Hopi ceremonial frames from Cañon de Chelly, Arizona / by J. Walter Fewkes.
- Jesse Walter Fewkes
- Date:
- 1906
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Hopi ceremonial frames from Cañon de Chelly, Arizona / by J. Walter Fewkes. Source: Wellcome Collection.
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![| Reprinted from the AMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGIST, Vol. 8, N > Pe ¥ Ts ae and Un. HOPI CEREMONIAL FRAMES FROM ICANON DE: 278 CHELLY, ARIZONA, sa eer ne et By J. WALTER FEWKES On a visit to the Museum of the Brooklyn Institute in December last, I became greatly interested in two ethnological specimens ob- tained by Mr Stewart Culin in Cafion de Chelly,’ Arizona. These objects, to which I have briefly referred in my article on Hopi Shrines,” undoubtedly belong to the Pueblo culture. They are not duplicated in other collections, and have a much greater interest than attaches to their rarity, for they seem to verify a legend, cur- rent in the East Mesa pueblos of the Hopi, of the former habitation and migration of one of their important clans. They consist of wooden frames with sliding appendages, handles, and symbolic at- tachments. Their general appearance is shown in the accompany- ing illustrations (figures 22 and 23). Mr Culin informs me that these frames were found with certain fragments of masks, a brief account of which has been published * in a notice that gives also a Navaho legend regarding the origin of the masks and closes with a suggestion that they once belonged to the Asa clan, a Tanoan people now domiciled in the Hopi pueblo of Sichomovi, who are known to have lived at Zuni and to have sojourned in the Cafion de Chelly for several years.* No reference to these frames is made in Mr Culin’s account, and as the evidence of Asa ownership which they furnish is corroborative and more de- 1 These objects were purchased from Mr C. L. Day by Mr Culin, curator of ethnology of the Brooklyn Institute Museum, to whom I am indebted for many kindnesses in the preparation of this notice. 2 American Anthropologist, vi1, April-June, 1906. 3 «« Hopi Indian Masks from a Cave in the Cafion de Chelly, Arizona,’’ Bulletin of the Brooklyn Institute, Jan. 6, 1906. 4¢« The Kinship of a Tanoan-speaking Community in Tusayan,’’ American Anthro- pologist, 1894, VIII, p. 164-165: ‘‘It is likewise said that after they (the Asa) had lived some time with the Hopi a number of them wandered off to the Tseyi [‘‘ Chelly’ ] Cafion and intermarried with Athapascan ( Navaho) tribes.”’](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b33459022_0003.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
