The Winter Solstice Altars at Hano Pueblo

Shortly after Anote had finished sweeping the floor of the kiva, Satele entered, followed a few minutes later by Patuñtupi.25 These three men, with Kalakwai, who was weaving a blanket, were the only persons in the kiva while the altar was being made. Immediately after the other chiefs came in, Anote began the making of prayer-sticks. Four of these were made, each of characteristic Tewa form.

Each of these prayer-sticks was double the length of the middle finger, and was painted black with green pigment at the blunt end. On one of the two sticks which compose this prayer offering, there was cut a facet which was painted green with black dots representing eyes and mouth. The stick without the facet was called the male, and upon it a ferrule was incised.

The two sticks were bound together with two cotton strings in two places, but no packet of prayer-meal was appended as in Hopi prayer-sticks (pahos).26 A string with a terminal feather was attached to that which bound the two sticks together. Anote likewise made many feathered strings called nakwakwocis, and Satele fashioned two prayer-sticks; all of these were laid in a basket-tray on the floor.

After these prayer offerings had been completed, Anote placed on the floor a blanketful of moist clay which he further moistened and kneaded, fashioning a part of it into a cylinder about a foot and a half long, and two inches in diameter. This object was made blunt at one end and pointed at the other. The image represents Avaiyo, the Tewa name of Palülükoñ, the Great Serpent. He added to the blunt end, or head, a small clay horn,27 and inserted a minute feather in the tip of the tail. He fashioned into a ball the clay that remained after making the effigy of the serpent, patting it into a spherical compact mass about the size of a baseball. This, called the natci, later served as the pedestal to hold two eagle-wing feathers, and was placed at the kiva hatch each day to inform the uninitiated that ceremonies were in progress.

Having finished the effigy of the Great Serpent and formed the clay cylinder to his liking, Anote made on the western side of the floor of the kiva a ridge of sand, a few inches high and about two feet long, parallel with the western wall. While making this ridge he sat between it and the kiva wall. Having patted this sand ridge to the proper height, he removed from their wrapping of coarse cloth, four sticks, each about two feet long. These sticks, dingy with age, were tied in pairs, and were called poñya-saka, "altar ladders." They were inserted in the ridge in pairs, one on each side, and between them was placed in the sand a row of eagle feathers. As these were being put in position by Satele, Anote sang in a low tone, the song continuing as the other parts of the altar were arranged.28 Anote was frequently obliged to prompt his associate regarding the proper arrangement of the objects on the altar.

Satele next drew a line of prayer-meal before the ridge of sand, and from it, as a base line, made three deep semicircles representing rain-clouds. These were drawn as simple, elongated outlines, but immediately the chief sprinkled meal on the floor over the space enclosed by them. The curved edges of the three rain-cloud symbols were then rimmed with black sand or powdered coal. About twenty short, parallel lines, representing falling rain, were next drawn on the floor with cornmeal, and alternating with them the same number of black lines. Satele then placed upon the rain-cloud symbols, skeleton puma paws, two for each rain-cloud. At the apex of each symbolic cloud a stone fetish of a bear was deposited, and by the side of each an arrow-point or other stone object was laid.

The clay effigy of the Great Snake was next placed back of the rain-cloud symbols, with the head pointing southward. As this effigy lay on the floor, Anote made on it, with meal, representations of eyes and teeth, then drew two lines of meal about the neck for a necklace, and two other parallel lines about the tail. Black powder was then evenly sprinkled along the back of the effigy.

Both Anote and Satele procured a few ears of differently colored corn and shelled them upon the rain-cloud picture, sprinkling the grains evenly over the meal design, and adding a few to the back of the Great Snake. Squash and melon seeds were likewise distributed in the same way. The vase from which the stone effigies and other images were taken was then placed near the base of the middle rain-cloud picture, and a large quartz crystal was added on the left. A conch, which the author presented to the chief, was placed on the right of this vase. Anote then swept the floor north of the fireplace, and as he sang in a low tone Satele drew a straight line of meal from near the right pole of the ladder across the floor to the middle of the altar. He placed along this line, at intervals, four feathers, and near where it joined the altar he stretched a string, with an attached feather, called the pütabi.29 He then sprinkled a line of pollen along this trail of meal.

Anote's medicine-bowl was set just in front of the middle rain-cloud figure; the clay pedestal with inserted upright feathers stood before the left, and a basket-tray with prayer-meal before the right rain-cloud figure.

Altar in the Tewakiva at Hano

The altar (plate XIX) in the Tewakiva was begun about 10 A.M. on the Assembly day, and was made by Pocine,30 assisted by his uncle, Puñsauwi, both members of the Nañ-towa, or Sand clan.

The preparations began with the manufacture of a clay effigy of the Great Snake similar to but larger than that made by Anote in the Moñkiva. The clay was moistened and kneaded on the floor, and then rolled into a cylinder about three feet long, blunt at one end and pointed at the other.

Four clay balls were made at the same time. One of these later served as the base of a standard (natci) which was subsequently placed each morning on the kiva hatch to warn the uninitiated not to enter. The other three were placed back of the altar and supported the sticks called the altar-ladders, which will be considered later.

Pocine outlined with meal on the floor a square figure which he divided into two rectangular parts by a line parallel with the northern side. He used meal of two colors – white for one rectangle, and light brown or pinkish for the other. Having made the outlines of the rectangle with great care, he carelessly sprinkled the enclosed spaces with the meal, hardly covering the sand base upon which the figures were drawn. He then added four triangular figures in meal on the south or front side of the rectangular symbols. These images represented rain-clouds, and were alternately white and brown.31 To the tips of these triangular rain-cloud figures he appended zigzag continuations with lozenge-shaped tips representing the lightning of the four cardinal points. A stone spearpoint or arrowhead was laid on each lozenge-like tip of the zigzag lightning.32

The two men, Pocine and Puñsauwi, next raised the snake effigy and bore it to a position back of the rectangular meal figures on the floor. They deposited it in such a way that its head pointed southward. Having set the snake effigy in the position which it was to retain throughout the ceremony, Pocine sprinkled a black powder along the back of the image, while his uncle inserted several kernels of corn in the blunt end to represent sent the teeth of an upper jaw. Two kernels of corn were then stuck into the head to indicate eyes, and an imitation necklace, also of grains of corn, was made around the neck of the idol. A double encircling row of corn grains was inserted in the tail or pointed end of the effigy, and Pocine added a small feather at the tip.

After the effigy had been put in position and adorned in the manner described, both Pocine and his uncle again shelled ears of corn on the rectangles of meal,33 to which were added squash, melon, and other seeds. These were regularly distributed, some being dropped along the back of the image.

A row of eagle feathers was now inserted along the back of the effigy, instead of in a ridge of sand as in the Moñkiva altar. There were twelve of these feathers, and they were placed at equal intervals from the neck to the tail of the effigy. Puñsauwi then placed the three balls of clay, previously mentioned, back of the image, and in each of these balls he inserted two sticks, called pahos, similar to those used on the altar of the Moñkiva. These are ancient objects, being reputed to have descended from a remote past. One stick in each pair was called the male, the other the female, as is true of all double prayer-sticks used by the Hopi Indians. They are called poñya-saka, "altar-ladders," and imitations34 of them in miniature are made and placed in shrines on the final day of the ceremony.

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

Back of the altar, leaning against the wall of the kiva, was set upright a wooden slat, notched on both edges and called tawa-saka, "sun-ladder." Miniature imitations (plate XX) of this are made in this kiva on the last day of the Tûñtai and deposited in a shrine near Sikyaowatcomo, the site of the early settlement of the Tewa. The poñya-saka or tawa-saka mentioned has not before been seen in any Hopi ceremony, and it may be characteristic of Tewa altars. A notched prayer-stick, called the rain-cloud ladder, is placed in the same shrine at this time. This is characteristic of the Tewa of Tusayan, but is not found in the Hopi pahos, with which I am familiar.40

The reason these prayer-sticks are termed "ladders" is because they have the form of an ancient type of ladder made by notching a log of wood. They are symbols of the ladders by which the Sun is supposed to emerge from his house at sunrise. In the Hopi and Tewa conception the Sun is weary as he withdraws to the south in winter and these ladders are made to aid him in rising, and thus in returning to bless them. More light will doubtless be shed on the significance of the sun-ladder prayer-offerings when we know more of the ceremonies about the Tûñtai altars.

No típoni or badge of office was placed on this altar on the day it was made, and my abrupt departure from the East Mesa made it impossible for me to see the rites which are later performed about it.

It is evident, from the preceding description, that the priests of Hano have a knowledge of the Great Serpent cult corresponding to the worship of Palülükoñ. Among the Hopi the Patki people claim to have introduced this cult41 in comparatively recent times. There is a Tewa clan called Okuwuñ (Cloud) which corresponds, so far as meaning goes, with the Patki clan of the Hopi. Whether this clan brought with it a knowledge of the Great Snake is not clear, as traditions are silent on that point.

There is a tradition in the Okuwuñ clan that their ancestors, like those of the Patki, came from the south, and that the Nañ-towa bears a like relationship to the Okuwuñ that the Hopi Tuwa clan does to the Patki.42 If this tradition is well founded, a knowledge of the Great Snake fetish of the two Hano kivas may have been brought by the Okuwuñ and Nañ-towa into Tusayan from the same place as that of Palülükoñ.

The Kwakwantu society of the Patki clans among the Hopi are intimately connected with this Great Plumed or Horned Snake cult. In some parts of the New-fire ceremony, in which this society takes a prominent part, each member of the society carries in his hand a small wooden image of a horned snake. These images are called moñkohus, some of the typical forms of which are figured in an article on the Naacnaiya.43 The head of the snake and its horn are well represented in several of these wooden effigies.

Conclusions

The special interest attached to the Winter Solstice altars at Hano is in the fact that they are made by Tewa priests whose ancestors came to Tusayan about the beginning of the eighteenth century. The makers claim that their forefathers brought a knowledge of them from Tcewadi, in the upper valley of the Rio Grande in New Mexico, and that their relatives in the Tewa pueblos in the east still use like altars in their celebration at the Tûñtai.

Nothing, so far as known, has yet been published on the Tûñtai altars of the eastern Tanoan people, but ethnographers may yet find in the kivas of those villages material which will render the above descriptions of comparative interest. The resemblance of the Tûñtai altars to that of the Patki and related families in the Walpi Moñkiva at the Winter Solstice, is a very distant one. Both have snake effigies, but there is practically little else in common between them, or with the altar erected at the same time by the Pakab people in the Tcivatokiva. The Tûñtai altars are characteristically Tewan, and, while homologous with each other, are different from any yet known from the Hopi pueblos.

The purport of the Tûñtai rites at Hano seems to be similar to that of the Hopi Soyaluña, namely, to draw back the sun in its southern declination, and to fertilize the corn and other seeds and increase all worldly possessions. As at Walpi, strings with attached feathers are made and given to men and women with wishes that the gods may bring them blessings. These strings are also attached to beams of houses, placed in springs of water, tied to the tails of horses, burros, sheep, dogs, chickens, and indeed every possession which the Indian has and wishes to increase. The presence of the idol of the snake means snake worship.

The survival of the Tanoan Tûñtai altars at Hano is typical of the way in which the Tusayan ritual has grown to its present complicated form. They are instances of an intrusive element which has not yet been amalgamated, as the knowledge of them is still limited to unassimilated people and clans.

Similar conditions have existed from time to time during the history of the Hopi, when new clans were added to those already existing. For many years incoming clans maintained a strict taboo, and each family held the secrets of its own religion; but as time went on and assimilation resulted by intermarriage, the religious society arose, composed of men and women of different clans. The family to which a majority of the membership belonged continued to hold the chieftaincy, and owned the altar and its paraphernalia, cherishing the legends of the society. But when men of other clans were admitted to membership, a mutual reaction of one society on another naturally resulted. This tended to modifications which have obscured the original character of distinctive family worship.

The problem of the Hopi ritual, by which is meant the sum of all great ceremonies in the Hopi calendar, deals largely with a composite system. It implies, as elsewhere pointed out, an investigation of the characteristic religious observances of several large families which formerly lived apart in different pueblos. It necessitates a knowledge of the social composition of Walpi and of the history of the different phratries which make up the population of the village.

There is a corollary to the above conclusions. No pueblo in the southwest, outside of Tusayan, has the same ceremonial calendar as Walpi, because the population of none is made up of the same clans united in the same relative proportions. Hence the old remark that what is true of one pueblo is true of all, does not apply to their ritual. Some ceremonies at Jemez, Acoma, Sia, and Zuñi, for instance, are like some ceremonies at Walpi; but the old ceremonial calendar in any one of these pueblos was different from that of the other, because the component families were not the same. In the same way the ceremonies at Hano and Walpi have certain things in common, due no doubt to the assimilation in the latter of certain Tanoan clans, but their calendars are very different. The Tûñtai at Hano differs more widely from the Winter Solstice ceremony at Walpi, a gunshot away, than the Walpi observance differs from that at Oraibi, twenty miles distant. So we might also predict that if we knew the character of Winter Solstice altars in the Rio Grande Tewa villages, they would be found to resemble those of Hano more closely than the altars of Hano resemble those of Walpi.

1

The Winter Solstice Ceremony at Walpi (American Anthropologist, vol. XI).

2

These studies were made under the auspices of the Bureau of American Ethnology.

3

Most of the people of Sitcomovi are of the Asa and Honani clans, of Tanoan ancestry, but they long ago lost the Tewa language and their Tanoan identity.

4

The site of this last settlement of the Patki people, before they joined those of Walpi, is in the plain about four miles south of the East Mesa. The ruins of the pueblo are still visible, and the foundation walls can readily be traced.

5

The Hano names of these pueblos are – San Juan, – ; Santa Clara, Kap'a; San Ildefonso, Pocuñwe; Pojoaque, P'okwode; Nambe, Nûme; Tesuque, Tetsogi. They also claim Taos (Tawile) and Picuris (Ohke), but say that another speech is mixed with theirs in these pueblos.

6

The Tewa of Hano call the Hopi Koso, and the Hopi speak of the Hano people as the Towa or the Hanum-nyûmû. The word "Moki," so constantly used by white people to designate the Hopi, is never applied by the Hopi to themselves, and they strongly object to it. The dead are said to be moki, which enters into the formation of verbs, as tconmoki, to starve; tcinmoki, to be very lonesome, etc. The name Hano or Hanoki is, I believe, simply a combination of the words Hano and ki, "eastern pueblo." The element hano appears also in the designation for American, Pahano, "eastern water"; pahanoki, "American house." Both the Asa and the Tewa peoples are called Hanum clans.

7

Remains of old reservoirs, elaborately walled, from which water was drawn by means of a gourd tied to a long pole, are still pointed out near Tukinovi and are said to have belonged to the Pe-towa. Old Tcasra claims that they were in use in his mother's grandmother's time.

8

The troubles following the great rebellion of 1680 drove many Tewa from the Rio Grande valley to Tusayan.

9

It is impossible to make this enumeration accurate, hence these numbers must be regarded as approximations.

10

It is not unusual to find several names applied to the same person. Thus, Hani, the chief of the Piba clans at Walpi, is called Lesma in the Snake kiva. The Walpi call the author Nakwipi, but the Flute chief at Cipaulovi insists that his name is Yoyowaiamû, which appellation was given when the author was inducted into the Flute rites at that pueblo in 1891.

11

The gap in the East Mesa just at the head of the trail before one enters Hano. The pueblo of Walpi derived its name from this gap.

12

Their nomadic enemies raided so near the pueblo of the East Mesa that the priests were unable to visit their shrines without danger. The idol of Talatumsi, used in the New-fire ceremony, was removed from its shrine north of Wala on that account.

13

Later, as the outcome of a petty quarrel near the middle of the eighteenth century, the Asa women moved to Sitcomovi which they founded. At present there is only one woman of this clan in Walpi, and no women of the Honani, both of which clans are strong in Sitcomovi.

14

Ten Broeck in 1852 seems to have been the first writer to adopt the true name, Hano, of the Tewa pueblo on the East Mesa.

15

One of the differences in custom between Hopi and Tewa women is the method of making their coiffures. Unmarried girls of Walpi and Hano dress their hair in the same manner, with whorls above the ears. Married women have different ways of wearing their hair in the two pueblos. During the wedding ceremonies at Hano the mother of the bride, in the presence of guests, combs her daughter's hair, or that part of it on the front of the scalp, over the face, so that it hangs down like a veil. She ties the hair on the back of the head in two coils, one of which hangs on either side, but the hair before the face she cuts on a level with the chin, beginning at the top of the ears. The hair which remains is too short to be done up in coils, and is simply brushed to one side or the other. Among Hopi married women all the hair is included in the two coils, and the "bang" is absent.

16

The names of many Tewa women end in pobi, corresponding with the Hopi si, a contracted form of sihû, in women's names, as Hoñsi, Nasiumsi, etc.

17

Among the Hopi the moon (Tewa p'o) is called müiyaûh; new moon, müiyakatci; first quarter, müiyachaunacapti; full moon, müiyanacapti. An eclipse of the moon is spoken of as müiyaûh moki, "dead moon." There was a total eclipse of the moon visible at Walpi near the end of December, 1898, when the full moon arose partially obscured. This, said Sikyatala, was bad for the Americans who dwell in the far east, but not for the Hopi. A "dead moon," when in the meridian of the Hopi pueblos, is considered kalolamai, "bad."