasting and vigils; one of their ordeals is to go to a mountain about fifteen miles away to dig soap root and white earth with which they return gaunt and worn.
This ceremony presents more life and public exhibition than almost any other in Hopiland, hence a description of it in brief compass is impossible. To an onlooker it must exhibit a chaos of acts by the four powerful fraternities that perform it, a bewildering pageant by day and alarms and sallying forth by night, with rites also in progress in all the kivas.
The meaning of the New Fire Ceremony is obscure, but it seems in our present knowledge to be a prayer to the Germ God for fertility of human beings, animals, and crops. The Germ Gods, earth gods, and fire gods are to be placated and honored by these rites, and no doubt the new fire ceremonies of all times and peoples were held with such intent, for the relation of life and fire was a philosophic observation of the remote past. With this ceremony the round of the year has been finished and the Hopi are ready to begin again.[8]
[8] The Naac-nai-ya. By J. Walter Fewkes and A. M. Stephen; Jour. American Folk-Lore, Vol. 5, 1892. The Tusayan New Fire Ceremony, by J. Walter Fewkes; Proc. Bost. Society Nat. Hist., Vol. 26, 1895. The New Fire Ceremony at Walpi, by J. Walter Fewkes; Am. Anthropologist (N. S.), Vol. 2, Jan., 1900.
The Yayawimpkia are fire priests who heal by fire. They are experts in the art of making fire by drilling with a stick on a bit of wood and they perform this act in the Sumaikoli or Little New Fire Ceremony. There are few of them remaining, and their services are sometimes called for when a burn is to be treated, or some such matter. One woman whose breast had been blistered by a too liberal application of kerosene was healed by the Yaya, who filled his mouth with soot and spurted the fluid over the burn, the theory of the Yaya being that wounds made by fire should be checked by fire or the products of fire.
The Yaya priests are supposed to be able to bring to life people who have been killed in accidents. There is a story that a man who was pushed off the high mesa upon the rocks below was restored to his friends by the magical power of the Yaya. Other fabulous stories, always placed among the happenings of the past, tell of the wonderful doings of the Yaya. The Hopi relate that one Yaya standing at the edge of the mesa said: “Do you see that butte over yonder [the Giant’s Chair, 30 miles distant]; it is black, is it not? I will paint it white.” So with a lump of kaolin the Yaya made magical passes skyward, and behold, the mountain was white! A brother Yaya said, “I will make it black again!” So with soot he made magical passes horizonward, and behold, the butte resumed again its natural color!
Notwithstanding the style of these stories, of which there are many, the fire-priests do perform wonderful feats of juggling and legerdemain, especially in winter when abbreviated ceremonies are held. On account of these performances of sleight-of-hand and deception the Hopi are renowned as jugglers and have a reputation extending far and wide over the Southwest.
Besides the Yaya there are many other medicine men, or shamans, who relieve persons afflicted by sorcerers.
The sufferer believes that a sorcerer has shot with his span-long bow an old turquoise bead or arrowhead into some part of his body. He, therefore, summons one of his shamans to relieve him. A single shaman is called Tu hi ky a, “the one who knows by feeling or touching.” The first treatment adopted to relieve the sufferer is to pass an eagle feather, held by the shaman in his fingers, over the body of the afflicted person until the shaman asserts he feels and locates the missile.
The term applied to more than one of these shamans is Poboctu or eye seekers. In the concluding part of the conjuring, in which more than one person usually engages, the shamans move around peering and gazing everywhere, until they determine the direction in which the malign influence lies. I have been informed by Mr. Stephen that he saw them engaged over a victim in Sitcumovi many years ago and that they cleverly pretended to take out of the sufferer’s breast a stone arrowhead half the size of the hand.[9]