Second Act
The second act, a buffalo dance, was one of the best on this eventful night. Several men wearing helmets representing buffalo heads, with lateral horns and shaggy sheepskins, and wool painted black hanging down their backs, entered the room. They carried zigzag slats of wood, symbolic of lightning, and performed a characteristic dance to the beat of a drum. These buffalo personations were accompanied by a masked man and boy representing eagles, who danced before them, uttering calls in imitation of birds.
The same buffalo dance, but more complicated, was celebrated earlier in the winter in the public plaza of Walpi, at which time the men were accompanied by girls dressed as Buffalo maids who did not appear in the second act in the kivas. No representation of the eagles was seen in this public dance.
The Buffalo maids bore disks decorated with sun emblems on their backs, and carried notched sticks representing "sun ladders"[1] in their hands. It is appropriate that this dance should be given by men from the Tanoan pueblo, Hano, as it was probably introduced by men of the same stock from the Rio Grande region, by whom this village was settled.
Third Act
A new set of actors made their presence known at the entrance to the kiva soon after the departure of the Buffaloes, but these were found, on their entrace, to be very unlike those who had preceded them. They brought no sun screens nor serpent effigies with them, but were clothed in ceremonial kilts, and wore masks shaped like helmets. They were called Püükoñ katcinas, and were accompanied by two men dressed like women, one representing their grandmother and the other their mother. The former personated Kokyan wüqti,[2] or Spider woman, and wore a closely fitting mask with white crescentic eyes painted on a blackened face, and white hair made of raw cotton. She danced before the fire in the middle of the room, gracefully posturing her body and arms, while the other sang and danced to the beat of a drum. As the actors filed out of the room Spider woman distributed to the spectators seeds of corn, melon, and the like.[3]
- ↑ Ancient Hopi ladders were notched logs, some of which are still extant on the East mesa. In the winter solstice ceremony at Hano there stand, back of the altars, notched slats of wood called "sun ladders," which are supposed to be efficacious in rites recalling the sun or aiding an enfeebled sun to rise out of his "home." The prayer-sticks carried by the Buffalo maids are imitations of these sun ladders.
- ↑ This part was taken by Nanahe, a Hopi who has for many years made his home at Zuñi and returned to Walpi to be present at the dance.
- ↑ The mother and grandmother of Püükoñ katcinas naturally appear as representatives of the ancients of some clan with which this special form of the katcina cult originated. Hahai wüqti, who does not appear in this act, but in the first and fifth, is represented by Kokyan wüqti, probably the same supernatural under a different name.
