150 FEWKES: INITIATION AT HANO 



idiom, but still retains a ritual which is essentially Cibolan (Zu- 

 nian). The latter pueblo is regarded by the Zufii as one of 

 their pueblos among the Hopi, its architectural features being 

 those characteristic of Tewa pueblos on the Rio Grande. Archi- 

 tecturally Hano is also Tewan, and its inhabitants retain the 

 Tewa idiom, its mythology and ritual being distinctly Tanoan, 

 little modified by the neighboring Walpi. 



The general character of the rituals in these three villages is 

 known, but very little has been published on the ritual of the 

 relatives of the Hano people who now live along the Rio Grande, 

 especially as to the nature of the initiations of youths into soci- 

 eties of priests. The Hopi introduce personifications of ances- 

 tors in their pagan dances, and call the personators by the name, 

 Katcinas (Cachenas), but apart from that our knowledge is 

 fragmentary. At Hano this worship formerly survived in its 

 original form, so that the following pages may give an idea of the 

 initiation of boys and girls into the Katcina cult as once prac- 

 tised, possibly still persisting, in villages along the Rio Grande. 



The month of February is an active one ceremonially in the 

 calendar of the Hopi towns. It is the month when lustration 

 rites are performed to purify the earth from the malign influ- 

 ences of a power which through sorcery is supposed to rule it 

 in winter. In that month, the return of the Katcinas, led by 

 their father, the Sun or Sky-god, is personated. The clans that 

 came to the Hopi from the south personate the return of their 

 Sky-god in December, the clans of Sitcomovi in January, but the 

 Katcinas are supposed to return in February and to remain 

 about the villages until July, when their departure is celebrated 

 in an extended farewell festival. The February ceremony is 

 called, in secular language, the Bean Planting, because beans are 

 sprouted in the kivas to be symbolically used by the returning 

 Sun-god to represent the fructifying forces of nature. These 

 sprouted beans are given at that time to the heads of all the 

 clans by the personator of the Sky-god, in answer to their prayers, 

 as a symbolic promise of good crops during the year. 



Of the various steps in initiatory rites from birth to maturity, 

 in the life of pueblo children, none is regarded more important 



