Summer Sumaikoli
The summer Sumaikoli at Walpi has never been seen by an ethnologist, but the ceremony at Hano is elsewhere described.[1] It is a single day ceremony in which the seven Sumaikoli masks, to which the priests pray, are set in a row on a buckskin at one end of the room. Feathers (nakwakwoci) are tied to the masks (shields), and prayer-sticks are made and distributed to distant shrines.
The Sumaikoli helmet masks of Hano were captured in some Navaho foray and strewn about the base of the mesa. They were gathered by Kalacai, and are now kept with pious care in the room near Kalakwai's new house in Hano, where they can be seen hanging on the wall. With Kalacai's death the Sun clan (Tañ towa) of Hano became extinct and the care of the Sumaikoli devolved on others.
There was no public exhibition of the Sumaikoli in the summer of 1891, but the author has been told that the festival has of late been revived in Hano. The Hopi artist has given a fairly good picture of Sumaikoli as he appears in public[2] (see plate XXXIV).
Niman
This is an elaborate festival celebrating the departure of the katcinas from Walpi, and consists of elaborate rites before a complicated altar and a public dance, which differs in different Hopi pueblos. One of these is described in another place.[3] This is the only festival celebrating the departure of the katcinas, although there are several commemorating their advent. Thus, the Soyaluña dramatizes the advent of the Water-house or Rain-cloud clan's katcinas, the Pamürti that of the Zuñi clans, especially Asa and Honani, and the Powamû the advent of the ancients of the Katcina clans.
Tcüatikibi, Snake Dance
The Snake dance has no masked performers, and the artist has not drawn pictures of any of the participants.
Leleñti, or Leñpaki, Flute Dance
The Flute dance also has no masked personators, and the artist has furnished no picture of the participants. It might have been well to have obtained pictures of the Flute girls and youth, but photographs have been published[4] which show their paraphernalia better than native pictures. The Snake girl is dressed almost identically as the Flute girl, as shown by the figures mentioned.
- ↑ Journal of American Ethnology and Archæology, vol. II, 1892, p. 33.
- ↑ Dellenbaugh has published a few cuts from photographs representing Sumaikoli personations, but the symbolism of the masks is not clearly indicated in them. See The North Americans of Yesterday, New York, 1901.
- ↑ Journal of American Ethnology and Archæology, vol. II, 1892, p. 797.
- ↑ Nineteenth Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology, part II, 1900.
