Anote,[24] the chief of the _Moñkiva_, constructed his altar (plate
XVIII) on the day above mentioned as _Paic-tala_. He anticipated the
others in making it, and began operations, about 10 A.M., by carefully
sweeping the floor. His fetishes and other altar paraphernalia were in
a bag on the floor at the western end of his kiva, but there was no
_típoni_, or chieftain's badge, even on the completed altar.
Shortly after Anote had finished sweeping the floor of the kiva,
Satele entered, followed a few minutes later by Patuñtupi.[25] These
three men, with Kalakwai, who was weaving a blanket, were the only
persons in the kiva while the altar was being made. Immediately after
the other chiefs came in, Anote began the making of prayer-sticks.
Four of these were made, each of characteristic Tewa form.
Each of these prayer-sticks was double the length of the middle
finger, and was painted black with green pigment at the blunt end. On
one of the two sticks which compose this prayer offering, there was
cut a facet which was painted green with black dots representing eyes
and mouth. The stick without the facet was called the male, and upon
it a ferrule was incised.
The two sticks were bound together with two cotton strings in two
places, but no packet of prayer-meal was appended as in Hopi
prayer-sticks (_pahos_).[26] A string with a terminal feather was
attached to that which bound the two sticks together. Anote likewise
made many feathered strings called _nakwakwocis_, and Satele fashioned
two prayer-sticks; all of these were laid in a basket-tray on the
floor.
After these prayer offerings had been completed, Anote placed on the
floor a blanketful of moist clay which he further moistened and
kneaded, fashioning a part of it into a cylinder about a foot and a
half long, and two inches in diameter. This object was made blunt at
one end and pointed at the other. The image represents _Avaiyo_, the
Tewa name of _Palülükoñ_, the Great Serpent. He added to the blunt
end, or head, a small clay horn,[27] and inserted a minute feather in
the tip of the tail. He fashioned into a ball the clay that remained
after making the effigy of the serpent, patting it into a spherical
compact mass about the size of a baseball. This, called the _natci_,
later served as the pedestal to hold two eagle-wing feathers, and was
placed at the kiva hatch each day to inform the uninitiated that
ceremonies were in progress.
Having finished the effigy of the Great Serpent and formed the clay
cylinder to his liking, Anote made on the western side of the floor of
the kiva a ridge of sand, a few inches high and about two feet long,
parallel with the western wall. While making this ridge he sat between
it and the kiva wall. Having patted this sand ridge to the proper
height, he removed from their wrapping of coarse cloth, four sticks,
each about two feet long. These sticks, dingy with age, were tied in
pairs, and were called _poñya-saka_, "altar ladders." They were
inserted in the ridge in pairs, one on each side, and between them was
placed in the sand a row of eagle feathers. As these were being put in
position by Satele, Anote sang in a low tone, the song continuing as
the other parts of the altar were arranged.[28] Anote was frequently
obliged to prompt his associate regarding the proper arrangement of
the objects on the altar.
Satele next drew a line of prayer-meal before the ridge of sand, and
from it, as a base line, made three deep semicircles representing
rain-clouds. These were drawn as simple, elongated outlines, but
immediately the chief sprinkled meal on the floor over the space
enclosed by them. The curved edges of the three rain-cloud symbols
were then rimmed with black sand or powdered coal. About twenty short,
parallel lines, representing falling rain, were next drawn on the
floor with cornmeal, and alternating with them the same number of
black lines. Satele then placed upon the rain-cloud symbols, skeleton
puma paws, two for each rain-cloud. At the apex of each symbolic cloud
a stone fetish of a bear was deposited, and by the side of each an
arrow-point or other stone object was laid.
The clay effigy of the Great Snake was next placed back of the
rain-cloud symbols, with the head pointing southward. As this effigy
lay on the floor, Anote made on it, with meal, representations of eyes
and teeth, then drew two lines of meal about the neck for a necklace,
and two other parallel lines about the tail. Black powder was then
evenly sprinkled along the back of the effigy.
Both Anote and Satele procured a few ears of differently colored corn
and shelled them upon the rain-cloud picture, sprinkling the grains
evenly over the meal design, and adding a few to the back of the Great
Snake. Squash and melon seeds were likewise distributed in the same
way. The vase from which the stone effigies and other images were
taken was then placed near the base of the middle rain-cloud picture,
and a large quartz crystal was added on the left. A conch, which the
author presented to the chief, was placed on the right of this vase.
Anote then swept the floor north of the fireplace, and as he sang in a
low tone Satele drew a straight line of meal from near the right pole
of the ladder across the floor to the middle of the altar. He placed
along this line, at intervals, four feathers, and near where it joined
the altar he stretched a string, with an attached feather, called the
_pütabi_.[29] He then sprinkled a line of pollen along this trail of
meal.
Anote's medicine-bowl was set just in front of the middle rain-cloud
figure; the clay pedestal with inserted upright feathers stood before
the left, and a basket-tray with prayer-meal before the right
rain-cloud figure.