Arizona republican., 1899-05-12
MYSTERIES or nOQUlS
Facts About thS Aboriginal Indians
 and Fire Worshipers.

of America. He accomplished this at- ter years of unremitting effort to con- vince these people Of his friendliness Ii was net. however, until he entere1 the Mcuui priesthood that he was sue cessful. The fortunate man is J. Wal ter Fewkes. who has done more toward supplying the connecting links be- tween ancient and modern Indians than any ether man. His work along these lines has made him famous the world over.
 The Mouui Indians are the sole rep resentatives of what their sort of h. dian was in past centuries. They are almost the same today as when Coro- nado's men found them early in the sixteenth century. In the village where MT. Fewkes lived, Walpi, the houses are centuries cid, located on the brow of the cliff hundreds of feet above a great plain, and are not one jot different from the dwellings that have occupied that site for perhaps thousand years. The scientist lived among the Indians as one of them, and in this isolation from the white folks l has been alone, except during the iaf- ter years of his investigation when Mrs. Fewkes accompanied him, the first white woman ever looked on with | favor by the MoQul race.
 The customs of their neighbors, the Apaches, as we'll as those of the ether Indian tribes with whom people are ia miliar, are utterly unlike the ways and habits of the Moqui. In the sos when the white men Of science first visited
 them, they were still using stone inn plements, and, in fact, living in just the way that we are taught the IT, dians lived when Columbus made his entrance on the scene.
 While history is unable to give any | information of the MOquis befcre=the advent of Coronado's men, investiga- tion of the. graves made by Mir, Fe wlles furnishes conclusive proofs that the symbols of the tribes were as ancicn- in the sixteenth century as they are regarded by the Moquis of today.
 While Mir. Fewkes had no difficulty in witnessing a number of the M6qlIi ceremonies, he was we'll aware that there were very interesting secrets in connection with. the religious rites 5of the Indians of which he was entirely 1 ignorant G= | Every effort he made to learn was checkmated, and he found that as an outsider he was at the end of his jn- vestigation. '; | 1 saw he said when telling ire the result of his investigations, "thae 1t was through the priesthood I must get at the facts. The Moquis were..Iiis- tinctly fire lTorshippers, though unlike any other Of the fire worshipping sect Of which 1 ever heard. They created their sacred fre-this I knew-but how it was all done was beyond me. It tock very long time, and the utmost care, to convince the Indians that | mo mt n771 1xv want to use the information I gained tc their disadvantage. At last ' brought them to a frame of mind where they agreed that should enter their priesthood and be initiated into the secrets of their underground tenn pies, for the more important features of the Moqui ritual are performed | in these caves
 ''It was in one Of these temples that l witnessed what to me was as inter- esting a thing as could be seen, of all the more interest because knew that 1 was the first white man whom the Mo quis had ever permitted to be present l on such an occasion. To the Moqui fire is living breathing thing. Its creation is to him exactly the same as the birth of child. It is a sacred ere aticn, however, and the Indian pay.
 
 can conceive Cf-no enc is permitted to light either pipe or cigarette from it. And, when you stop to think that with the Indian all things begin and end with smoke you see the signifi- canoe of his action
 'tThe ritual observed in the creation of the fire is so simple that it is i'm. pressive. The members of the priest hood present gather in a semi-circle in front of the altar, and the priest upon wfiom falls the duty Of bringing the fire into being takes a notclled pieca Of wood and in that notch places a stick which nearly fills it. This stick he rapidly rCtates. Directly beneath the earth has been covered with shred ded cedar. A hush that is impressive follows, nothing being heard except the grinding noise made by the two pieces of wood. The friction of the wood is continued for not more than minute when spark falls upon, the cedar, and then another. The blaze is instantly nursed and presently is of sufficient size to permit a torch to be lighted from it. The sacred fire has come into being
 Then one of the priests is selected to carry the fire and the news from house to house In every dwelling the oqua"S al WdlllHS LOT nln, the pie cf fuel is ready and he lights it with his torch. The proceeding is the same in every dwelling, and after a while every house in the village has it's flame, which will not be allowed to die out until summer comes. That is all thac happens the day of the fires creation. but The day following is celebrated With prcceSsions and incantatiOns Of various sorts, of a nature which does not permit of description. It is ali along the line of the Indians idea or the resemblance of the birth of fire to that of human being.
 'The ceremonies do net, I think, have the same weight with the younger generation of Indians that they do with the elders, In fact I am inclined |