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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    The three Walpi ceremonies in which we find survivals of the Aldsaka cult are the Flute, the New-fire, and the Winter Solstice, which are especially instructive in a study of its significance. Personations of Alosaka as Escorts In the Flute and New-fire ceremonies the role of the persona- tors of Alosaka is that of an escort who leads the columns of dancers or processions of priests. The personation of Alosaka in the Walpi Flute-dance was by a member of the Asa clan, who, on the fifth day of the cdremony, drew a line of ground corn and made rain-cloud symbols along the path by which altar objects were carried from one place to another. He made a line of meal across the trail by which one enters Walpi, in order to symbolically close it to visitors on the seventh day, when the historic reception of the Flute chief by the Bear and Snake chiefs was dramatized, and brushed away this meal when the Flute chief was invited to enter the pueblo at that time. He also “closed” the trail a second time when the Flute priests marched into the pueblo, and brushed the meal away as they proceeded. On the last day he led a procession of priests to the Sun spring (Tdzvapa), where a ceremony of wading into the water was performed, and escorted it back to Walpi on the afternoon of the last day, when the public Flute exercises were conducted. He sprinkled a line of meal over which certain sacred objects were carried from the Flute altar to the roof of the house, and led the priests as they bore these objects from place to place. There are only obscure hints regarding the nature of the Alosaka cult in these acts. In the New-fire ceremonies we find Alosaka filling the role of escort, and also that of tyler at the kiva hatches. He escorted the public dancers, visited the trails, and drew lines of meal across them to prevent strangers from entering the pueblo. He inspected these trails from time to time, guarded the ladder while the new fire was being kindled, and carried it to the other kivas.