fewkes] THE ALdSAKA CULT OF THE HOPI INDIANS 539
wooden images, but threatening them that if these should be lost or destroyed all the people would die."
Many other but widely divergent legends exist regarding Aldsaka, a number of which are associated with the pueblo of Awatobi, which was formerly one of the most populous Hopi towns. At one time this village experienced drouth and famine, and Aldsaka, from his home in the San Francisco mountains, ob- served the trouble of the people. Disguised as a youth he visited Awatobi and became enamored with a maiden of that town. Several times he visited her, but no one knew whence he came or whither he went, for his trail no one could follow. The parents of the girl at last discovered that he came on the rainbow, and recognized him as a divine being. The children of this maid were horned beings, or Aldsakas, but their identity was not at first recognized.
Like all the cultus heroes, Aldsaka is said, in legends, to have been miraculously born of a virgin. His father was the Sun, his mother an Earth-goddess, sometimes called a maiden. Like many gods, he traveled on the rainbow ; he lived at Tawaki, the house of his father, the Sun, or the San Francisco mountains.
It would seem from all these stories that the Aldsaka cult was vigorous in Awatobi, the ill-fated pueblo where the zealous Padre Porras lost his life in 1633, and that it was of southern origin, having been introduced into Awatobi by one of the phratries from the south which lived in the now ruined pueblos on the Little Colorado. The most complicated survival of the Aldsaka cultus is to be expected in the Middle Mesa pueblos, because the phratry which introduced it founded some of these pueblos ' and still survives there. The result of an examination of many Aldsaka myths would seem to be a conclusion that he is a cultus hero of clans which came from the south.
��1 The Squash clan is extinct at Walpi.
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