Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1900-09-08
Interesting Ceremonies Among the
Arizona Indians.
DATE FIXED BY old MEDICINE MAN
Wonderful and Unique Barbaric
Customs.
WHAT ARCHAEOLOGISTS SAY
Written for The Evening star.

Written for The Evening Star.
The Smithsonian archaeo!Ogists say that
the most interesting aboriginal ceremonies
performed nowadays in America are those
among the Moki Indians who live in north
eastern Arizona. Scarcely touched by our
civilization and clinging to ancestral Gus
toms, the Mokis perform during the latter
part Of each August dances and rites in
precipitation of their god Of rain, identical
with those of their ancestors ages before
Columbus sailed toward the western con
tinent. MOkiand, or the province Of Tusu-
yam, as the Spanish conquestadores named
IL IN the early part of the sixteenth CEN
fury, is the richest part of the Union for
prehistoric exploration. Cities of strong in
telligent people fiourished here in the time
of the Caesars. Ruins of great neathen
temples, which crumbled before the Monte
yuma dynasty began lie among the drift
ing sands. The land of the Moki abOunds
In ancient traditions still kept in their pris
tine freshness.
Last month TWO score of American eth
nologists and archaeologists, besides some
from Europe. gathered IL the Mok pueblos
to scientifically study the customs, habits,
thought and traditions of man in prehis-
toric America as they have come down
through generations of Mokis The Mokis
are a proud silent Industrious, moral and
deyout people They kindly to
strangers and they boast that they have
never been at war from their own Volt
tioE with any race. Their youth are in
structed in the story and customs of the
old tribe. They get their subsistence from
little patches Of fertile soil that hem the
feet OF the great rocky eyries upon which
the Moki pueblos stand Their chief crops
are melons. corn, squashes, beans and
peaches. The soil is scanty and round
about vast shimmering, parched desert
stretches away to the horizon
horse rails
into northern Arizona the Mokis had seen
but few paefaces in over 200 years. They
live in the same rude stone. mud-piastered
houses, with dirt floors and stone benches,
where their forefathers lived long before
George Washington was born. They weave
blankets on very ancient looms and bake
food in dirt ovens 30 and 300 years old
The trail-d narrow pathway cut In solid
rock in the dim past-leading from the plain
up TO the pueblo on the table land, has been
worn a foot and more by generations of
moccssined feet. Very few Monks have
been farther than thirty or fifty miles from
home in all their lives Their isolation is
complete and their aboriginal customs re-
main intact.
The pale-faced visitor to the land of the
Moki leaves the Atchison, Topeka and Santa
Fe railroad at either Holbrook or Wnsow
station in nor >hern Arizona, and journeys
by stage across the painted" desert some
100 miles to Walpi or Oraibi pueblos. The
ride is always memorable. No one tell
the sensations of desert traveller. There is
peculiar mystery about the titanic lonely
area, without a sign Of life in it, One feels
a sense of intnity. Imagine empty sky
thousands of square miles of iridescent
beauty stretching away TO the soft, velvet
horizon. or to the deep purple mountains,
miles and miles beyond. Cataclysmic re-
suits of stupendous erosion abound, and the
work of terrific earthquakes is seen hourly
Here and there are the black rugged forms
OF extinct volcanoes At dawn and sunset
the cloud effects are grand beyond descrip-
ton. Ruins of the work OF wonderful
race entirely gone from the earth dot the
landscape. On the morning Of the second
days journey may be seen in the purple
haze away to the north the two rocky pro-
montories upon which are seven Moki pueb-
los.
Rain is the all-essential element in the
success OF Moki agriculture. and In the des-
ert regions rains come capriciously. The
most sacred ceremonies among the Monks
therefore. are in propitiation of the occult
powers that control the rains in Mokiland