The Winter Solstice Altars at Hano Pueblo — John Shaqi
The Winter Solstice Altars at Hano PuebloFewkes, Jesse Walter
Religion
The Winter Solstice Altars at Hano Pueblo
Fewkes, Jesse Walter
Hopi Indians -- Religion; Indian mythology -- North America; Indians of North America -- Arizona
The insertion of the row of eagle-feathers along the back of the clay
effigy of the serpent recalls an instructive reptilian figure on one
of the bowls from Sikyatki.[35] In this ancient pictograph we find a
row of triangles drawn along the medial line from the head to the tail
of a lizard-like figure. The use of the triangle in ancient Pueblo
pictography as a symbol of a wing-feather, has been pointed out in an
article on the feather as a decorative design in ancient Hopi
pottery.[36] The medial line of triangles, representing feathers, on
the Sikyatki food-bowl, is paralleled in the Hano kiva by eagle-wing
feathers inserted along the middle of the image of a snake.
A small vase was next placed just in advance of the effigy of the
Great Snake, and into this vase Pocine poured water from an
earthenware canteen, making a pass as he did so to the four Pueblo
cardinal points--north, west, south, and east--in sinistral ceremonial
circuit.[37] A stone arrow-point was then laid on the lozenge-shaped
extremity of each lightning figure.
Pocine now scraped into the vase some powder from a soft white stone,
saying, as he did so, that the process was called _sowiyauma_,
"rabbits emerge,"[38] and that he wished he had stones of other
colors, corresponding to the cardinal points, for the same purpose.
After this was finished he emptied on the floor, from a cloth bag, a
miscellaneous collection of botryoidal stones (many of which were
waterworn), a few fetishes, and other objects, one of the most
conspicuous among the latter being a large green stone. All were at
first distributed on the meal picture without any special order, but
later were given a definite arrangement.
Pocine next went up the kiva ladder, and standing on the upper rung in
the sunlight, sought, by means of an angular piece of glass, to
reflect a ray of sunlight on the altar, but more especially into the
vase of medicine. Four turkey-feathers were then inserted at equal
intervals along the base of the serpent effigy, as shown in plate
XIX.
After the stone objects had been arranged on the meal picture, a line
of meal was drawn along the floor, from the right pole of the ladder
to the altar. This line was drawn with great care, particular pains
being taken to make it as straight as possible. There was no singing
while this occurred, thus differing from the ceremony performed in the
other Hano kiva. Four small feathers were placed at intervals along
the line of meal. These, in sequence, beginning with the one nearest
the ladder, were _sikyatci_, yellow-bird; _kwahu_, eagle or hawk;
_koyoña_, turkey; and _pociwû_. Pocine sprinkled pollen along this
line or meal trail.
There was then emptied from a canvas bag upon the rectangular meal
figures a heterogeneous collection of objects, among which may be
mentioned a bundle of gaming reeds, the humerus of a turkey, a whistle
made of a turkey bone, and a zigzag wooden framework such as is used
by the Hopi to represent lightning.[39]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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