Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: July 7, 2025
It was late afternoon by the time all the songs had been sung, and evening when the two processions had finished their ceremonial ascent to the mesa top, pausing again and again as the old priest went ahead and drew his symbolic barrier of meal and the three rain clouds across the path, which were to be covered with the pahos of the Flute children, then taken up and moved on to the next like symbol.
Among the most significant mortuary objects used by the ancient Tusayan people may be mentioned the so-called prayer-sticks or pahos. As I shall discuss the forms and meaning of prayer-sticks in my account of Sikyatki, where a much larger number were found, I will simply mention a few of the more striking varieties from Awatobi.
The green color, which was the most common, is an impure carbonate of copper, the same as that with which pahos are painted for ceremonial use today. Several shallow, saucer-like vessels contained yellow ocher, and others sesquioxide of iron, which afforded both the ancients and the moderns the red pigment called cuta, an especial favorite of the warrior societies.
One of the most striking instances of resemblance between the old and the new is the likeness of some of these ancient pahos to those now made by the Flute society, and if this resemblance is more than a coincidence, the conclusion that the present flute paho is a survival of the ancient form may be accepted.
This use of pahos is of ancient origin in Tusayan, as shown by the excavations at Sikyatki, where they were found in mortuary bowls or vases deposited by the relatives or surviving members of the sacerdotal societies to which the deceased had belonged.
They are painted with green and black mineral pigments, the former of which had undoubtedly done much to preserve the soft wood of which they were manufactured. As at the present day, cottonwood and willow were the favorite prescribed woods for pahos, and some of the best were made of pine.
This pre-Spanish custom in Tusayan was discovered in my excavations at Awatobi, but the prayer-sticks from that place were fragmentary as compared with the almost perfect pahos from Sikyatki. There are also many fragments, the former shapes of which could not be determined.
The old priest led the procession, the three children behind him, then the flute players, followed by the priests bearing emblems, and the priest with the bull roarer at the end of the line. Each fraternity preserved its own formation. Having reached the village plaza they marched to the Kisa and deposited their pahos and ceremonial offerings, then dispersed.
This may be a possible explanation of the scratches on the sides of the ancient tube pipes from Sikyatki. These pahos are made of a prescribed wood, of length determined by tradition, and to them are tied appendages of symbolic meaning. They are consecrated by songs, about an altar, upon which they are laid, and afterward deposited in certain shrines by a special courier.
It is barely possible that this may have been a whizzer or bull-roarer, such as are used at the present day to imitate the wind, and commonly carried by the performer in a public dance who personifies the warrior. The best preserved of all the pahos from the Sikyatki graves are represented in u and v, both of which were found in the same mortuary bowl.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking