United States or Puerto Rico ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
He often discussed this question with his father, saying, 'It must flow down some great pit, into the underworld, for after all these years the gorge below never fills up, and none of the water ever flows back again. His father would say, 'Maybe it flows so far away that many old men's lives would be too short to mark its return. Tiyo said, 'I am constrained to go and solve this mystery, and I can rest no more till I make the venture. His family besought him with tears to forego his project, but nothing could shake his determination, and he won them to give their sorrowful consent.
'My heart is glad; I have long been expecting you; come down into my house. 'How can I, said Tiyo, 'when it will scarce admit the point of my toe? She said, 'Try, and when he laid his foot upon the hole, it widened out larger than his body, and he passed down into a roomy kiva." * Spider-Woman is an important figure in Hopi mythology. She it is who weaves the clouds so that rain may come.
Fewkes, years ago, and published in the Journal of American Ethnology and Archaeology, Vol. IV., 1894, pages 106-110. But here shall be given the much shorter and very adequate account of Dr. Colton, as abbreviated from that of A.M. Stephen: "To-ko-na-bi was a place of little rain, and the corn was weak. Tiyo, a youth of inquiring mind, set out to find where the rain water went to.
Because of this, Tiyo and his family were forced to emigrate and on their travels taught the Snake rites to other clans." Most of the accounts tell us that later only human children were born to the pair, and these became the ancestors of the Snake Clan who, in their migrations, finally reached Walpi, where we now find them, the most spectacular rain-makers in the world.
The Snake Chief said to Tiyo, 'Here we have an abundance of rain and corn; in your land there is but little; fasten these prayers in your breast; and these are the songs that you will sing and these are the prayer-sticks that you will make; and when you display the white and black on your body the rain will come. He gave Tiyo part of everything in the kiva as well as two maidens clothed in fleecy clouds, one for his wife, and one as a wife for his brother.
The old building still exists. When we arrived there the tobacco crop had just been harvested, and the trader was kept busy from early morning until late at night buying tobacco at the rate of a penny per pound, the price being taken in the form of trade goods. We moved on to Tutura, the mission station of that remarkable man Tiyo Soga. Mrs.
Hence in many Hopi ceremonies, where rain is prayed for, she is especially propitiated. The legend then goes on to describe how Tiyo is taken and guided by the Spider-Woman to various places, where he learned all about the ceremonies that the Hopis now perform at their Snake Dance to produce rain.
According to Hopi mythology, the snake and antelope clans, or families, are descended from the union of Tiyo and his brother with two sisters, daughters of the snake mother, Tiyo being the paternal Ancestor of the Snake Clan, and his brother of the Antelope Clan.
"More than once I have been warned by the Indians not to enter this canyon. They considered it disobedience to the gods, and contempt for their authority, and believed it would surely bring upon one their wrath." Hopi Legend of Tiyo, their Cultus-Hero, and the Canyon.
In plain words the Spider Woman tells Tiyo that a time will come when men with white skins and a strange tongue shall come among the Hopitah, and the Snake Brotherhood, having brave hearts, will be first to make friends and learn good from them. But the Hopitah are not to follow in the white men's footsteps but to walk beside them, always keeping in the footsteps of their fathers!
Word Of The Day