# Journal of American Folk-Lore/Volume 12/Issue 45/Hopi Basket Dances

HOPI BASKET DANCES.
In the April number of the "American Anthropologist" for 1892 the late J. G. Owens and the author described a Hopi basket dance celebrated at Walpi in September of the preceding year. It was shown in the article that this basket dance was a public exhibition closing a series of secret rites which extended over nine consecutive days and nights, and that the whole festival was called the Lalakonti. In a strict use of terms this public exhibition is not a dance, but rather a posturing of the body in rhythm, with songs, during which baskets were carried by women or thrown, as gifts, among the assembled spectators. Subsequent studies have shown that this festival is observed in four other Hopi pueblos, and it can now be definitely stated that there are four variants, three of which occur at the Middle Mesa and one at Oraibi, in addition to that described at Walpi. The pueblos Sitcomovi and Hano are known not to have a Lalakonti, so that we have reliable information regarding the distribution of this ceremony.
Each one of these five pueblos has an altar in one of its kivas in connection with the secret rites. I have already described this altar at Walpi, and in the present article shall add an account of that at Cipaulovi. Nothing has yet been recorded concerning the other Lalakonti altars or the rites performed about them.
The month of October, 1898, was a particularly good one for the study of this festival in all pueblos except Walpi, and while unable to attend all these exhibitions I noted the dates of these variants, which are given in the following list: Micoñinovi, October 23; Cuñopavi, October 24; Oraibi, October 26; Cipaulovi, October 29.
​It will be noted that these dates are a month later than that on which the Lalakonti was performed at Walpi in 1891. This would seem to indicate that its place in the ceremonial year is in October rather than in September, as at Walpi. I think, however, there were special reasons for its tardy performance in 1898, and that its regular presentation should be in the September moon. For an account of the secret rites connected with the Lalakonti I must, for the present, refer the reader to my article on the Walpi performance, having never studied any other; but there is every possibility that the rites, number of days, and ceremonial events in the kivas vary in different pueblos, although there is a marked similarity in the public exhibitions so far as known.
Although the primary aim of this article is to describe the public basket dances, I have introduced a sketch of one of the simplest altars of the Lalakonti, or that used in the secret rites at Cipaulovi.
{{c|PUBLIC LALAKONTI AT WALPI.
The public exhibition of the Walpi Lalakonti has been elsewhere described, but in order to make it more convenient for the reader to compare with those of the Middle Mesa and Oraibi I have introduced this description with a few addenda. The public exhibition occurs on the last or ninth day of the festival, and was repeated at intervals during the day from sunrise to sunset. The successive exhibitions closely resembled each other, the number of performers increasing in the late afternoon performances.
With the exception of one man, those taking part were women, who may be considered under two groups, the basket bearers or chorus, and the basket throwers or Lakone manas. The only man participant is a priest called the Lakone taka.
The basket bearers were numerous, consisting of women of all ages,—married women, maids, and young girls. Each wore a small feather on her head, and the maids had their hair done up in two characteristic whorls above the ears. All were clothed in white blankets with red borders, and wore necklaces, ear pendants, and other ornaments. The four chief priestesses led the procession, the girls closing the line as it enter the plaza. Each woman, adult or girl, carried a flat basket which she held vertically in both hands by the rim, so that the concave side was outermost. After marching into the plaza, a circle was formed by the women, and all sang in chorus a song, parts of which were not audible. As the song continue! the baskets were slowly raised, first to one breast, then to the other, and then brought slowly downward to the level of the hips, in cadence with the songs. At the same time the body was slightly ​inclined forward, but the feet were not raised from the ground. After the basket bearers had sung their songs for a brief interval, the basket throwers approached the circle, led by the Lakone taka, who retired at that point.
The basket throwers were two in number, and at each presentation during the day were personated by different women. Each woman wore two white ceremonial blankets, one wrapped about the shoulder, the other on the loins. The latter was tied about the hips with a knotted girdle. These women wore anklets, but no moccasins, ear pendants, and a profusion of necklaces, and their faces, arms, legs, feet, and hands were painted yellow, with black lines on their cheeks.
Each woman wore on her head a band, to one side of which was attached a curved split gourd representing a horn, and to the opposite radiating slats of wood symbolic of a flower. Three vertical semicircular extensions, symbols of rain-clouds, decorated with seed grasses and feathers, are also attached to this band, and there is a bunch of feathers in the hair. Each Lakone mana carried in her hands corncobs in which eagle feathers were inserted, and on her back a bundle, done up in a piece of calico, containing the objects she later threw to the spectators. These two women entered the plaza after the basket bearers had begun their songs and posturing, and were led by the Lakone man. His arms, legs, and body were painted yellow, and he wore a white ceremonial kilt with knotted sash. He was profusely decked out with necklaces and other ornaments, and carried in one hand a flat basket containing yellow pollen, with which he drew symbols of rain-clouds on the ground. Upon these symbols the women threw their corncobs with attached feathers, and the man picked up these objects and laid them in a row upon the meal figures which he had made, after which, as the women advanced, he handed these objects to them. This was repeated several times until the Lakone manas entered the circle of basket holders. The priest then left them, and they untied their bundles and took positions at opposite points of the space inclosed by the basket bearers. Each one then held a basket high in the air and crossed to the other side, exchanging positions with the woman opposite. This was repeated a few times, and finally the basket throwers hurled their baskets high in the air, so that they fell in the crowd of young men, who struggled for possession. This was repeated several times, and then the women filed off to their kivas. The struggle of the men for the baskets continued long after the women had withdrawn.
PUBLIC LALAKONTI AT ORAIBI.
The celebration of the basket dance at Oraibi was one of the most interesting which has been yet witnessed. The performers at Oraibi were more numerous than in the other pueblos, and there were four basket throwers instead of two. Each of these women wore on her head a tablet representing rain-cloud symbols, as at Walpi, but the shape and decoration of the same were somewhat different in the two pueblos. There were about forty basket bearers, each of whom carried the characteristic Oraibi basket.
The headdress worn by the basket throwers was more like a tablet than a coronet, consisting of a flat or slightly curved vertical plate attached along one edge to the band about the head. Two incisions in the upper rim of this plate left three rounded prominences representing rain-clouds.
The band about the head was crossed by a number of parallel black lines, representing falling rain, and at the apex of each rain-cloud symbol was fastened a small round dish and a few twigs of seed grass.
The representation of a horn, which is so prominently attached to the head-band in the Walpi and Cipaulovi variants, and the artificial flower on the opposite side of the head, were not seen at Oraibi.
We have, therefore, three variations in the headdresses of known Hopi Lalakontis. At Cipaulovi a simple band about the head, with a split gourd representing a horn on one side and an artificial flower on the opposite; at Walpi three semicircular attachments to this encircling band, also with lateral horn and flower, and at Oraibi a vertical rectangular tablet with rain-cloud symbols indicated by depressions in the upper edge, and without lateral horn or flower. The last-mentioned form has in addition a small circular disk attached to the apex of each rain-cloud symbol.
As the four basket throwers came into the Oraibi plaza they formed a platoon, led by the priest, who walked a few feet in advance. He wore a bundle of feathers on his head and carried a tray of meal in his hands. About his waist was a white ceremonial blanket decorated with embroidered rain-cloud symbols and tied by a girdle from which depended a foxskin. He was barefoot and wore embroidered anklets.
THE BASKET THROWERS, OR LAKONE MANAS
PRIEST HANDING OFFERINGS TO BASKET THROWERS
DANCE OF BASKET BEARERS
STRUGGLE FOR BASKETS
The basket throwers soon after untied the bundles which they bore on their backs, and took positions within the ring of basket bearers diametrically opposite each other. Each held a basket aloft, making a movement as if to hurl it in the air. She did not cast it, however, but crossed to the opposite side of the ring, exchanging position with the woman facing her. Groups of men outside the ring of basket bearers, among the spectators, shouted to the basket throwers for their baskets. Finally they threw them, one after another, until none was left, and with wild shouts the lads and men struggled for the objects, as shown in an appended plate. The basket throwers then filed back to their room, and a short time after the basket bearers also left the plaza.
PUBLIC LALAKONTI AT CIPAULOVI.
The number of participants in the Cipaulovi basket dance was smaller than at Oraibi or Walpi. The basket bearers entered the plaza from time to time during the day, and sang, moving the baskets that they carried in the same way as at the other pueblos. The two basket throwers and the priest who led them approached the ring of dancers in much the same way. The two women had arms, legs, feet, and hands colored yellow, and across their temples were painted black bands extending from the eyes and mouth to the ears. Instead of the coronet with attached rain-cloud symbols, worn by the basket throwers in the Oraibi and Walpi variants, those, at this pueblo wore on the head a yellow leathern band, to the left side of which was tied a split gourd in the form of a horn, painted green. On the opposite side of the head or over the right ear there was a bunch of red horsehair, and two prominent eagle feathers were attached to the hair, rising from a bunch of plumes on the crown of the head. Each of these women carried on her back a bundle containing several baskets, a few tortillas, and small earthen bowls. Their arms and legs were bare, but each wore two white blankets, one over the shoulders, the other about the loins, tied with white sashes. Each woman carried in her hands two half corncobs, to which feathers were attached. The priest, their leader, was decorated like the Lakone taka at Walpi or Oraibi. His body was painted yellow and he wore a ceremonial kilt, moccasins, anklets, and a fox-skin depending from his belt. At intervals on the ground he made rude rain-cloud symbols with meal, and upon these figures the women threw the half corncobs. After these objects had been thrown on the ground, the priest picked them up and laid them side by side on the ​figures he had drawn. The women then advanced and picked them up, after which they made their way to the middle of the ring of basket bearers, who meanwhile were singing and posturing with their baskets. The throwing of the corncobs was repeated in this inclosure, and then the priest, dipping his aspergil into a bowl of medicine which he carried, asperged to the cardinal points in sequence, and retired.
The basket throwers then took baskets from their bundles and held them aloft, standing on opposite sides of the space encircled by the basket bearers, facing each other. They exchanged places once or twice, holding their baskets aloft as if to throw them. Meanwhile, with loud cries, many young men of the pueblo among the spectators shouted to the Lakone manas to throw them a basket. Their arms were raised in expectancy, but often they were deceived, for the women only pretended to throw the basket in the direction indicated. After a while, however, the basket was thrown, and then took place a scramble for it which was often continued for a half hour, the basket being sometimes torn to pieces and the clothing of the young men becoming more or less damaged in the rough scuffle.
The episode of the struggle for the baskets continued long after the participants left the plaza. In some instances a fine bowl or basket was simply handed to a friend, and relatives or others entered the circle of dancers to receive them.
ALTAR OF THE CIPAULOVI LALAKONTI.
The Lalakonti altar at this pueblo is poor in fetiches as compared with that at Walpi, a condition not unlike that of other altars of Cipaulovi, as I have elsewhere pointed out. It was erected in the main kiva of the village and consisted of upright wooden slats connected by a transverse upon which rain-cloud emblems were depicted. The uprights were held in place by a ridge of sand in which were inserted seven shorter slats, upon which symbols of corn, rain-clouds, and other emblems were depicted.
There were no figurines on this altar and no sand picture on the floor. A single tiponi was placed upright a little to the right of the middle line, and near by on the floor there was a bundle of black sticks called the koaiteoko, which correspond with the four objects of the same name in the Walpi altar. An elaborately carved stick of wood near by was called a natei. These objects and the medicine-bowl, feathers, ears of maize, common to all altars, were placed in their customary positions.
The simplicity of this altar and the poverty of fetiches are readily explained by the small size of Cipaulovi, and the fact that it was a ​colony from one of the other pueblos of the Middle Mesa in comparatively modern times.
OWAKULTI.
It often happens in the celebration of the Hopi ritual that an old ceremonial dance which, by the death of its priests and loss of knowledge of its rites, has become extinct, is reproduced in mutilated form as a burlesque. The Owakulti as now presented at the East Mesa is a good example of such a dance. Although formerly celebrated at Sitcomovi, it has not been performed there for a long time and has practically become extinct, while at Oraibi it still remains on the annual calendar of ceremonies, with altars and accompanying rites.
The Owakulti basket dance, or that part of it which was once public, was revived in the Moñkiva at Walpi during their Palülükonti, or March celebration, in 1893. Three men from Sitcomovi, at that time arrayed as women, danced in the kiva, accompanied by a fourth called the "disk-hurler," who threw baskets among the spectators. This episode may be interpreted as the worn-down fragment of what was formerly a complicated ceremony, which still is celebrated in extenso at Oraibi and possibly in other pueblos.
KOHONINO BASKET DANCE.
At certain times in the Tusayan ritual the striking essential features of foreign dances are introduced in the midst of rites with which they have no apparent logical connection. A Kohonino basket dance rarely performed at Walpi is a good illustration of this tendency.
This dance as presented at Walpi is not, like Owakulti, a worn-down fragment of what was once a great ceremony in the Hopi pueblos, but a borrowed episode from Kohinono clans, and is instructive as showing kinship of the Hopi with this interesting people, on the ceremonial side.
The Kohonino basket dance was introduced as an episode of the Mamzrauti in 1893, and is not an essential part of the dance. This is not a rare custom in Hopi ceremonies, for a similar borrowing may be detected in several ceremonies.
​Six maids with elaborate headdresses and five others with simple fillets of yucca on their heads participated in this dance.
The six maids were clothed in white ceremonial blankets, with girdles and moccasins. Their headdresses consisted of a band, wound with different colored calico, fitting over the head like a crown. There were attached to this band, one over each ear, two representations of horns made of slats of wood curved and painted. Several feathers from the eagle's breast (pibhü) were attached to the front of this band, and at the rear were long feathers arranged vertically and fan-shaped. These girls had likewise a bunch of variegated feathers tied to the back of the head, and a bright spot of vermilion color was painted on each cheek.
Each of these six maidens carried in her hands a basket made by the Kohonino Indians and obtained from them by the Hopi in trade.
The other maids, five in number, wore ordinary dark blue or black blankets, without mantle or moccasins. Their faces had been rubbed with meal, and across the cheeks and nose from ear to ear a curving black line was drawn with powdered shale. They had a simple fillet of yucca fibre in place of the more elaborate headdress of their companions, and in one hand they carried a rattle, in the other an ear of corn, with a string of bread-cakes of different forms. These eleven maids formed in line, the five alternating with the six, and danced before a group of women of the Mamzrau Society, who sang in chorus to the beating of a drum. Each basket bearer held her basket by the rim in both hands in front of her, and about vertical, the concave side facing outward. In dancing there was a slight alternate movement of the feet with slow gestures of the basket in cadence. The bread-cakes which the five maids carried were in the course of the dance distributed among the men spectators. The headdresses of the six maidens reminded me of those worn in the Lalakonti, and the introduction of baskets is also similar in the two performances. It is therefore possible that this dance is a Kohonino variant, in the adoption of which secret ceremonials, altars, etc., have been lost.
It is an interesting point that this Kohonino basket dance is introduced as an episode of the dance called the Mamzrauti instead of in the Lalakonti. This may be theoretically explained on the supposition that clans of the Kohoninos have some relation with those of the Mamzrauti Society.
We often find in collections of Hopi dolls specimens with characteristic symbolism which are called Kohonino Katcina.
A comparison of the symbolism of this doll with that of the headdress of the six maids in the dance described above shows that both represent the same being. Thus the head of the so-called Kohonino ​Katcina has lateral horns, radiating feathers, and painted band with alternating colors representing the coronet bound with calico. We find on the cheeks of the doll the same red spots as on the faces of the dancers. These six girls with coronets personifying Kohonino basket dancers have some resemblances to those called Palahikomana in Mamzrauti, and as the women recognize this likeness it is quite as appropriate to introduce this dance in the Mamzrauti as in the Lalakonti.
When more is known of the clans of that interesting people, the Kohoninos, it may be found that earlier in their history some of their ancestors were related to the Squash (Patuñ) and other clans which formerly lived along the Little Colorado and brought the Mamzrauti to Awatobi, from which pueblo it was taken to Walpi, as I have elsewhere shown. There is reason to believe that the Cipias, a people mentioned in early Spanish descriptions of the seventeenth century, were the Squash, Cloud, and other clans of the Hopi which at that time lived west of Zuñi on the Little Colorado, at Homolobi and Cakwabaiyaki. At the end of the seventeenth century these Cipias disappear from Spanish chronicles because at about that time they left their pueblos on the Little Colorado and joined the Hopi. The Cosninos (Koninos), at the end of the seventeenth century, lived farther down the river, or north of the Cipias, and they were forced by wandering nomads to the seclusion of Sakatubka, Cataract Canon, where their descendants now live.
TANOAN VARIANT OF CORONET.
Several characteristic ceremonial dances brought into Tusayan by Tanoan colonists are still retained in the two pueblos, Sitcomovi and Hano. In one of these we find the coronet worn by the women so close to that of the basket dance that it is introduced in this connection. I have never studied the dance in extenso and have been obliged to refer to a few notes and photographs obtained a few years ago by Mr. Raush. The two performers to whom I wish to call attention are those who wear coronets comparable with the Lakone manas of the Lalakonti. The dance in which they participated was performed in Sitcomovi.
The headdresses of these two girls have a remote similarity to that of the Lakone manas at Cipaulovi, but before I describe them there is one interesting thing in the coiffure of the women which is ​significant. The Walpi and other Hopi women wear their hair, after marriage, in two elongated oval coils tied with strings, which hang down on their shoulders. All the hair is brought into these coils. The women of Hano, however, in addition to these coils, wear a bang over the forehead which is not so tied, but simply brushed back over the temples. The cutting of this bang is an episode in the marriage ceremonies of the Hano brides, and the prescribed length of the bang is the line of the lower jaw.
It is important to bear in mind that this coiffure is characteristic of women of Hano who are of Tanoan stock and not of the Hopi.
We find, on studying the masks of men who take the part of women Katcinas (Katcina manas), that they, too, have a representation of these bangs, the peculiarity of Tewan (and possibly of Keresan) women. Here we have a survival indicating a relationship to the Katcina cult.
The two Sitcomovi women wear a coronet comparable with that of the basket throwers, but wear their hair dressed in the Tewan custom, as we would expect on the theory that this ceremony is of Tewan origin.
This coronet consists of a band holding the bang to the level of the eyes with an open fan-shaped attachment on the right side corresponding to the radiating slats on the coronet of the Lakone mana in the Walpi dance. On the opposite side of the head-band there is a projection representing the horn, from which hangs a string with attached horsehair. On the head are clusters of variegated feathers. The three semicircular rain-cloud additions to the band, were not observed, but the clothing of these maids was in other respects identical.
CORONETS OF TWO WOMEN IN THE MAMZRAUTI.
There are two women in the Mamzrauti festival who wear coronets which may be instructive in this connection. They appear on the final day of that festival, and have been described in my account of this presentation.
The Mamzrauti is a woman's celebration of nine days' duration, in which women clothed in white blankets form a circle in the plaza and sing, holding in their hands flat wooden slats on which are depicted cars of maize and various other symbols.
While they were singing in chorus and moving these slats in cadence there approached from the kiva, in much the same way as the basket throwers in the Lalakonti, three women, one of whom was the leader.
The leader wore a bright-colored plume on her head and a ​maskette over the upper face. She had a blue woven jacket and a white kilt reaching below the thigh. The leg and arm on one side was painted yellow; on the other side green. The arms and legs were banded in black. She wore a tablet on her back, and a foxskin was attached to her belt behind. In one hand was a prayer-stick; in the other a foxskin.
She led a pair of women dressed almost alike and resembling the leader, except that they wore bands about the head, with a symbolic ear of corn over the forehead. At each end of this object three feathers were attached, and from the band arose a framework, at the apex of which were feathers and other objects.
Each of these two women carried a bow and arrows and a small package of corn husks. "They began in the main floor of the kiva by tossing the husk package toward the ladder; then shot their arrows at it. They then picked it and their arrows up, and thus casting the package before them and shooting at it, performing this act once or twice, they reached the circle of dancers in the court. They tossed the package into the middle of the circle and shot at it; then, entering the circle, they each shot their two arrows in the air, after which they returned to the kiva. They are called Waühitaka … and their act of shooting is said to typify lightning striking in the cornfield, an event which is regarded as the acme of fertilization." Meanwhile a girl was mixing little nodules of sweet cornmeal and water in the kiva, and as the Waühitaka returned each took a trayful and returned to the circle of singing women and cast the nodules one by one among the spectators, by whom they were eagerly taken.
While there is a general similarity in the acts of these two women and those of the basket throwers, there is but a remote likeness in the coronets which they wear.
RELATION OF THE BULINTIKIBI TO THE HOPI RITUAL.
There is a dance occasionally performed at Sitcomovi or Hano, but not at Walpi, in which women participants wore board tablets on their heads. This dance, called the Bulintikibi, is different from any other in the Hopi calendar, and its relation to the ritual has hitherto been problematical. I am now convinced that it is an extra Tusayan ceremony brought to the East Mesa by Tewan clans and still kept up by the descendants of those who introduced it.
Bulintikibi is, as its name signifies, the butterfly dance, but not, as might be supposed, a personation of the butterfly. It is rather the Butterfly clan dance, just as the Tcüatikibi is the dance of the Snake clan, the Sio Katcina a Zuñi Katcina, or the Humis Katcina a Katcina derived from Jemez,—the name of the observance, in other ​words, taken from the clan or people who celebrate it or from whom it was derived.
The only three surviving members of the Buli clan, which is grouped in the Honani or Badger phratry, now live in Sitcomovi, but the elan is always mentioned as living in Awatobi before its destruction. Possibly this observance was once celebrated by this unfortunate pueblo, but my purpose in introducing a mention of it here is to show its close resemblances to the Tablita dance of San Domingo, Acoma, Cochite, and the Tewan pueblos of the Upper Rio Grande. Bulintikibi is of sporadic appearance in Sitcomovi, and has been revived from time to time since my association with the East Mesa people. It is the only dance in my knowledge which the performers can be hired to give, and is, in a way, a harvest home festival. It cannot in its recent celebrations be called a sacred dance, although it once had that significance, and personations of beings which once held an important place in mythology still survive in its presentation.
The close likeness of the Bulintikibi to a dance celebrated by the Rio Grande pueblos and its association with a clan of the Badger phratry is instructive when we remember that this phratry is reputed to have introduced Katcinas which are also found in the same Rio Grande region. The Badger phratry was one of the later additions to the populations of the East Mesa, and is said to have introduced several elements of the Katcina cultus.
The public Bulintikibi is celebrated by both men and women, who alternate with each other in the line of dancers. Neither carry baskets and both are dressed in the same way as the tablita dancers in the Fiesta de San Estevan at Acoma.
The women wear on their heads board tablets with rain-cloud terraces on the upper rim. The symbols on these tablitas represent the sun, moon, and other objects. The men are not masked, but dressed in a Katcina costume almost identical with that in the same tablita dances in the Keresan and Tanoan pueblos.
There is no doubt that Bulintikibi is the same as the tablita dances of the Rio Grande, and it is performed by people who claim that their ancestors came from the Rio Grande pueblos.
The tablita (called among the Hopi the naktci) of the Bulintikibi resembles distantly that of the Palahikomana worn by two women in ​the Mamzrauti. This naktci in turn is so close to that of Calako mana that in some of their variants it is impossible to distinguish the two. We have very many modifications of the tablet on heads of women or figurines in Hopi worship, and in most instances we can trace their introduction to clans which claim that their ancestors came from eastern pueblos.
CONCLUSION.
We have seen in the preceding pages that the annual ceremony called the Lalakonti is not confined to Walpi, but is celebrated in the three pueblos of the Middle Mesa and at Oraibi. We also discover that the public exhibitions connected with these variants are practically identical.
Turning to the East Mesa, we find that only one of the three pueblos upon it observes the Lalakonti. On searching for a reason why the remaining two pueblos, Sitcomovi and Hano, each with a larger population than Cipaulovi, do not have this basket dance, we find that Hano is peopled by clans which speak a different language from that of the Hopi pueblos. It is inhabited by descendants of a colony from the Rio Grande region, hence its ritual, like its language, is not the same as that of Walpi. Sitcomovi, also, does not observe Hopi ceremonials, because the ancestors of its people were likewise foreigners. The population of this pueblo is mainly made up of descendants of the original Asa and Honani clans, the former emigrants from near the village Abiquiu on the Rio Grande, the latter from Kicuba. It has no Lalakonti, because it has not a sufficiently large representation of the clans which control this ceremony. Sitcomovi has a few survivals of a ritual distinct from that observed by Hopi clans. Thus the fundamental reason why the Lalakonti exists in five Hopi pueblos and is wanting in two others is evident. A clan which introduced this rite is strongly represented in the former, and is wanting in the latter.
These new studies of the Lalakonti support earlier statements that this ceremony was introduced by a phratry or collection of Rain Cloud clans from the south. When their ancestors first came into the Walpi valley, the traditionists of this clan declare the priests who lived on the old site of Walpi knew only a few ceremonies to bring the rain. Their chief, they declare, had much greater powers in this direction, for by their magic they could force the gods which control the rain and growth of corn to do their bidding. The Rain Cloud clans, when they arrived at the Hopi mesas, practised a form of the rain cult which was much more highly developed than that of the people which they found living in this region. They were invited to exhibit their powers in this direction, ​for rain was sorely needed and a famine threatened them. The priests of the Rain Cloud clans accepted the invitation, and, it is said, erected their altars not far from a spring now called Tawapa. After they had sung their songs for some time, mist began to form, then violent rains fell and frightful lightning, which alarmed the women of Walpi. The legends state that after this show of power the Rain Cloud clans were invited to join the Hopi pueblo, assimilated with the original Hopi, and from that time to the present have always lived with them.
The nature of the cult which they introduced may be gathered by an investigation of the ceremonies of the Cloud people which survive, especially the winter solstice and spring equinoctial ceremonies, the fire cult and that of the Great Serpent.
The Lalakonti is also one of the ceremonies which this phratry brought with them from their southern home beyond the mountains. It is their harvest festival, and the women chiefs in this ceremony are near relations of those of the societies which brought the fetiches of a high form of sun, snake, and rain worship to Walpi from Palatkwabi.
The legends of the Rain Cloud clans declare their ancestors came from southern Arizona, and they mention the different pueblos, now ruins, which they inhabited in their migrations from that land. In the light of archaeology there is no doubt of the truth of these legends, for I have, with the help of the Indians, identified their ancient pueblos as far south as Chaves Pass on the trail of northern migration which they followed.
In my archaeological study of the Chevlon ruin (Cakwabaiyaki) about fifteen miles east of Winslow, Arizona, I was astonished at the relatively large amount of basketry found in the graves. Much of this had the forms of plaques like those still manufactured at Oraibi and the Middle Mesa. The inhabitants of the old pueblos at Chaves Pass were also clever basket-makers.
Turning now to the ruin, Sikyatki, near Walpi, which was destroyed before the Rain Cloud clans entered the valley, we are struck with the paucity of specimens of basketry. Over a hundred graves were opened and more than a thousand mortuary objects taken from them, and yet not one, large or small, fragment of a basket. We are certainly not justified in jumping at the conclusion that the Sikyatkians were not basket-makers, but it is not too much to claim that this art was not as highly developed here as at the Chevlon ruin. In other words, archæological facts are in accord with Hopi legends that the Rain Cloud people in the pueblos along the Little Colorado were expert basket-makers, and introduced this industry, as well as the basket dance, into Tusayan.
​We find, however, that the manufacture of baskets is confined to the Middle Mesa and Oraibi at the present time. The basket dance is nowhere celebrated with greater elaboration than at Walpi, and yet the Walpi women are not basket-makers. This may be explained either on the theory that the industry has died out or that those clans of the Rain Cloud phratry, the women of which were basket makers, did not settle at Walpi.
In closing, I will call attention to the fact that we have on the East Mesa the following basket dances: The Lalakonti, introduced from the south by the Rain Cloud clans; the Owakulti, a fragmentary exhibition of the Awatobi basket dance; some portions of an obscure Kohonino basket dance, and a dance of the same nature from the Tewan pueblos on the Rio Grande.
The Lalakonti is the harvest festival of the Rain Cloud phratry, once celebrated at Homolobi, Chaves Pass, and other pueblos of this group of clans, now performed in the Hopi villages as an annual celebration by descendants of the inhabitants of those ancient villages and others whom they have admitted to membership. The basket throwers are personations of mythic ancestral mothers of the Rain Cloud clan represented in the kiva exercises by images carved out of wood. They are the Rain-Cloud-Corn Maids, cultus mothers of the Rain-Cloud, Corn, and other clans, called by their sacerdotal names, Lakone manas. In the "mystery play," or dramatization of the Snake-Antelope clans, the Snake woman's personification stands back of the altar on the left side, and the Snake youth on the other. In the Lalakonti idols are used for Rain-Cloud-Corn Maids in the secret observances, and girls take that part in the public dance. We might go over the other ceremonies and show similar personations, showing the importance given to the cultus heroine of each society in its ceremonies.
Like all Hopi rites, those of the Rain Cloud clans contain many survivals of an early totemism which are not understood by present priests. In this same Rain Cloud clan there are examples of pure zoötotemism, as the exercises of the Bird Man before the effigy of the Great Snake in the winter solstice altar. The prayers which represent the present state of religion of this family are now very different from those when this zoötotemism was first developed, but notwithstanding the change the archaic rites are still kept up. The only truthful explanation which the Hopi priests can give for performing the majority of their rites is that they were bequeathed to them by their ancestors. The majority of their explanations are simply their ​efforts to make these rites appear logical to themselves in the light of their present needs. Rites are thus handed down from a remote antiquity, but the reasons for these rites die a natural death because they fail to satisfy advancing culture. Each new generation of priests modifies the explanations of its predecessor until the rite is abandoned.
This immutability of the ceremony gives it a great value as a means of studying the religious sentiment of which it is one mode of expression.
J. Walter Fewkes.
* ↑ These studies were made while connected with the Bureau of American Ethnology. The beautiful photographs from which the illustrations of the Oraibi variant were made were taken by the accomplished photographer, Mr. G. L. Rose, of Pasadena, California.
* ↑ The dates here given are those of the final day of the festival, on which the public exercises are performed. This day is called totokya, as in other great ceremonies.
* ↑ Lakone maids.
* ↑ Thus in the antics of the clowns in Kateina dances we find many things borrowed from foreign sources. One of the cleverest of these was the imitation of a graphophone a few years ago. The stove of a tent, with its funnel, was used as a megaphone, and a clown concealed himself under a blanket. Another clown sang and called out into the funnel, and the hidden man responded, much to the amusement of the spectators. A masked participant clad like an American stood by and scribbled on a piece of paper the name of the song thus recorded.
* ↑ The doll really represents a female personation, not a male, as the word Katcina would at first imply. The word Katcina among the Hopi has come to be a generic one, so that any supernatural being may be called a Katcina. This use of the term is a late development in Hopi nomenclature of supernatural beings.
* ↑ American Anthropologist, July, 1892.
* ↑ The Hopi without exception object to my conclusion that the Katcina is a modern incorporation, and call my attention to Katcinas in the Soyahuña. In the oldest ceremonies like the Snake Dance and Flute Observance these beings are certainly not represented, but since its incorporation the term Katcina has come to have a broad application and is often used in this sense. The Katcina cult is of late introduction.
* ↑ This Bird Man I regard the personation of the Sun for reasons which have elsewhere been pointed out, and the exercises before the altar, the dramatization of the fertilization of the Corn Maid by the Sky god.