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This is Masauwu, to whom many prayers are said. Then there is the Spider Woman or Earth Goddess, Spouse of the Sun and Mother of the Twin War Gods, prominent in all Hopi mythology. Apart from these and the deified powers of nature, there is another revered group, the Kachinas, spirits of ancestors and some other beings, with powers good and bad.
In February the Powamu, "bean sprouting," ceremony occurs, with very elaborate ritual signifying consecration of fields for planting. Various masks and symbolic costumes are used, and the children's initiation is accompanied with a ceremonial "flogging" really a switching by kachinas. Dr.
And it is a particularly happy day for the young folk, for the Kachinas bring great loads of corn, beans, and melons, and baskets of peaches, especially as gifts for the children; also new dolls and brightly painted bows and arrows are given them. The closing act of the drama is a grand procession carrying sacred offerings to a shrine outside the village.
That a surprising degree of accuracy is observed in its oral transmission from generation to generation is revealed by certain comparisons with the records made by the Spanish explorers in the sixteenth century. =Gods and Kachinas= The Hopi live, move, and have their being in religion.
Since every ceremony has its particular costumes, rituals, songs, there is plenty of variety in these matters and more detail of meaning than any outsider has ever fathomed. The Niman, or farewell dance of the Kachinas, takes place in July. It is one of their big nine-day festivals, including secret rites in the kivas and a public dance at its close.
Coolidge says: "In all that has been said concerning the gods and the Kachinas, the spiritual unity of all animate life, the personification of nature and the correct conduct for attaining favor with the gods, no reference has been made to morality as their object.
Indian dolls of painted wood and feathers, made in the image of the Kachinas, are given the children, who thus get a graphic idea of the supposed appearance of the heroes of some of these stories.
"Soon the chief, he was the war chief, went to visit his friend, the war chief at Mishongnovi, and asked him to arrange a dance without letting the village chief know, because he said he wanted to give some kind of exhibition there. "So his friend arranged the dance and four nights of practice followed. This dance was to be given by the Snow Kachinas.
These Kachinas are colorfully represented in the painted and befeathered dolls, in masks and ceremonies, and in the main are considered beneficent and are accordingly popular. They intercede with the spirits of the other world in behalf of their Hopi earth-relatives.
"When they got to Mishongnovi the dance was going on and everybody laughing and having a good time, for the clown kachinas were going round pestering the dancing kachinas. These rough clown kachinas took turns appearing and disappearing, and some coming, others going away, then coming back.
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