The aim of the ceremony appears clear. Meal of all kinds of seed
sprinkled on the Sun typifies fructification of all Hopi food plants.
Water is poured on the meal as symbolic of the rains which the
celebrants hope will increase their crops.
The details of the nine days’ ceremonials of the Powamu at Oraibi
need not be described here, but it may be well to indicate their
general character.[29]
Beans were planted in boxes in all the kivas on the day after
Powalawu (February 5, 1894) and were forced to germinate in the
heated rooms, where they grew for 16 days. From February 13 (the
first day of the nine days’ ceremony) until the 17th, Siima, the
chief, visited all these kivas, and when not so employed passed his
time in one of the rooms fasting, or making prayer objects.
I am indebted to Mr. Voth for my knowledge of the secret rites of
the Powamu at Oraibi. They supplement that which I have published
elsewhere on the Walpi representation, from which, however, it
differs very considerably. (See Fifteenth Ann. Rept., Bur. Amer.
Ethnol.; also Amer. Anthrop., Vol. VII, No. 1, 1894, and Int. Archiv
für Ethnog., Band VIII, 1895.)
The Powamu altar was erected on February 17, and from that day until
the ninth (February 21) daily songs of interesting character were
sung about it.
Many dolls, bows and arrows[30] for children are likewise made in the
kivas, and the chiefs prepared prayer emblems and other ceremonial
objects.
The culmination of Powamu, when we should expect the acme of the
series of rites, occurred on the afternoon of the ninth day (February
21), when the sprouting beans were pulled up, and distributed with
dolls and other presents, and when certain personages of supernatural
character brought significant gifts to the priests. It is the last
event to which I wish especially to call the reader’s attention.
This episode, which seems to me to bring out clearly the aim of
the Powamu ceremony, may be called the advent and departure of
Hahaiwuqti[31] followed by the Eototo and other supernaturals. The
main events of this episode were as follows: The man who personified
the “Old Woman” (Hahaiwuqti) having masked and otherwise arrayed
himself at a shrine[32] outside the pueblo, began to howl vigorously.
Siima the chief of Powamu, made offerings at this shrine and drew on
the ground, with sacred meal, several figures of rain clouds about
20 yards nearer the village. Hahaiwuqti, as if tolled along by this
mystic sign, moved to it and again began to howl. Siima made another
set of rain cloud figures, again about 20 yards nearer the village,
and the howling Hahaiwuqti advanced to the second meal figures.
Halting thus at intervals, and howling as she went, the “Old Woman”
at last stood in the public plaza of Oraibi, and in answer to her
cries people came to her, sprinkled her with pinches of meal and took
objects from the basket she bore.
She then sought the entrance to the kiva in which the priests were
engaged in ceremonial smoking and singing. She stood like a statue
at the hatch, howling as if to announce her coming to the priests
within the room below. They soon responded, and came out of the kiva
headed by Siima with a bowl of medicine and an aspergill, followed by
a second priest with a reed cigarette and a coal of fire, and others
with bags of sacred meal. Hahaiwuqti was asperged, smoked upon and
sprinkled with meal, and presented with a paho accompanied with a
prayer, after which the priests returned to their room and the “Old
Woman” went away to the west. A few minutes later men disguised as
Eototo and Ahul approached the kiva hatch near which some unknown
Katcina had made in meal on the ground a cross and rain cloud. Eototo
rubbed meal on each of the four sides of the kiva hatchway[33]
and poured water into the kiva entrance from the sides, as I have
described in my accounts of the Walpi and Cipaulovi Niman Katcina.
Ahul followed his example, whereupon the priests again emerged from
the kiva and treated these two visitors in the same way they had used
Hahaiwuqti. They received corn in return, after which the visitors
retired, following the “Old Woman.”
After their departure, two “mudheads” (Koyimse) and three Katcinas,
two men wearing Humis, Jemes, Katcina masks and one the maskette
and apparel of the female Humis, approached the kiva entrance.[34]
Then came personifications of Ana, Hehea, and two Tacab Katcinas.
Following these were three lame Howaik Katcinas, masked as their
predecessors, and clearly designated by appropriate symbolism.
At each new arrival the priests in the kiva responded, emerged from
their room, and treated these visitors as they had their leader,
Hahaiwuqti.