Kwátcakwa, who later personated a Tcukúwympkiya, drew a broad band
of white clay across his shins, thighs, arms, and body. A great wisp
of cornhusks was tied in his hair, which was all brought forward and
coiled over the forehead. The others donned their kilts, necklaces,
turquoise eardrops, and moccasins. Each one wore a fox-skin hanging
tail downward at the loins, and on the left leg below the knee a string
of bells, while the majority had garters of blue yarn. Their hair,
which was first bound in long cues, wrapped high with strings, was
later loosened, hanging in a fine fluffy mass.
Sakwístiwa, who was the púcücütoi or drummer, wore pantaloons held up
by a belt of silver disks, and a grotesque mask. All left the kiva
immediately after their disguises were completed and assembled in the
Móñkiva court.
Íntiwa hurriedly but thoroughly swept the floor of the chamber, during
which time a number of women and children came down the ladder, filling
the spectators’ part of the room. The assembled group of Katcinas
prayed and then went out, but about fifteen minutes later returned
to the kiva entrance and shook their rattles at the hatchway. “Yuñya
ai,” “come, assemble,” said the old men, and the women invited them to
come down, which they did. Kwátcakwa, who personated the Nüvákkatcina,
entered, followed by ten others. They assembled in a semicircle, each
with a rattle in the right hand and a spruce bough in the left, Íntiwa
sprinkled with meal all who came, after which they performed a dance,
in which, however, their leader did not join.
Before they finished a band of ten men, disguised as Paiutes, carrying
bows and arrows, rabbits, and small game which they wished to trade,
came to the hatchway. They had a drummer with a Paiute drum, made of
a bundle of skins wrapped in an oblong package, on which he beat with
a stick held in both hands. The persons performed a dance, which they
accompanied with a song. They likewise talked, cracked jokes, and
presented the rabbits to the assembled women.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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