emerged the heads of two artificial serpents drawing their bodies behind them. These effects were produced by hidden strings placed over the kiva rafters, and the images were made by this means to rise and fall, move backward and forward, or to approach each other. Their heads were drawn down to the floor and swept over the miniature cornfield, overturning it as in the first act, when a sun screen was also employed. They struggled with each other, winding their heads together, and performed various other gyrations at the wish of the manipulators. The effects produced with those strings were effective, and the motions of the men who held the strings and manipulated the effigies were closely concealed. It is probable that some of the strings were attached to the rattles used by the chorus.
The performance was a very realistic one, for in the dim light of the room the strings were invisible, and the serpents seemed to rise voluntarily from the vases. At its close the effigies sank into the cavities of the vases and the song ceased. In the darkness the paraphernalia were wrapped in blankets, and the actors left the room, passing to another kiva, where the performance was repeated. The personators of this act were from the Tcivato kiva of Walpi, and their chief was Pautiwa.
While we were witnessing these six exhibitions in one room shows were simultaneously being enacted in the other eight kivas on the East mesa. The six sets of actors, each with their paraphernalia, passed in turn from one room to another, in all of which spectators awaited their coming. Each of the performances was given nine times that night, and it may be safely said that all were witnessed by the 500 people who comprise the population of the three pueblos in one kiva or another.[1] It was midnight when this primitive theater closed, and the effigies were disjointed and carried to hidden crypts in the houses, where they were luted in jars with clay, not to see the light again until March of the next year.
Additional Acts Sometimes Performed
Although the sixth act closed the series of theatrical exhibitions in 1900, it by no means exhausts the dramatic resources of the Hopis in the presentation of their Great Serpent exhibition. This year (1900) was said by all to be one of abbreviation in all winter ceremonies and dramatic performances, but in more elaborate exhibitions, in other years, instead of six there are, we are told, as many as nine acts in this continuous show, employing one set of actors from each kiva on the mesa. Our account would be more comprehensive if it included short references to one or two of the important additional acts which occur in the more elaborate performance.[2]
- ↑ On such occasions each clan assembles in a certain kiva, which is said to be the kiva of that clan.
- ↑ The sun screen and serpent effigies used by men of the Nacab kiva have been described in a former article (The Palülükoñti, Journal of American Folk-Lore, vol. II, 1893). This performance has many points of likeness to that of actors from the plaza kiva of Hano, described in the first act.
