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It is said that a son of a prominent chief, disguised as a katcina, offered a prayer-stick to a maiden, and as she received it he cut her throat with a stone knife. He is said to have escaped to the mesa top and to have made his way along its edge to his own town, taunting his pursuers.
They were late arrivals in Tusayan, coming at least after the Flute people, and probably before the Honani or Badger people, who brought, I believe, the katcina cult. Although we can not definitely assert that this cultus was unknown at Sikyatki, it is significant that in the ruins no ornamental vessel was found with a figure of a katcina mask, although these figures occur on modern bowls.
The only fragment of pottery from Awatobi or Sikyatki with designs which could be identified with any modern picture of a katcina was found, as might be expected, in the former ruin. This small fragment is instructive, in that it indicates the existence of the katcina cult in Tusayan before 1700; but the rarity of the figures of these supernatural beings is very suggestive.
As a child she receives much attention and toys galore, as the parents are very fond of their children and devote much time to their amusement. They make dolls of their Katcinas which are given to the children to play with. A Katcina is the emblem of a deity that is represented either in the form of a doll carved out of wood, woven into a plaque or basket, or painted on tiles and pottery.
There are between three and four hundred Katcina dolls each one representing a different divinity. When a doll is given to a child it is taught what it means, thus combining instruction with amusement. The method is a perfect system of kindergarten teaching, which the Moquis invented and used centuries before the idea occurred to Froebel.
My archeological work at Awatobi began on July 6, 1895, and was continued for two weeks, being abandoned on account of the defection of my Hopi workmen, who left their work to attend the celebration of the Niman or "Farewell" katcina, a July festival in which many of them participated.
While there may be some doubt of the validity of my identification, yet, taken in connection with the fragment of a vase with the face of Wupamo, I think there is no doubt that the katcina cult was practiced at Awatobi.
The fragment in question is of ancient ware, resembling the so-called orange type of pottery, and is apparently a part of the neck of a vase. The figure represents Wupamo, the Great-cloud katcina, and is marked like the doll of the same as it appears in the Powamû or February celebration at Walpi.
As they belong especially to the katcina cult, which is naturally supposed to have been in vogue at Awatobi, I was greatly interested in the finding of a fragment representing a grotesque head which reminded me of a glutton of the division of the Tcukuwympkia called Tcuckutû.
Among the present Tusayan Indians the human hand is rarely used, but oftentimes the beams of the kivas are marked by the girls who have plastered them with impressions of their muddy hands, and there is a katcina mask which has a hand painted in white on the face.
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