The Alósaka cult of the Hopi Indians / by J. Walter Fewkes.

  • Jesse Walter Fewkes
Date:
1899
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The Alósaka cult of the Hopi Indians / by J. Walter Fewkes. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    same as that set up in the Nimdn when the katcinas leave the pueblo. Powamii may thus be regarded as the official celebra¬ tion of the return, and from that time to July these personages dominate the ritual. But the rites of intervening moons are not all necessarily pure katcinas, even if katcinas participate in them. Thus, in the March ceremony, Paliilukonti (Unkwanti), they are again subordinate. This is not a pure katcina, but that of another cult into which they have straggled or to which they have been added in the course of evolution. There are only two great katcina celebrations, Powamii and Nimdn, both controlled by the katcina chief, both with a true katcina altar, both free from other Hopi cults. Some of the differences between the Powamii at Walpi and the other Hopi pueblos are due to the introduction of masked personifications at Walpi which are absent elsewhere. This maybe explained as follows: Near Walpi there are two other pueblos—one Tanoan, the other peopled by descendants of Tanoan clans, neither of which has exerted an influence on the other pueblos. These Tanoan colonists have brought their own katcinas to the East Mesa of Tusayan, and while they possess no altar of this cult they contribute their distinctive katcinas to the Walpi Powamii. In the January ceremony they do the same, and while the Walpi priests are celebrat¬ ing in that month a true Hopi Flute or Snake rite, Hano and Sitcomovi contribute masked katcinas which complicate the cere¬ mony.1 Hence the Powamii rites at Walpi became more com¬ plicated than those performed elsewhere at the same time, because of the proximity of two pueblos in which there are varia¬ tions in the katcina cult that are peculiar to them ; and as it is probable that the katcina rites in other pueblos have not been * affected by Asa and Hano clans, we should expect to find in them a less complex presentation of the rites of the katcina cult. 1 The kiva rites are complicated at Walpi by the visits of these personifications from the two neighboring pueblos.