The Sia: (1894 N 11 / 1889-1890 (pages 3-158))Stevenson, Matilda Coxe
History
The Sia: (1894 N 11 / 1889-1890 (pages 3-158))
Stevenson, Matilda Coxe
Zia Indians
pile of bear-leg skins at the south side of the painting. The child,
who was ill and burning with fever, was led by the vice ho´naaite to
the fetiches, which he sprinkled with meal, and was carried from the
chamber and through an outer room to his mother at the entrance.
[Illustration: Bureau of Ethnology. Eleventh Annual Report PLate XXII
GAST LITH. CO. N.Y.
ALTAR AND SAND PAINTING.
KNIFE SOCIETY.]
The ho´naaite is not supposed to leave the ceremonial chamber
throughout the four days and nights, as he must guard the animal
fetiches and medicine. The other members are also supposed to spend
much of the day and all of the night in watching the fetiches; but the
writer is of the opinion that they all go to sleep after the feast,
which is enjoyed as soon as the child leaves the chamber.
The only variation in the ceremonial on the second night was that the
vicar dipped the bit of bread into the bowl of stew and scattered it to
the animal fetiches, having previously lifted ashes from the fireplace
and sprinkled the altar with them by striking the plume held in the
left hand on the under side with the plume held in the right; then
holding the plumes between his hands he repeated a long and scarcely
audible prayer. After scattering the food to the animal fetiches, he
dipped a piece of bread into the stew, left the house and threw the
food to the cardinal points, as the ho´naaite had done the previous
night, and, returning, removed the bowl of stew and basket of bread
to the northwest corner of the room. He then swept the floor with his
two eagle plumes, beginning some 18 inches in front of the altar (the
line of meal remaining perfect to this point) to the point where the
blanket was to be placed, and then laid the blanket and made the meal
lines, the change in the drawing of these lines being that the line was
begun at the line of meal which extended in front of the altar and ran
over the blanket to the entrance of the room; then beginning in the
center of the blanket, the line was extended across to the north wall,
and again beginning in the center, a line was run across to the south
wall. The writer mentions this deviation in the drawing of the meal
lines, though she believes it was a mere matter of taste on the part of
the worker. Instead of the vice ho´naaite receiving the child at the
outer entrance, the man who sat between him and the ho´naaite brought
the child into the room, and he was led out by the ti´ämoni. Upon this
occasion, and on the third and fourth nights, the child walked into and
out of the room, an indication that he was in better physical condition
than on the first night of the ceremony. The songs on the second night
were addressed to the bear of the west instead of the cougar of the
north. The child did not seem to move a muscle throughout the ceremony,
except when he stepped to his position on the blanket.
[Illustration: Bureau of Ethnology. Eleventh Annual Report PLate XXIII
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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