4. Priests (unmasked), directors of the dance, who sprinkle the
Katcinas with sacred meal. These priests are vehicles of prayers to the
Katcinas and masked participants, and are generally few in number.
The presentation is accompanied with a feast[91] (generally at noon)
limited to Katcinas and Katcinamanas. The Katcinas dance in line,
sing, distribute gifts, but never utter any continuous sentence or
prayer. The Katcinamanas dance in line facing the Katcinas, or kneel
in front of the same, accompanying their songs with a rasping noise
made by rubbing a scapula over a notched stick. Ordinarily their
mask is identical in all Katcinas of the abbreviated form, and they
generally have their hair in two whorls on the sides of the head,
and wear white blankets and other feminine apparel. The second group
of personifications are the Tcukúwympkiyas (Tatcü′kti, knob-head
priests; Tcü′ckütû, gluttons; or Paiakaíamû, horned clowns). Their
representation consists of a series of antics and dramatizations, story
telling, gluttony, obscene gestures or bawdy remarks, and flogging and
other indignities heaped upon each other or upon accompanying masked
persons. These representations and the personifications who carry on
their portion of the observance vary in different reproductions of the
same drama.
The Tcukúwympkiya do not dance or sing with the Katcinas, but sprinkle
them with meal and pray to them. While an essential feature in certain
abbreviated Katcinas, they are not always present, and their exhibition
has many secular or temporal characteristics or innovations more
or less dependent on the invention of the participants. The masked
persons who assist them are representatives of semimythologic beings,
called Píptuka, Ü′tci (Apache), Tacáb (Navaho), Kése, and others. A
description of the various modifications of their performances would
mean special account of each presentation and would vary in details
for each exhibition, but except in a very general way these variations
are quite unimportant in the study of the characteristics of the
abbreviated Katcinas. The following are some of the episodes introduced:
1. Inordinate eating and begging, urine drinking, gluttony, and
obscenity.
2. Flogging of one another, stripping off breechcloths, drenching with
foul water, ribald remarks to spectators, and comical episodes with
donkeys and dogs.
[Illustration: FIG. 40—The Áñakatcina.]
3. Story telling for pieces of corn under severe flogging by masked
persons, races, smearing one another with blood, urinating upon one
another, tormenting with cactus branches, etc.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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