* * * * *
=The Emergence Myth and the Wu-wu-che-ma Ceremony=
Each of the Hopi clans preserves a separate origin or emergence myth,
agreeing in all essential parts, but carrying in its details special
reference to its own clan. All of them claim, however, a common origin
in the interior of the earth, and although the place of emergence to the
surface is set in widely separated localities, they agree in maintaining
this to be the fourth plane on which mankind has existed.
The following is an abbreviation of the version gathered by A.M.
Stephen, who lived many years among the Hopi and collected these sacred
tales from the priests and old men of all the different villages some
fifty years ago, as reported by Mindeleff.[20]
[Footnote 20: Mindeleff, Cosmos, Traditional History of Tusayan (After
A.M. Stephen): Bureau American Ethnology, vol. 8, pp. 16-41, 1887.]
In the beginning all men lived together in the lowest depths, in a
region of darkness and moisture; their bodies were mis-shapen and
horrible and they suffered great misery.
By appealing to Myuingwa (a vague conception of the god of the interior)
and Baholinkonga (plumed serpent of enormous size, genius of water)
their old men obtained a seed from which sprang a magic growth of cane.
The cane grew to miraculous height and penetrated through a crevice in
the roof overhead and mankind climbed to a higher plane. Here was dim
light and some vegetation. Another magic cane brought them to a higher
plane, with more light and vegetation, and here was the creation of the
animal kingdom. Singing was always the chief magic for creating
anything. In like manner, they rose to the fourth stage or earth; some
say by a pine tree, others say through the hollow cylinder of a great
reed or rush.
This emergence was accompanied by singing, some say by the Magic Twins,
the two little war gods, others say by the mocking bird. At any rate, it
is important to observe that when the song ran out, no more people could
get through and many had to remain behind.
However, the outlet through which man came has never been closed, and
Myuingwa sends through it the germs of all living things. It is still
symbolized, Stephen says, by the peculiar construction of the hatchway
of the kiva, in designs on the kiva sand altars, and by the unconnected
circle on pottery, basketry, and textiles. Doubtless the most direct
representation of this opening to the underworld is the sipapu or
ceremonial small round opening in the floor of the kiva, which all Hopi,
without exception, agree symbolizes the opening or spirit passage to the
underworld. "Out of the sipapu we all came," they say, "and back to the
underworld, through the sipapu, we shall go when we die."
Once every year the Hopi hold an eight-day ceremony commemorating this
emergence from the underworld. It is called the Wu-wu-che-ma, occurs in
November and thus begins the series of Winter festivals. Four societies
take part, and the Da-dow-Kiam or Mocking Bird Society opens the
ceremony by singing into the kiva of the One-Horned Society this
emergence song, the very song sung by the mocking bird at the original
emergence, according to Voth.[21] This ceremony is a prayer to the
powers of the underworld for prosperity and for germination of new life,
human, animal, and vegetable. Fewkes called this the New Fire Ceremony,
and in the course of the eight-day ceremonial the kindling of new fire
with the primitive firestick does take place. But it is not hard to feel
a close relation between the idea of fire and that of germination which
stands out as the chief idea in the whole ritual, particularly in the
subtle dramatization of the underworld life and emergence as carried on
in the kivas, preceding the public "dance" on the last day.
[Footnote 21: Voth, H.R., Op. cit, p. 11.]
Thus we have at least three distinct points in this one myth that
account for three definite things we find the Hopi doing today: (1)
Note that it was "our old men" who got from the gods the magic seed of
the tall cane which brought relief to the people. To this day it is the
old men who are looked up to and depended upon to direct the people in
all important matters. "It was always that way." (2) While the magic
song lasted the people came through the sipapu, but when the song ended
no more could come through, and there was weeping and wailing. Singing
is today the absolutely indispensable element in all magic rites. There
may be variation in the details of some performances, but "unless you
have the right song, it won't work." The Hopi solemnly affirm they have
preserved their original emergence song, and you hear it today on the
first morning of the Wu-wu-che-ma. (3) The sipapu seen today in the
floor of the kiva or ceremonial chamber symbolizes the passage from
which all mankind emerged from the underworld, so all the Hopi agree.
The belief of the present-day Hopi that the dead return through the
sipapu to the underworld is based firmly upon an extension of this myth,
as told to Voth,[22] for it furnishes a clear account of how the Hopi
first became aware of this immortality.
[Footnote 22: Voth, H.R., Op. cit, p. 11.]
It seems that soon after they emerged from the underworld the son of
their chief died, and the distressed father, believing that an evil one
had come out of the sipapu with them and caused this death, tossed up a
ball of meal and declared that the unlucky person upon whose head it
descended should be thus discovered to be the guilty party and thrown
back down into the underworld. The person thus discovered begged the
father not to do this but to take a look down through the sipapu into
the old realm and see there his son, quite alive and well. This he did,
and so it was.
Do the Hopi believe this now? Yes, so they tell you. And Mr. Emery
Koptu, sculptor, who lived among them only a few years ago and enjoyed a
rare measure of their affection and good will, recently told the writer
of a case in point:
On July 4, 1928, occurred the death of Supela, last of the Sun priests.
Mr. Koptu, who had done some studies of this fine Hopi head, was in
Supela's home town, Walpi, at the time of the old priest's passing.
The people were suffering from a prolonged drouth, and since old Supela
was soon to go through the sipapu to the underworld, where live the
spirits who control rain and germination, he promised that he would
without delay explain the situation to the gods and intercede for his
people and that they might expect results immediately after his arrival
there. Since his life had been duly religious and acceptable to the
gods, it was the belief of both Supela and his friends that he would
make the journey in four days, which is record time for the trip, when
one has no obstacles in the way of atonements or punishments to work off
en-route. Supela promised this, and the people looked for its
fulfillment. Four days after Supela's death the long drouth was broken
by a terrific rain storm accompanied by heavy thunder and lightning. Did
the Hopi show astonishment? On the contrary they were aglow with
satisfaction and exchanged felicitations on the dramatic assurance of
Supela's having "gotten through" in four days. The most wonderful eulogy
possible!
It is indicated, in the story of Supela, that the Hopi believe that only
the "pure in heart," so to speak, go straight to the abode of the
spirits, whereas some may have to take much longer because of atonements
or punishments for misdeeds. Their basis for this lies in a tradition
regarding the visit of a Hopi youth to the underworld and his return to
the earth with an account of having passed on the way many suffering
individuals engaged in painful pursuits and unable to go on until the
gods decreed they had suffered enough. He had also seen a great smoke
arising from a pit where the hopelessly wicked were totally burned up.
He was told to go back to his people and explain all these things and
tell them to make many pahos (prayer-sticks) and live straight and the
good spirits could be depended upon to help them with rain and
germination. Voth records[23] two variants of this legend.
[Footnote 23: Voth, H.R., Op. cit, pp. 109-119 (A journey to the
skeleton house).]
=Some Migration Myths=
The migration myths of the various clans are entirely too numerous and
too lengthy to be in their entirety included here. Every clan has its
own, and even today keeps the story green in the minds of its children
and celebrates its chief events, including arrival in Hopiland, with
suitable ceremony.
We are told that when all mankind came through the sipapu from the
underworld, the various kinds of people were gathered together and given
each a separate speech or language by the mocking bird, "who can talk
every way." Then each group was given a path and started on its way by
the Twin War Gods and their mother, the Spider Woman.
The Hopi were taught how to build stone houses, and then the various
clans dispersed, going separate ways. And after many many generations
they arrived at their present destination from all directions and at
different times. They brought corn with them from the underworld.
It is generally agreed that the Snake people were the first to occupy
the Tusayan region.
There are many variations in the migration myths of the Snake people,
but the most colorful version the writer has encountered is the one
given to A.M. Stephen, fifty years ago, by the then oldest member of the
Snake fraternity. A picturesque extract only is given here.
It begins: "At the general dispersal, my people lived in snake skins,
each family occupying a separate snake-skin bag, and all were hung on
the end of a rainbow, which swung around until the end touched Navajo
Mountain, where the bags dropped from it; and wherever their bags
dropped, there was their house. After they arranged their bags they came
out from them as men and women, and they then built a stone house which
had five sides.
"A brilliant star arose in the southwest, which would shine for a while
and then disappear. The old men said, 'Beneath that star there must be
people,' so they determined to travel toward it. They cut a staff and
set it in the ground and watched till the star reached its top, then
they started and traveled as long as the star shone; when it
disappeared they halted. But the star did not shine every night, for
sometimes many years elapsed before it appeared again. When this
occurred, our people built houses during their halt; they built both
round and square houses, and all the ruins between here and Navajo
Mountain mark the places where our people lived. They waited till the
star came to the top of the staff again, then they moved on, but many
people were left in those houses and they followed afterward at various
times. When our people reached Wipho (a spring a few miles north from
Walpi) the star disappeared and has never been seen since."
There is more of the legend, but quoted here are only a few closing
lines relative to the coming of the Lenbaki (the Flute Clan):
"The old men would not allow them to come in until Masauwu (god of the
face of the earth) appeared and declared them to be good Hopitah. So
they built houses adjoining ours and that made a fine large village.
Then other Hopitah came in from time to time, and our people would say,
'Build here, or build there,' and portioned the land among the
new-comers."[24]
[Footnote 24: Mindeleff, Victor, Pueblo architecture (Myths after
Stephen): Bureau American Ethnology, vol. 8, pp. 17-18, 1887.]
The foregoing tradition furnishes the answer to two things one asks in
Hopiland. First, why have these people, who by their traditions wandered
from place to place since the beginning of time, only building and
planting for a period sometimes short, sometimes a few generations, but
not longer, they believe--why have they remained in their present
approximate location for eight hundred years and perhaps much longer?
The answer is their story of the star that led them for "many moves and
many stops" but which never again appeared, to move them on, after they
reached Walpi.
The second point is: The Flute Dance, which is still held on the years
alternating with the Snake Dance, is of what significance? It is the
commemoration of the arrival of this Lenbaki group, a branch of the Horn
people, and the performance of their special magic for rain-bringing,
just as they demonstrated it to the original inhabitants of Walpi, by
way of trial, before they were permitted to settle there.
=Flute Ceremony and Tradition=
This Flute ceremony is one of the loveliest and most impressive in the
whole Hopi calendar. And because it is one which most clearly
illustrates this thesis, some detail of the ceremony will be given.
From the accounts of many observers that of Hough[25] has been chosen:
"On the first day the sand altar is made and at night songs are begun.
Within the kiva the interminable rites go on, and daily the cycle of
songs accompanied with flutes is rehearsed. A messenger clad in an
embroidered kilt and anointed with honey, runs, with flowing hair, to
deposit prayer-sticks at the shrines, encircling the fields in his runs
and coming nearer the pueblo on each circuit. During the seventh and
eighth days a visit is made to three important springs where ceremonies
are held, and on the return of the priests they are received by an
assemblage of the Bear and Snake Societies, the chiefs of which
challenge them and tell them that if they are good people, as they
claim, they can bring rain.
[Footnote 25: Hough, Walter, Op. cit., pp. 156-158.]
"After an interesting interchange of ceremonies, the Flute priests
return to their kiva to prepare for the public dance on the morrow. When
at 3:00 a.m. the belt of Orion is at a certain place in the heavens, the
priests file into the plaza, where a cottonwood bower has been erected
over the shrine called the entrance to the underworld. Here the priests
sing, accompanied with flutes, the shrine is ceremonially opened and
prayer-sticks placed within, and they return to the kiva. At some of the
pueblos there is a race up the mesa at dawn on the ninth day, as in
other ceremonies.
"On the evening of the ninth day the Flute procession forms and winds
down the trail to the spring in order: A leader, the Snake maiden, two
Snake youths, the priests, and in the rear a costumed warrior with bow
and whizzer. At the spring they sit on the south side of the pool, and
as one of the priests plays a flute the others sing, while one of their
number wades into the spring, dives under water, and plants a
prayer-stick in the muddy bottom. Then taking a flute he again wades
into the spring and sounds it in the water to the four cardinal points.
Meanwhile sunflowers and cornstalks have been brought to the spring by
messengers. Each priest places the sunflowers on his head and each takes
two cornstalks in his hands and the procession, two abreast, forms to
ascend the mesa. A priest draws a line on the trail with white corn meal
and across it three cloud symbols. The Flute children throw the
offerings they hold in their hands upon the symbols, followed by the
priests who sing to the sound of the flutes.
[Illustration: Figure 5.--Flute Ceremony at Michongnovi.
--Courtesy Arizona State Museum.]
"The children pick the offerings from the ground with sticks held in
their hands, and the same performance is repeated till they stand again
in the plaza on the mesa before the cottonwood bower, where they sing
melodious songs then disperse."
The foregoing description of Hough's is an account of the Walpi
ceremony, where we find only one Flute fraternity. Each of the other
villages has two fraternities, the Blue Flute and the Drab Flute. The
Flute Ceremony at Mishongnovi is perhaps the most impressive example of
this pageant as given by the double fraternity. Dr. Byron Cummings
reports this Mishongnovi ceremony as having several interesting
variations from the Walpi report given above. (See Figure 5.)
[Illustration: Figure 6.--Flute Boy before Costuming.
--Courtesy Arizona State Museum.]
On the ninth day women were observed sweeping the trail to the spring
with meticulous care, in preparation for the double procession which
came down at about 1:30 in the afternoon.
All the costuming was done at the spring--body painting, putting on of
ceremonial garments and arranging of hair.
The fathers of the Flute maidens brushed and arranged their hair for
them and put on their blankets. If a girl had no father, her uncle did
this for her. There were two Flute Maids and a Flute Boy (See Figure 6)
who walked between them, in each of the two fraternities. Even this
ceremonial costuming was accompanied by solemn singing.
When all was ready the priests sat on the edge of the pool with their
legs hanging over, and the two maids and the boy sat behind them on a
terrace of the bank. The Blue Flute fraternity occupied one side of the
pool and the Drab Flute fraternity another. Many songs were sung to the
strange, plaintive accompaniment of the flute players. After a while an
old priest waded into the pool and walked around it in ever-narrowing
circles till he reached the center, where he sank into the water and
disappeared for a dramatically long moment and came up with a number of
ceremonial objects in his hands, including a gourd bottle filled with
water from the depths of the spring.
It was late afternoon by the time all the songs had been sung, and
evening when the two processions had finished their ceremonial ascent to
the mesa top, pausing again and again as the old priest went ahead and
drew his symbolic barrier of meal and the three rain clouds across the
path, which were to be covered with the pahos of the Flute children,
then taken up and moved on to the next like symbol. The old priest led
the procession, the three children behind him, then the flute players,
followed by the priests bearing emblems, and the priest with the bull
roarer at the end of the line. Each fraternity preserved its own
formation. Having reached the village plaza they marched to the Kisa and
deposited their pahos and ceremonial offerings, then dispersed. The
solemnity of the long ritual, the weird chant and the plaintive
accompaniment of the flutes running through the whole ceremony, while at
the spring, coming up the hill, and to the last act before the Kisa,
leaves the imprint of its strange musical vibration long after the scene
has closed.
The legend back of this ceremony is a long account of the migrations of
the Horn and Flute people. It relates that when they at last reached
Walpi, they halted at a spring and sent a scout ahead to see if people
were living there. He returned and reported that he had seen traces of
other people. So the Flute people went forth to find them. When they
came in sight of the houses of Walpi, they halted at the foot of the
mesa, then began moving up the trail in ceremonial procession, with
songs and the music of the flutes.
Now the Bear and Snake people who lived in Walpi drew a line of meal
across the trail, a warning understood by many primitives, and
challenged the new-comers as to who they were, where they were going,
and what they wanted. Then the Flute chief said, "We are of your blood,
Hopi. Our hearts are good and our speech straight. We carry on our backs
the tabernacle of the Flute Altar. We can cause rain to fall."
Four times the demand was repeated, as the Flute people stood
respectfully before the barrier of meal, and four times did their chief
make the same reply. Then the Walpis erased the line of meal and the
Flute people entered the pueblo, set up their altars and demonstrated
their rain magic by singing their ceremonial Flute songs which resulted
in bringing the needed rain. Then said the Bear and Snake chiefs,
"Surely your chief shall be one of our chiefs."
Thus we see that the Flute Dance as given today is a dramatization of
this legend. Dr. Fewkes, who collected this legend, tells us that the
Flute fraternity claims to be even more successful rain-makers than the
world-famous Snake fraternity.[26]
[Footnote 26: Fewkes, J. Walter, The Walpi Flute Observance: Journal
American Folklore, vol. 7, 1894.]
Dr. Monsen tells of seeing the Flute ceremony at Mishongnovi, a good
many years ago, and of the deeply religious feeling that pervaded the
whole scene. His words are descriptive of a dramatic moment at the close
of the day, when the procession had at last reached the public plaza on
top of the mesa.[27]
[Footnote 27: Monsen, Frederick, Religious Dances of the Hopi: The
Craftsman, vol. 12, 1907, pp. 284-285.]
[Illustration: Figure 7.--Hopi Girl in Butterfly Costume.
--Photo by Lockett.]
"By this time it was nearly dark, but the ceremony went on in the center
of the plaza where other mysterious symbols were outlined on the rocky
floor with the strewn corn meal, and numbers of supplementary chants
were sung until night closed down entirely and the moon appeared....
Then came something so extraordinary that I am aware that it will sound
as if I were drawing on the rich stores of my imagination, for the
coincidence which closed the festival.
"But all I can say is that to my unutterable astonishment, it happened
exactly as I tell it. At a certain stage in this part of the ceremony
there was a pause. No one left the plaza, but every one stood as still
as a graven image, and not a sound broke the hush, apparently of
breathless expectancy. The stillness was so unearthly that it became
oppressive, and a few white friends who were with me began to urge in
whispers that we leave the plaza as all was evidently at an end, and go
back to our camp below the mesa, when suddenly there rang out such a
wild, exultant shout of unrestrained, unmeasured rejoicing as only
Indians can give in moments of supreme religious exaltation--raindrops
had splashed on devout, upturned faces.
"Their prayers had been answered. The spell of the drouth-evil had been
broken, and the long strain of the solemn ceremonial gave place to such
a carnival of rejoicing as it seldom falls to the lot of civilized man
to see....
"From the white man's point of view, this answer to prayer was, of
course, the merest coincidence, but not all the power of church or
government combined could convince the Hopi that their god had not heard
them ... that their devotion to the ancient faith had brought relief
from famine, and life to themselves and their flocks and herds."
The present-day Hopi, including the most intelligent and best educated
of them, will tell you, that all their important dances and ceremonials
follow faithfully the old traditions, and are still believed to be
efficacious and necessary to the welfare of the people. And this has
been the conviction of a majority of the scientific observers who have
studied them.
=Other Dances=
There is a very definite calendar arrangement of these ceremonials, some
variation in the different villages, but no deviation in the order and
essential details of the main dances.
In December comes the Soyaluna, or winter solstice ceremony, to turn the
sun back from his path of departure and insure his return with length of
days to the Indian country. Good-will tokens are exchanged, not unlike
our idea of Christmas cards, at the end of the ceremony; they are
prayer tokens which are planted with prayers for health and prosperity.
The kiva rituals are rich in symbolism and last eight days, if young men
are to be initiated, otherwise four. The public dance at the end is a
masked pageant.
In January comes the Buffalo Dance, with masks representing buffalo,
deer, mountain sheep, and the other big game animals. Its chief
characters are the Hunter and the Buffalo Mother, or Mother of all big
game. A prayer for plentiful big game is the idea of this dance.
In February the Powamu, "bean sprouting," ceremony occurs, with very
elaborate ritual signifying consecration of fields for planting. Various
masks and symbolic costumes are used, and the children's initiation is
accompanied with a ceremonial "flogging"--really a switching by
kachinas. Dr. Dorsey considers this the most colorful of all Hopi
ceremonies and says that nowhere else on earth can one see in nine days
such a wealth of religious drama, such a pantheon of the gods
represented by masked and costumed actors, such elaborate altars and
beautiful sand mosaics, nor songs and myths sung and recited of such
obvious archaic character, containing many old words and phrases whose
meaning is no longer known even to the Hopi themselves.
March brings the Palululong, "Great Plumed Serpent," a masked and
elaborately costumed mystery play given in the kiva. This shows more of
the dramatic ability and ingenuity of this people than any other of
their ceremonies; the mechanical representation of snakes as actors
being one of its astonishing features.
One of the very pretty social dances is the Butterfly Dance, given
during the summer by the young people of marriageable age. Costumes are
colorful and tall wooden headdresses or tablets are worn. Figure 7 shows
a Hopi girl acquaintance photographed just at the close of a Butterfly
Dance that the writer witnessed in the summer of 1932 at Shungopovi.
(See Figure 8.)
This dance is really a very popular social affair, a sort of coming out
party adopted from the Rio Grande Pueblos a good many years ago.
=The Snake Myth and the Snake Dance=
The Snake Dance of the Hopi is, of course, the best known and most
spectacular of their ceremonies, and comparatively few white people have
seen any other.
One hears from tourists on every hand, "Oh, they used to believe in
these things, but of course they know better now, and at any rate it's
all a commercial racket, a side show to attract tourists!"
[Illustration: Figure 8.--Shungopovi, Second Mesa.
--Photo by Lockett.]
Anyone who says this has seen little and thought less. The Hopi women
make up extra supplies of baskets and pottery to offer for sale at the
time of the Snake Dance because they know many tourists are coming to
buy them, otherwise they get no revenue from the occasion. No admission
is charged, and the snake priests themselves seriously object to having
Hopi citizens charge anything for the use of improvised seats of boxes,
etc., on the near-by house tops.
The writer has seen tourists so crowd the roofs of the Hopi homes
surrounding the dance plaza that she feared the roofs would give way,
and has also observed that the resident family was sometimes crowded out
of all "ring-side" seats. No wonder the small brown man of the house has
in some cases charged for the seats. What white man would not? Yet the
practice is considered unethical by the Hopi themselves and is being
discontinued.
We know that this weird, pagan Snake Dance was performed with deadly
earnestness when white men first penetrated the forbidding wastelands
that surround the Hopi. And we have every reason to believe that it has
gone on for centuries, always as a prayer to the gods of the underworld
and of nature for rain and the germination of their crops.
The writer has observed these ceremonies in the various Hopi villages
for the past twenty years, some with hundreds of spectators from all
over the world, others in more remote villages, with but a mere handful
of outsiders present. She is personally convinced that the Snake Dance
is no show for tourists but a deeply significant religious ceremony
performed definitely for the faithful fulfillment of traditional magic
rites that have, all down the centuries, been depended upon to bring
these desert-dwellers the life-saving rain and insure their crops. They
have long put their trust in it, and they still do so.
Are there any unbelievers? Yes, to be sure; but not so many as you might
think. There are unbelievers in the best, of families, Methodist,
Presbyterian, and Hopi, but the surprising thing is that there are so
many believers, at least among the Hopi.
The Snake Dance, so-called, is the culmination of an eight-days'
ceremonial, an elaborate prayer for rain and for crops. Possibly
something of the significance of parts of its complicated ritual may
have been forgotten, for some of our thirst for knowledge on these
points goes unquenched, in spite of the courteous explanations the Hopi
give when our queries are sufficiently courteous and respectful to
deserve answers. And possibly some of the things we ask about are "not
for the public" and may refer to the secret rituals that take place in
the kivas, as in connection with many of their major ceremonials.
We do know that the dramatization of their Snake Myth constitutes part
of the program. This myth has many variations. The writer, personally,
treasures the long story told her by Dr. Fewkes, years ago, and
published in the Journal of American Ethnology and Archaeology, Vol.
IV., 1894, pages 106-110. But here shall be given the much shorter and
very adequate account of Dr. Colton,[28] as abbreviated from that of
A.M. Stephen:
"To-ko-na-bi was a place of little rain, and the corn was weak. Tiyo, a
youth of inquiring mind, set out to find where the rain water went to.
This search led him into the Grand Canyon. Constructing a box out of a
hollow cottonwood log, he gave himself to the waters of the Great
Colorado. After a voyage of some days, the box stopped on the muddy
shore of a great sea. Here he found the friendly Spider Woman who,
perched behind his ear, directed him on his search. After a series of
adventures, among which he joined the sun in his course across the sky,
he was introduced into the kiva of the Snake people, men dressed in the
skins of snakes. The Snake Chief said to Tiyo, 'Here we have an
abundance of rain and corn; in your land there is but little; fasten
these prayers in your breast; and these are the songs that you will sing
and these are the prayer-sticks that you will make; and when you display
the white and black on your body the rain will come.' He gave Tiyo part
of everything in the kiva as well as two maidens clothed in fleecy
clouds, one for his wife, and one as a wife for his brother. With this
paraphernalia and the maidens, Tiyo ascended from the kiva. Parting from
the Spider Woman, he gained the heights of To-ko-na-bi. He now
instructed his people in the details of the Snake ceremony so that
henceforth his people would be blessed with rain. The Snake Maidens,
however, gave birth to Snakes which bit the children of To-ko-na-bi, who
swelled up and died. Because of this, Tiyo and his family were forced to
emigrate and on their travels taught the Snake rites to other clans."
[Footnote 28: Colton, H.S., Op. cit., p. 18.]
Most of the accounts tell us that later only human children were born to
the pair, and these became the ancestors of the Snake Clan who, in their
migrations, finally reached Walpi, where we now find them, the most
spectacular rain-makers in the world.
Another fragment of the full Snake legend must be given here to account
for what Dr. Fewkes considers the most fearless episode of the Snake
Ceremonial--the snake washing:
"On the fifth evening of the ceremony and for three succeeding evenings
low clouds trailed over To-ko-na-bi, and Snake people from the
underworld came from them and went into the kivas and ate corn pollen
for food, and on leaving were not seen again. Each of four evenings
brought a new group of Snake people, and on the following morning they
were found in the valleys metamorphosed into reptiles of all kinds. On
the ninth morning the Snake Maidens said: 'We understand this. Let the
Younger Brothers (The Snake Society) go out and bring them all in and
_wash their heads_, and let them dance with you.'"[29]
[Footnote 29: Fewkes, J.W., The Snake Ceremonials at Walpi: Jour. Am.
Ethnology and Archaeology, Vol. IV, 1894, p. 116.]
Thus we see in the ceremony an acknowledgment of the kinship of the
snakes with the Hopi, both having descended from a common ancestress.
And since the snakes are to take part in a religious ceremony, of course
they must have their heads washed or baptized in preparation, exactly as
must every Hopi who takes part in any ceremony. The meal sprinkled on
the snakes during the dance and at its close is symbolic of the Hopi's
prayers to the underworld spirits of seed germination; and thus the
Elder Brothers bear away the prayers of the people and become their
messengers to the gods, to whom the Elder Brothers are naturally closer,
being in the ground, than are the Younger Brothers, who live above
ground.
Rather a delicately right idea, isn't it, this inviting of the Elder
Brothers, however lowly, to this great religious ceremonial which
commemorates the gift of rain-making, as bestowed by their common
ancestress, and perpetuates the old ritual so long ago taught by the
Snake Chief of the underworld to Tiyo, the Hopi youth who bravely set
out to see where all the blessed rain water _went_, and came back with
the still more blessed secrets of whence and how to make it _come_.
Nine days before the public Snake Ceremony, the priests of the Antelope
and Snake fraternities enter their respective kivas and hang over their
hatchways the Natsi, a bunch of feathers, which, on the fifth day is
replaced by a bow decorated with eagle feathers. This first day is
occupied with the making of prayer-sticks and in the preparation of
ceremonial paraphernalia. On the next four days, ceremonial snake hunts
are conducted by the Snake men. Each day in a different quarter of the
world, first north, next day west, then south, then east.
It is an impressive sight, this line of Snake priests, bodies painted,
pouches, snake whips, and digging sticks in hand, marching single file
from their kiva, through the village and down the steep trail that leads
from the mesa to the lowlands.
When a snake is found under a bush or in his hole, the digging stick
soon brings him within reach of the fearless hand; then sprinkling a
pinch of corn meal on his snakeship and uttering a charm and prayer, the
priest siezes the snake easily a few inches back of the head and
deposits him in the pouch. Should the snake coil to strike, the snake
whip (two eagle feathers secured to a short stick) is gently used to
induce him to straighten out.
At sunset they return in the same grim formation, bearing the snake
pouches to the kiva, where four jars (not at all different from their
water jars) stand ready to receive the snakes and hold them till the
final or ninth day of the ceremony.
On the next three mornings, just before dawn, in the Antelope Kiva, is
held the symbolic marriage of Tiyo and the Snake Maiden, followed by the
singing of sixteen traditional songs.
Just before sunset of the eighth day, the Antelope and Snake priests
give a public pageant in the plaza, known as the Antelope or Corn Dance.
It is a replica of the Snake Dance, but shorter and simpler, and here
corn is carried instead of snakes.
On the morning of the ninth and last day occurs the Sunrise Corn Race,
when the young men of the village race from a distant spring to the mesa
top. The whole village turns out to watch from the rim of the mesa, and
great merriment attends the arrival of the racers, the winner receiving
some ceremonial object, which, placed in his corn field, should work as
a charm and insure a bumper crop.
In 1912, Dr. Byron Cummings witnessed a more interesting sunrise race
than the writer has ever seen or heard described by any other observer.
An aged priest stood on the edge of the mesa, before the assembled crowd
of natives and visitors, and gave a long reverberating call, apparently
the signal for which the racers were waiting, for away across the plain
below and to the right was heard an answering call, and from the left
and far away, another answer. Eagerly the crowd watched to catch the
first glimpse of the approaching racers, for there was no one in sight
for some time, from the direction of either of the answering calls.
Finally mere specks in the distance to the right resolved themselves
into a line of six men running toward the mesa. As they came within
hailing distance they were greeted by the acclamations of the watchers.
These runners were Snake priests, all elderly men, and as each in turn
reached the position of the aged priest at the mesa edge, he received
from that dignitary a sprinkling of sacred meal and a formal
benediction, then passed on to the Snake Kiva.
Before the last of these had appeared, began the arrival of the young
athletes from across the plain to the left. Swiftly them came, and
gracefully, their lithe brown bodies glistening in the early sunlight,
across the level lowland, then up the steep trail, to be met at the mesa
edge by a picturesque individual carrying a cow bell and wearing a
beautiful garland of fresh yellow squash blossoms over his smooth
flowing, black hair, and a girdle of the same lovely flowers round his
waist, with a perfect blossom over each ear completing his unique
decoration.
As the athletes, one at a time, joined him they fell into a procession
and, led by the flower bedecked individual, they moved gracefully in a
circle to the rhythmic time of a festive chant and the accompaniment of
the cow bell. When the last racer had arrived, they were led in a sort
of serpentine parade toward the plaza. But before they reached that
point they encountered a waiting group of laughing women and girls in
bright-colored shawls, whose rollicking role seemed to be that of
snatching away from the young men the stalks of green corn, squash, and
gourds they had brought up from the fields below. The scene ended in a
merry skirmish as the crowd dispersed.
Later, Dr. Cummings unobtrusively followed the tracks of the priests
back along their sunrise trail and out across the desert for more than
two miles, to find there a simple altar and nine fresh prayer-sticks.
About noon occurs the snake washing in the kiva. This is not for the
public gaze. If one knows no better than to try to pry into kiva
ceremonies, he is courteously but firmly told to move along.
A few white men have been permitted to see this ceremony, among them,
Dr. Fewkes; an extract from his description of a snake washing at Walpi
follows:[30]
[Footnote 30: Fewkes, J.W., Op. cit.]
"The Snake priests, who stood by the snake jars which were in the east
corner of the room, began to take out the reptiles and stood holding
several of them in their hands behind Supela (the Snake Priest), so that
my attention was distracted by them. Supela then prayed, and after a
short interval, two rattlesnakes were handed him, after which venomous
snakes were passed to the others, and each of the six priests who sat
around the bowl held two rattlesnakes by the necks with their heads
elevated above the bowl. A low noise from the rattles of the priests,
which shortly after was accompanied by a melodious hum by all present,
then began. The priests who held the snakes beat time up and down above
the liquid with the reptiles, which, although not vicious, wound their
bodies around the arms of the holders.
"The song went on and frequently changed, growing louder, and wilder,
until it burst forth into a fierce, blood-curdling yell, or war cry. At
this moment the heads of the snakes were thrust several times into the
liquid, so that even parts of their bodies were submerged, and were then
drawn out, not having left the hands of the priests, and forcibly thrown
across the room upon the sand mosaic, knocking down the crooks and other
objects placed about it. As they fell on the sand picture, three Snake
priests stood in readiness, and while the reptiles squirmed about or
coiled for defense, these men with their snake whips brushed them back
and forth in the sand of the altar. The excitement which accompanied
this ceremony cannot be adequately described. The low song, breaking
into piercing shrieks, the red-stained singers, the snakes thrown by the
chiefs and the fierce attitudes of the reptiles as they lashed on, the
sand mosaic, made it next to impossible to sit calmly down and quietly
note the events which followed one another in quick succession. The
sight haunted me for weeks afterward, and I can never forget this
wildest of all the aboriginal rites of this strange people, which showed
no element of our present civilization. It was a performance which might
have been expected in the heart of Africa rather than in the American
Union, and certainly one could not realize that he was in the United
States at the end of the nineteenth century. The low, weird song
continued while other rattlesnakes were taken in the hands of the
priests, and as the song rose again to the wild war cry, these snakes
were also plunged into the liquid and thrown upon the writhing mass
which now occupied the place of the altar. Again and again this was
repeated until all the snakes had been treated in the same way, and
reptiles, fetishes, crooks, and sand were mixed together in one confused
mass. As the excitement subsided and the snakes crawled to the corners
of the kiva, seeking vainly for protection, they were pushed back in the
mass, and brushed together in the sand in order that their bodies might
be thoroughly dried. Every snake in the collection was thus washed, the
harmless varieties being bathed after the venomous. In the destruction
of the altar by the reptiles, the snake ti-po-ni (insignia) stood
upright until all had been washed, and then one of the priests turned it
on its side, as a sign that the observance had ended. The low, weird
song of the snake men continued, and gradually died away until there was
no sound but the warning rattle of the snakes, mingled with that of the
rattles in the hands of the chiefs, and finally the motion of the snake
whips ceased, and all was silent."
Several hours later these snakes are used in the public Snake Dance, and
until that time they are herded on the floor of the kiva by a delegated
pair of snake priests assisted by several boys of the Snake Clan,
novices, whose fearless handling of the snakes is remarkable.
Already (on the eighth day) in the plaza has been erected the Kisa, a
tall conical tepee arrangement of green cottonwood boughs, just large
enough to conceal the man who during the dance will hand out the snakes
to the dancers. Close in front of the Kisa is a small hole made in the
ground, covered by a board. This hole symbolizes the sipapu or entrance
to the underworld.
[Illustration: Figure 9.--Antelope Priest with Tiponi.
--Courtesy Arizona State Museum.]
At last comes the event for which the thronged village has been waiting
for hours, and for which some of the white visitors have crossed the
continent. Just before sundown the Antelope priests file out of their
kiva in ceremonial array--colorfully embroidered white kilts and sashes,
bodies painted a bluish color with white markings in zigzag lines
suggestive of both snakes and lightning, chins painted black with white
lines through the mouth from ear to ear, white breath feathers tied in
the top of their hair, and arm and ankle ornaments of beads, shells,
silver, and turquoise. (See Figure 9.) Led by their chief, bearing the
insignia of the Antelope fraternity and the whizzer, followed by the
asperger, with his medicine bowl and aspergill and wearing a chaplet of
green cottonwood leaves on his long, glossy, black hair, they circle the
plaza four times, each time stamping heavily on the sipapu board with
the right foot, as a signal to the spirits of the underworld that they
are about to begin the ceremony. Now they line up in front of the Kisa,
their backs toward it, and await the coming of the Snake priests, for
these Antelope priests, with song and rattle, are to furnish the music
for the Snake Dance.
There is an expectant hush and then come the Snake priests, up from
their kiva in grim procession, marching rapidly and with warlike
determination. You would know them to be the Snake priests rather than
the Antelope fraternity by the vibration of their mighty tread alone,
even if you did not see them. Their bodies are fully painted, a reddish
brown decorated with zigzag lightning symbols and other markings in
white. The short kilt is the same red-brown color, as are their
mocassins, the former strikingly designed with the snake zigzag and
bordered above and below this with conventionalized rainbow bands.
Soft breath feathers, stained red, are worn in a tuft on the top of the
head, and handsome tail feathers of the hawk or eagle extend down and
back over the flowing hair. A beautiful fox skin hangs from the waist in
the back. Their faces are painted black across the whole mid section and
the chins are covered with white kaolin--a really startling effect.
Necks, arms, and ankles are loaded with native jewelry and charms,
sometimes including strings of animal teeth, claws, hoofs, and even
small turtle shells for leg ornaments, from all of which comes a great
rattling as the priests enter the plaza with their energetic strides.
Always a hushed gasp of admiration greets their entrance,--an admiration
mixed with a shudder of awe. Again the standard bearer, with his whizzer
or thunder-maker, leads, followed by the asperger, and we hear the sound
of thunder, as the whizzer (sometimes called the bull-roarer) is whirled
rapidly over the priest's head. The chapleted asperger sprinkles his
charm liquid in the four directions, first north, then west, south, and
east.
They circle the plaza four times, each stamping mightily upon the cover
of the sipapu as they pass the Kisa. Surely, the spirits of the
underworld are thus made aware of the presence of the Snake Brotherhood
engaged in the traditional ritual. Incidentally, this Snake Dance is
carried on in the underworld on a known date in December, and at that
time the Hopi Snake men set up their altar and let the spirits know that
they are aware of their ceremony and in sympathy with them.
[Illustration: Figure 10.--Snake Priests in Front of Kisa.
--Courtesy Arizona State Museum.]
Now the procession lines up facing the Antelope priests in front of the
Kisa, (See Figure 10), and the rattles of both lines of priests begin a
low whirr not unlike the rattle of snakes. All is perfectly rhythmic and
the Snake priests, with locked fingers, sway back and forth to the
music, bodies as well as feet keeping time, while the Antelopes mark
time with a rhythmic shuffle. At last they break into a low chant, which
increases in volume, and rising and falling goes on interminably.
At last there is a pause and the Snake priests form into groups of
three, a carrier, an attendant, and a gatherer.
Each group waits its turn before the Kisa. The carrier kneels and
receives a snake from the passer, who (with the snake bag) sits
concealed within the Kisa. As he rises, the carrier places his snake
between his lips or teeth, usually holding it well toward the neck, but
often enough near the middle, so that its head may sometimes move across
the man's face or eyes and hair, a really harrowing sight. The
attendant, sometimes called the hugger, places his left arm across the
shoulder of the first dancer and walks beside and a step behind him,
using his feather wand or snake whip to distract the attention of the
snake. (See Figure 11.) Just behind this pair walks their gatherer, who
is alertly ready to pick up the dropped snake, when it has been carried
four times around the dance circle; sometimes it is dropped sooner.
The dance step of this first pair is a rhythmic energetic movement,
almost a stamping, with the carrier dancing with closed eyes. The
gatherer merely walks behind, and is an alertly busy man. The writer has
seen as many as five snakes on the ground at once, some of them coiling
and rattling, others darting into the surrounding crowd with lightning
rapidity, but never has she seen one escape the gatherer, and just once
has she seen a snake come near to making its escape. This was during the
ceremony at Hotavilla last summer (1932); the spectators had crowded
rather close to the circle, and several front rows sat on the ground, in
order that the dozens of rows back of them might see over their heads.
As for the writer, she sat on a neighboring housetop, well out of the
way of rattlers, red racers, rabbit snakes, and even the harmless but
fearsome-looking bull snake from 3 to 5 feet long. Often the snake
starts swiftly for the side lines, but always without seeming haste the
gatherer gets it just as the startled spectators begin a hasty retreat.
If the snakes coils, meal is sprinkled on it and the feather wand
induces it to straighten, when it is picked up. But this time the big
snake really got into the crowd, second or third row, through space
hurriedly opened for him by the frightened and more or less squealing
white visitors. The priest was unable to follow it quickly without
stepping on people, who had repeatedly been warned not to sit too close.
[Illustration: Figure 11.--Snake Priests with Snake.
--Photo by Bortell]
Very quietly and without rising, a man in the third row picked up the
snake and handed it to the gatherer. The writer shuddered but did not
realize that the impromptu gatherer was her son, so bronzed by a
summer's archaeology field trip that she did not recognize him.
Afterward he merely said, "It was a harmless bull snake, and the priest
couldn't reach it; it's a shame for visitors to crowd up and get in the
way unless they are prepared to sit perfectly still, whatever happens."
Really one feels ashamed of the squealing and frightened laughter of
careless white visitors who stand or sit nearer than they should and
then make an unseemly disturbance when a snake gets too close. The
priests resent such conduct, but always go right on without paying any
attention to it. The rattles and singing voices of the Antelope priests
furnish a dignified, rhythmic accompaniment throughout the dance, and
the Snake men move in perfect time to it.
When all the snakes have been carried and the last one has been dropped
from the mouth of the carrier, the chant ceases. A priest draws a great
round cloud symbol on the ground. Quickly the Hopi maids and women, (a
small selected group), who stand ready with baskets of meal, sprinkle
the ground within the circle. At a signal all the snakes, now in the
hands of the gatherers and the Antelope priests, are thrown upon this
emblem. The women hastily drop sacred meal on the mass of snakes, then a
second signal and the Snake priests grab up the whole writhing mass in
their hands and run in the four directions off the steep mesa, to
deposit their Elder Brothers again in the lowlands with the symbolic
sacred meal on their backs, that they may bear away to the underground
the prayers of their Younger Brothers, the Snake Clan. The Antelope
priests now circle the plaza four times, stamping on the sipapu in
passing, and then return to their own kiva, and the dance is over. The
Snake priests presently return to the village, still running, disrobe in
their kiva and promptly go to the nearest edge of the mesa, where the
women of their clan wait with huge bowls of emetic (promptly effective)
and tubs of water for bathing. This is the purification ceremony which
ends the ritual. Immediately the women of their families bring great
bowls and trays of food and place them on top of the Snake Kiva, and the
men, who have fasted all day and sometimes longer, enjoy a feast.
A spirit of relief and happiness now pervades the village and everybody
keeps open house.
Far more often than otherwise, rain, either a sprinkle or a downpour,
has come during or just at the close of the dance, and the people are
thankful and hopeful, for this is often the first rain of the season.
The writer has herself stood soaked to the skin by a thunder shower that
had been slowly gathering through the sultry afternoon and broke with
dramatic effect during the ceremony. The Snake priests were noticeably
affected by the incident and danced with actual fanatic frenzy.
Those who habitually attend this ceremony from Flagstaff and Winslow and
other points within motoring distance (if there is any motoring distance
these days) have long ago learned that they would better start for home
immediately following the dance, not waiting for morning, else the dry
washes may be running bank high by that time and prevent their getting
away.
The writer has counted more than a hundred marooned cars lined up at Old
Oraibi or Moencopi Wash, waiting, perhaps another twenty-four hours, for
the ordinarily dry wash to become fordable. One will at least be
impressed with the idea that the Snake Dance (a movable date set by the
priests from the observation of shadows on their sacred rocks) comes
just at the breaking of the summer drouth.
The writer has seen in the Snake Dance as many as nine groups of three,
all circling the plaza at once. But in recent years the number is
smaller, in some villages not more than four, for the old priests are
dying off and not every young man who inherits the priesthood upon the
death of his maternal uncle (priest) is willing to go on, though there
are some novices almost every year. This year (1932) the eleven year old
brother of a Hopi girl in the writer's employ went into his first snake
dance, as a gatherer, and his sister (a school girl since six) was as
solicitous as the writer whenever it was a rattler that Henry had to
gather up. But we both felt that we must keep perfectly still, so our
expressions of anxiety were confined to very low whispers. Henry was not
bitten and if he had been he would not have died. It is claimed and
generally believed that no priest has ever died from snake bite, and
indeed they are seldom bitten. During the past twenty years the writer
has twice seen a priest bitten by a rattler, once a very old priest and
once a boy of fourteen. No attention was paid, and apparently nothing
came of it.
Dr. Fewkes, Dr. Hough, and other authorities, in works already referred
to, assert that the fangs of the snakes are not removed, nor are the
snakes doped, nor "treated" in any way that could possibly render their
poison harmless. Nor is it believed that the Hopi have any antidote for
snake bite in their emetic or otherwise.
Does their belief make them fearless and likewise immune? Or are they
wise in their handling of the snakes, so that danger is reduced to the
vanishing point? No one knows.
The writer has made no attempt to go into the very numerous minute
details of this ceremony, such as the mixing of the liquid for snake
washing, the making of the elaborate sand painting for the Snake altar,
or descriptions of various kinds of prayer-sticks and their specific
uses. Authorities differ greatly on these points and each village uses
somewhat different paraphernalia and methods of procedure. These details
occupy hours and even days and are accompanied by much prayer and
ceremonial smoking, and the sincerity and solemnity of it all are most
impressive to any fair-minded observer.
The Hopi year is full of major and minor ceremonies, many of them as
deeply religious as those already described at some length; others of a
secular or social order, but even these are tinged with the religious
idea and invariably based on tradition.
If many elements of traditional significance have been forgotten, as
they undoubtedly have in some instances, nevertheless the thing is kept
going according to traditional procedure, and the majority of the
participants believe it best to keep up these time-honored rituals.
Their migration tales, partly mythical, partly historical, relate many
unhappy instances of famine, pestilence, and civil strife, which have
been brought upon various clans because of their having neglected their
old dances and ceremonies, and of relief and restored prosperity having
followed their resumption. Once, bad behavior brought on a flood.
Here is the story, and it will explain at least partially, the
ceremonial use of turkey feathers.
=A Flood and Turkey Feathers=
Turkey feathers are much prized for ceremonial uses today. If you want
to carry a little present to a Hopi friend, particularly an old man, or
an old woman, save up a collection of especially nice looking turkey
feathers. They will be put to ceremonial uses and bring blessings to
their owners.
Here is at least one of the legends back of the idea, as collected by
Stephen and reported by Mindeleff.[31] The chief of the water people
speaks:
"In the long ago, the Snake, Horn, and Eagle people lived here (in
Tusayan), but their corn grew only a span high, and when they sang for
rain the cloud sent only a thin mist. My people then lived in the
distant Palatkiwabi in the South. There was a very bad old man there,
who, when he met anyone, would spit in his face, blow his nose upon him,
and rub ordure upon him. He ravished the girls and did all manner of
evil. (Note: Other variants of the legend say the young men were
mischievously unkind and cruel to the old men, rather than that an old
man was bad. H.G.L.) Baholikonga (big water serpent deity) got angry at
this and turned the world upside down, and water spouted up through the
kivas and through the fireplaces in the houses. The earth was rent in
great chasms, and water covered everything except one narrow ridge of
mud; and across this the serpent deity told all the people to travel. As
they journeyed across, the feet of the bad slipped and they fell into
the dark water, but the good, after many days, reached dry land. While
the water, rising around the village, came higher, the old people got on
the tops of the houses, for they thought they could not struggle across
with the younger people. But Baholikonga clothed them with the skins of
turkeys, and they spread out their wings and floated in the air just
above the surface of the water, and in this way they got across. There
were saved of our people, Water, Corn, Lizard, Horned Toad, Sand, two
families of Rabbit, and Tobacco. The turkeys' tails dragged in the
water--hence the white on the turkey tail now. Wearing these turkey
skins is the reason why old people have dewlaps under the chin like a
turkey; it is also the reason why old people use turkey feathers at the
religious ceremonies."
[Footnote 31: Mindeleff, Victor, Op. cit. (Myths by Cosmos Mindeleff
after Stephen), p. 31.]
Hough[32] says that in accord with the belief that the markings on the
tail feathers were caused by the foam and slime of an ancient deluge,
the feathers are prescribed for all pahos, since through their mythical
association with water they have great power in bringing rain.
[Footnote 32: Hough, Walter, Op. cit, p. 172.]