Immediately after this presentation the delegation from the Móñkiva,
led by a masked person, entered. The bodily decorations of these were
not uniform; one had a figure of a gourd drawn on his breast, another
zigzag lines, and still another parallel bars. The males carried a
gourd rattle in the right hand; they wore no fillets on the head but
allowed the hair to hang loosely. The female personators held a bunch
of straw[76] and a sprig of spruce in the left hand, carrying it high
up before the face. They sang the same song and executed the same
figure as that already mentioned in the account of the presentation by
the men from the village of Hano. The groups finished their visits at
about midday.
_February 5_—At earliest dawn (5 a. m.) either the chief or one of his
elders roused all the sleepers in the kiva, and each spread his blanket
beside his basin of growing plants. He then carefully plucked the
plants, one by one, so as not to bruise either stalk or roots. He laid
them on the blanket in an orderly pile, the leaves together. The sand
which remained in the basin was carried to some place where children
would not see it, and the vessels were dried before the kiva fire and
hidden away in the houses out of sight of the prying eyes of the young
ones.
Nearly all the plants were tied with a yucca shred and a sprig of
spruce (symbol of a Katcina), in neat bundles, leaving loose bights of
the yucca by which to hold them. Each priest also tied up the dolls
which he had made. All traces of the soil in which the corn had been
forced to sprout had disappeared long before dawn.
The presents (dolls) which were made in the Tcivatoki were then
distributed by a man personifying Pawíkkatcina, under the instruction
of those who had fashioned them. The distributing Katcinas of the
Nacabki were two Nüváktcinas,[77] and the same did this duty with
the dolls in the Móñkiva. For the Álkiva two Tcoshühüwûh performed
this duty. These Katcinas and two persons called Kawaíka (Keres)
from Sitcomovi bustled about the pueblo on their errands and the
distribution was finished about sunrise. The men did not speak when
they approached a house with their gifts, but hooted after the
customary manner of Katcinas.
Almost half an hour before sunrise the Soyókmana passed around the
kivas, holding a dialogue at the hatchways with the chiefs inside.
She wore a black conical mask with red mouth and white teeth, and was
costumed as an old woman. In the right hand she bore a crook 7 feet
long, at the end of which were tied many shells. In the left hand
she carried a knife smeared with rabbit blood. Hü′hüwûh also held
a dialogue with the kiva chiefs and made gifts of watermelons and
squashes to various persons.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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