A little over ten years ago an Indian living near Keam’s Canyon,
Arizona, informed Mr T. V. Keam, who for several years had been making
a collection of Hopi curiosities, that there were two idols in a
cave near the ruins of the old pueblo of Awatobi. Mr Keam, supposing
these images to be so ancient that they no longer were used in the
Hopi ritual, especially as they were reported from a point ten miles
from the nearest pueblo, visited the place, and brought the idols to
his store, several miles distant. When the removal of these objects
became known, it created great consternation among some of the Hopi,
and a delegation of priests from one of their villages begged Mr Keam
to restore the figurines to them, stating that they were still used
in their ceremonies. This request was immediately granted, and the
two idols were borne away with great reverence by the priests, who
sprinkled a line of meal on the ground along the trail as they returned
home. The images, however, have never been returned to their old shrine
under the Awatobi mesa, but a new fane has been found for them, the
situation of which is known to no white man.[2]
From the late Mr A. M. Stephen’s rough sketches, notes, and
measurements of these images (which the writer has not seen), it
appears that they are made of cottonwood, the larger one about four
feet tall, the other five inches shorter. Mr Stephen thought that they
represented male and female, and his sketches of them show ground for
that belief. Each has a well carved head, from which arise two straight
projections which will be spoken of as horns.
In his studies of the Hopi Indians the author has several times visited
the shrine at Awatobi where these objects were once kept, finding it
a depression in a large bowlder, which was formerly walled up with
masonry, making a shelf upon which the images stood. The entrance to
this shrine faces the east, and the bowlder lies a few feet lower down
on the cliff than the foundation of the old mission church of San
Bernardino de Awatobi. By interrogating Indians regarding the images,
he has found that they represent beings called _Alósakas_, the cult
of which, once practised at Awatobi, still survives in the rites of
the modern Hopi pueblos. Many legends concerning _Alósaka_ have been
collected, but only during the last few years has the author witnessed
ceremonies connected with their cult. As a result of these observations
a suggestion in regard to its significance is offered.
The distinctive symbolic feature of these images is the horns (_ála_)
above referred to, from which they take their name. There is a
priesthood at Walpi called the _Aaltû_ or Horn-men (to whom the name
_Alósaka_ is also given), who are the special guardians of the cult and
who perform rites which throw light on its nature. These _Aaltû_, in
their personifications of _Alósakas_, wear on their heads close-fitting
wicker caps,[3] on which are mounted two large, artificial, curved
projections made of buckskin, painted white, and resembling horns of
the mountain sheep[4] which, in certain of their actions, the _Aaltû_
imitate.
The three Walpi ceremonies in which we find survivals of the _Alósaka_
cult are the Flute, the New-fire, and the Winter Solstice, which are
especially instructive in a study of its significance.