Excepting the figure of the maid's head above described, the human
hand, for some unknown reason, is the only part of the body chosen by
the ancient Hopi for representation in the decoration of their
pottery. Among the present Tusayan Indians the human hand is rarely
used, but oftentimes the beams of the kivas are marked by the girls
who have plastered them with impressions of their muddy hands, and
there is a _katcina_ mask which has a hand painted in white on the
face. As in the case of the decoration of all similar sacred
paraphernalia, there is a legend which accounts for the origin of the
_katcina_ with the imprint of the hand on its mask. The following
tale, collected by the late A. M. Stephen, from whose manuscript I
quote, is interesting in this connection:
"The figure of a hand with extended fingers is very common, in the
vicinity of ruins, as a rock etching, and is also frequently seen
daubed on the rocks with colored pigments or white clay. These are
vestiges of a test formerly practiced by the young men who aspired for
admission to the fraternity of the Calako. The Calako is a trinity of
two women and a man from whom the Hopi obtained the first corn, and of
whom the following legend is told:
"In the early days, before houses were built, the earth was
devastated by a whirlwind. There was then neither springs nor
streams, although water was so near the surface that it could
be found by pulling up a tuft of grass. The people had but
little food, however, and they besought Masauwûh to help
them, but he could not.
"There came a little old man, a dwarf, who said that he had
two sisters who were the wives of Calako, and it might be
well to petition them. So they prepared an altar, every man
making a _paho_, and these were set in the ground so as to
encircle a sand hillock, for this occurred before houses were
known.
"Masauwûh's brother came and told them that when Calako came
to the earth's surface wherever he placed his foot a deep
chasm was made; then they brought to the altar a huge rock,
on which Calako might stand, and they set it between the two
pahos placed for his wives.
"Then the people got their rattles and stood around the
altar, each man in front of his own paho; but they stood in
silence, for they knew no song with which to invoke this
strange god. They stood there for a long while, for they were
afraid to begin the ceremonies until a young lad, selecting
the largest rattle, began to shake it and sing. Presently a
sound like rushing water was heard, but no water was seen; a
sound also like great winds, but the air was perfectly still,
and it was seen that the rock was pierced with a great hole
through the center. The people were frightened and ran away,
all save the young lad who had sung the invocation.
[Illustration: BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY