The Winter Solstice Altars At Hano Pueblo Part 3

[1] _The Winter Solstice Ceremony at Walpi_ (_American Anthropologist_, vol. XI).

[2] These studies were made under the auspices of the Bureau of American Ethnology.

[3] Most of the people of Sitcomovi are of the _Asa_ and _Honani_ clans, of Tanoan ancestry, but they long ago lost the Tewa language and their Tanoan ident.i.ty.

[4] The site of this last settlement of the _Patki_ people, before they joined those of Walpi, is in the plain about four miles south of the East Mesa. The ruins of the pueblo are still visible, and the foundation walls can readily be traced.

[5] The Hano names of these pueblos are--San Juan, ----; Santa Clara, _Kap'a_; San Ildefonso, _Pocunwe_; Pojoaque, _P'okwode_; Nambe, _Nume_; Tesuque, _Tetsogi_. They also claim Taos (_Tawile_) and Picuris (_Ohke_), but say that another speech is mixed with theirs in these pueblos.

[6] The Tewa of Hano call the Hopi _Koso_, and the Hopi speak of the Hano people as the _Towa_ or the _Hanum-nyumu_. The word "Moki," so constantly used by white people to designate the Hopi, is never applied by the Hopi to themselves, and they strongly object to it. The dead are said to be _moki_, which enters into the formation of verbs, as _tconmoki_, to starve; _tcinmoki_, to be very lonesome, etc. The name _Hano_ or _Hanoki_ is, I believe, simply a combination of the words _Hano_ and _ki_, "eastern pueblo." The element _hano_ appears also in the designation for American, _Pahano_, "eastern water"; _pahanoki_, "American house." Both the Asa and the Tewa peoples are called _Hanum_ clans.

[7] Remains of old reservoirs, elaborately walled, from which water was drawn by means of a gourd tied to a long pole, are still pointed out near Tukinovi and are said to have belonged to the _Pe-towa_. Old Tcasra claims that they were in use in his mother's grandmother's time.

[8] The troubles following the great rebellion of 1680 drove many Tewa from the Rio Grande valley to Tusayan.

[9] It is impossible to make this enumeration accurate, hence these numbers must be regarded as approximations.

[10] It is not unusual to find several names applied to the same person. Thus, Hani, the chief of the _Piba_ clans at Walpi, is called Lesma in the Snake kiva. The Walpi call the author Nakwipi, but the Flute chief at c.i.p.aulovi insists that his name is Yoyowaiamu, which appellation was given when the author was inducted into the Flute rites at that pueblo in 1891.

[11] The gap in the East Mesa just at the head of the trail before one enters Hano. The pueblo of Walpi derived its name from this gap.

[12] Their nomadic enemies raided so near the pueblo of the East Mesa that the priests were unable to visit their shrines without danger.

The idol of _Talatumsi_, used in the New-fire ceremony, was removed from its shrine north of Wala on that account.

[13] Later, as the outcome of a petty quarrel near the middle of the eighteenth century, the _Asa_ women moved to Sitcomovi which they founded. At present there is only one woman of this clan in Walpi, and no women of the _Honani_, both of which clans are strong in Sitcomovi.

[14] Ten Broeck in 1852 seems to have been the first writer to adopt the true name, Hano, of the Tewa pueblo on the East Mesa.

[15] One of the differences in custom between Hopi and Tewa women is the method of making their coiffures. Unmarried girls of Walpi and Hano dress their hair in the same manner, with whorls above the ears.

Married women have different ways of wearing their hair in the two pueblos. During the wedding ceremonies at Hano the mother of the bride, in the presence of guests, combs her daughter's hair, or that part of it on the front of the scalp, over the face, so that it hangs down like a veil. She ties the hair on the back of the head in two coils, one of which hangs on either side, but the hair before the face she cuts on a level with the chin, beginning at the top of the ears.

The hair which remains is too short to be done up in coils, and is simply brushed to one side or the other. Among Hopi married women all the hair is included in the two coils, and the "bang" is absent.

[16] The names of many Tewa women end in _pobi_, corresponding with the Hopi _si_, a contracted form of _sihu_, in women's names, as Honsi, Nasiumsi, etc.

[17] Among the Hopi the moon (Tewa _p'o_) is called _muiyauh_; new moon, _muiyakatci_; first quarter, _muiyachaunacapti_; full moon, _muiyanacapti_. An eclipse of the moon is spoken of as _muiyauh moki_, "dead moon." There was a total eclipse of the moon visible at Walpi near the end of December, 1898, when the full moon arose partially obscured. This, said Sikyatala, was bad for the Americans who dwell in the far east, but not for the Hopi. A "dead moon," when in the meridian of the Hopi pueblos, is considered _kalolamai_, "bad."

[18] _The Winter Solstice Ceremony at Walpi_, op. cit.

[19] The _Asa_ people are also called the _Tcakwaina_ clans. The ruins of their old village, near the western point of Awatobi mesa, are called Tcakwaina-ki. Its walls do not appear above the surface.

[20] The particular ceremony of the _Pakab_ peoples is the _Momtcita_, a single day's rite which occurs just after the _Soyaluna_, under direction of Pautiwa. Connected with this ceremony are the performances of the "stick swallowers" or _Nocoto_ priests who were thought to be extinct at Walpi, but Eewa is chief of the _Nocotana_ priests, and the society includes Wikyatiwa, Talahoya, Sikyaventima, and others. They still practice stick-swallowing. Pautiwa is chief of the _Kalektaka_, a warrior priesthood. He belongs to the Eagle clan of the _Pakab_ phratry, which may be related to the _Awata_ or Bow clan of the former pueblo of Awatobi.

[21] Tcoshoniwa is generally called by a nickname, Tcino, "Bald-head,"

or "Curly-hair," a sobriquet to which he strongly objects. He is one of the oldest men of Sitcomovi, belongs to the _Patki_ clan, and was formerly the _kimonwi_ or governor of Sitcomovi. Hani, of the _Piba_ (Tobacco) clan, is political chief of Walpi; and Anote, also of the _Piba_ clan, is chief of Hano. All the pueblos have _kimonwis_ or governors, and the office dates from early times; but these pueblo chiefs have no authority over pueblos other than their own.

[22] The orientation of the Hano kivas is not far from that of the other East Mesa kivas, or about north 44 west.

[23] The chief kiva had a small stove, an innovation which was greatly appreciated by the writer.

[24] So named by the Hopi; the Tewa call him Tem[)e], At Hano almost everyone has a Hopi and a Tewa name.

[25] Son of Kutcve and Kotcampa of the _Kolon-towa_, or Corn clan; commonly called "Esquash" by Americans.

[26] The corn-husk packet of meal seems to be wanting in Zunian, Keresan, and Tanoan prayer-sticks, but it is almost universally present in those of the Hopi. The Tanoan prayer-stick is called _o'dope_.

[27] A cephalic horn is an essential organ of the Great Snake, and is always represented in pictography and on graven or other images of this being. Note the similarity of his Tewa name to the Spanish word _abajo_, "below."

[28] This is the first time songs have been noted while an altar was being put in place.

[29] This was a four-stranded string of cotton, as long as the outstretched arm, measured from over the heart to the tip of the longest finger. It is supposed to be a roadway of blessings, and the trail of meal is the pathway along which, in their belief, the benign influences of the altar pa.s.s from it to the kiva entrance and to the pueblo.

[30] Pocine is a youth not far from seventeen years of age. His marriage ceremony was studied by the writer a week before the _Tuntai_.

[31] The triangle among the Hopi is almost as common a symbol of the rain-cloud as the semicircle. It is a very old symbol, and is frequently found with the same meaning in cliff-houses and in ancient pictography.

[32] It was found in studying the four lightning symbols on this Tewa altar that s.e.x is a.s.sociated with cardinal points as in the Walpi Antelope altar. The lightning of the north is male, that of the west female, the south male, and the east female. The same holds with many objects in Hopi altars; thus the stone objects, _tcamahia_, of the Antelope altar follow this rule. In the same way plants and herbs have s.e.x (not in the Linnean meaning), and are likewise a.s.sociated with the cardinal points.

[33] This sprinkling of corn seeds upon the meal picture of a Hopi altar is mentioned in an account of the Oraibi Flute ceremony. The evident purpose of this act is to vitalize the seeds by the accompanying rites about the altar.

[34] Called _omowuh-saka_, "rain-cloud ladders."

[35] _Smithsonian Report_, 1895, pl. lvii.

[36] _The American Anthropologist_, vol. XI, page 1.

[37] The Tewa, like the Hopi, recognize six ceremonial directions--north, west, south, east, above, and below. The sinistral circuit is one in which the center is on the left hand, while the dextral circuit has its center to the right. The older term, "sunwise," for the latter circuit, etymologically means one ceremonial circuit in the northern hemisphere and an opposite in the southern. On this and other accounts the author has ceased to use it in designating circuits.

[38] For the increase of rabbits.

[39] This zigzag framework had appended to one end a carved imitation of a snake's head, and as it represents the lightning this a.s.sociation was not incongruous. Similar frameworks are carried in the dance by a man impersonating Puukon, the War G.o.d, and at certain other times when lightning is symbolized.

[40] In asking why albino Hopi are found at the Middle Mesa and not on the East Mesa, it was unexpectedly learned that in some ceremonies a white prayer-stick is made at the former mesa, and that albinism was due to want of care by the father in making these offerings while his wife was pregnant. The author has never seen the white _paho_ of the Middle Mesa, and does not know when it is made nor its shape and use.

[41] All Hopi priests are very solicitous that sketches of the _Patki_ altar in the _Soyaluna_ should not be shown to Tewa men or women, and the Tewa men begged me to keep silent regarding their altars while conversing with the Walpi chiefs. There is a very strict taboo between the two peoples at the time of the Winter Solstice ceremony, which is more rigid than at other times.

[42] The _Tuwa_ (Sand) or _Kukutce_ (Lizard) clan lived at Pakatcomo with the _Patki_ people, according to their legends.

[43] _Journal of American Folk-lore_, 1892, pl. II, figs. 1-4. These _monkohus_ of the Kwakwantu society, representing horned snakes, should not be confounded with those carried by other societies, typical forms of which are shown in figures 5-8. In the article quoted it was not stated that the effigies with heads represent _Palulukons_.

The effigy on the ma.s.sive club borne by the chief of the Kwakwantu also represents the Great Snake.