Canyons of the Colorado
After dark a pretty little fire is built in the chimney corner and I spend the evening in rehearsing to a group of the leading men the story of my travels in the canyon country. Of our journey down the canyon in boats they have already heard, and they listen with great interest to what I say. My talk with them is in the Mexican patois, which several of them understand, and all that I say is interpreted.
The next morning we are up at daybreak. Soon we hear loud shouts coming from the top of the house. The cacique is calling his people. Then all the people, men, women, and children, come out on the tops of their houses. Just before sunrise they sprinkle water and meal from beautiful grails; then they all stand with bare heads to watch the rising of the sun. When his full orb is seen, once more they sprinkle the sacred water and the sacred meal over the tops of the houses. Then the cacique in a loud voice directs the labor of the day. So his talk is explained to us. Some must gather corn, others must go for wood, water must be brought from the distant wells, and the animals of the strangers must be cared for. Now the house tops present a lively scene. Bowls of water are brought; from them the men fill their mouths and with dexterity blow water over their hands in spray and wash their faces and lave their long shining heads of hair; and the women dress one another’s locks. With bowls of water they make suds of the yucca plant, and wash and comb and deftly roll their hair, the elder women in great coils at the back of the head, the younger women in flat coils on their cheeks. And so the days are passed and the weeks go by, and we study the language of the people and record many hundreds of their words and observe their habits and customs and gain some knowledge of their mythology, but above all do we become interested in their religious ceremonies.
One afternoon they take me from Oraibi to Shupaulovi to witness a great religious ceremony. It is the invocation to the gods for rain. We arrive about sundown, and are taken into a large subterranean chamber, into which we descend by a ladder. Soon about a dozen Shamans are gathered with us, and the ceremony continues from sunset to sunrise. It is a series of formal invocations, incantations, and sacrifices, especially of holy meal and holy water. The leader of the Shamans is a great burly bald-headed Indian, which is a remarkable
OVER THE RIVER.
sight, for I have never seen one before. Whatever he says or does is repeated by three others in turn. The paraphernalia of their worship is very interesting. At one end of the chamber is a series of tablets of wood covered with quaint pictures of animals and of corn, and overhead are conventional black clouds from which yellow lightnings are projected, while drops of rain fall on the corn below. Wooden birds, set on pedestals and decorated with plumes, are arranged in various ways. Ears of corn, vases of holy water, and trays of meal make up a part of the paraphernalia of worship. I try to record some of the prayers, but am not very successful, as it is difficult to hold my interpreter to the work. But one of these prayers is something like this:
“Muingwa pash lolomai, Master of the Clouds, we eat no stolen bread; our young men ride not the stolen ass; our food is not stolen from
the gardens of our neighbors. Muingwa pash lolomai, we beseech of thee to dip your great sprinkler, made of the feathers of the birds of the heavens, into the lakes of the skies and sprinkle us with sweet rains, that the ground may be prepared in the winter for the corn that grows in the summer.”
At one time in the night three women were brought into the kiva. These women had a cincture of cotton about their loins, but were otherwise nude. One was very old, another of middle age, and the third quite young, perhaps fourteen or fifteen years old. As they stood in a corner of the kiva their faces and bodies were painted by the bald-headed priest. For this purpose he filled his mouth with water and pigment and dexterously blew a fine spray over the faces, necks, shoulders, and breasts of the women. Then with his finger as a brush he decorated them over this groundwork, which was of yellow, with many figures in various colors. From that time to daylight the three women remained in the kiva and took part in the ceremony as choristers and dancing performers.
At sunrise we are filed out of the kiva, and a curious sight is presented to our view. Shupaulovi is built in terraces about a central court, or plaza, and in the plaza about fifty men are drawn up in a line facing us. These men are naked except that they wear masks, strange and grotesque, and great flaring headdresses in many colors.
MASHONGNAVI.