On certain personages who appear in a Tusayan ceremony / by Jesse Walter Fewkes.

  • Jesse Walter Fewkes
Date:
1894
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On certain personages who appear in a Tusayan ceremony / by Jesse Walter Fewkes. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    5/34 (page 33)
    later.* It is the occasion of the renovation of all the Hopi ki-vas, resembling the Nahuatl Ochpaniztli or ceremonial in honor of Teteoinnan-Tlagolteotl or Toci, the goddess of the earth. In order to give an adequate account of the characteristic rites which occur when the Na-tac'-Jca(s) are personated in the Hopi villages it would be necessary to describe the Po-wa'-mull f or bean-planting ceremony, which occupies several days and in which the personifications of several deities appear. A complete description is reserved for another article, but it may be useful to mention some of the doings of the Na-tac'-ka(s) in this observ¬ ance as a basis for future comparisons. Before sunrise of the same day So-yok'-ma-na had visited the kivas and conversed with the priests. At about noon on the final day of the Po-wa'-muh men personifying So-yok'-ma-na, Ha-hai'-i-wuq-ti, and five Na-tac -ka(s), three black and two white, accompanied by two He-lie'-a Ka-tci'-na(s), went from house to house in the village of Walpi demanding food. The monsters begged like gluttons, as described in the “ Summer Ceremonials,” and the two attendant Ka-tci'-na(s) carried bags and pouches as receptacles for these gifts. Whenever poor food was offered them So-yok'-ma-na whistled and the Na-tac'-ka(s) hooted like owls. Children who had not yet received a flogging, which is cere¬ monially performed at a certain age by a personage called * The masks described and figured in this article are kept in darkened secret chambers in llano, the Tewan Tusayan pueblo, but I have likewise drawings of the Na-tacAka masks of Walpi, made under more favorable circumstances by Mr. Stephen during the celebration of the Po-wa/-muh. A more detailed description of these and of the dress, accoutrements, and paraphernalia would more appropriately appear in a description of the ceremony mentioned. The Tewans of Hano are more closely akin to Rio Grande villagers than to the Hopi, by whom they are surrounded, so that some care is necessary in building any generalizations upon the character and origin of the ceremonies in which they figure. There is, however, no doubt that the Na-tac'-ka{s) are not characteristic of the Tewans, but probably once appeared among all the Pueblos. t The Po-wa'-muh is a ceremony that occurs in January, in which the renovation or new plastering of all the kivas takes place. It has several points in common with the Ochpaniztli of the Nahuas, the Gena of the Mayas. Possibly it is in part a lustral ceremony—a New Year’s observ¬ ance almost coincident with the return of the Iva-tci/-na(s). 5