FEWKES: INITIATION AT HANO 153 



objects tucked in certain niches made in the wall for that pur- 

 pose. Boxes containing soil, in which bean seeds 2 had been 

 planted a week before, were concealed by a wagon sheet hung 

 across the end of the room. 



Three personators took the prominent parts in the child flog- 

 ging, two of whom personated the great Sky-god and the third 

 represented the earth, or old woman, who they believe makes the 

 germs of life grow. The personator who flogs the children rep- 

 resents the father of all living on earth as well as inhabitants of 

 the underworld. 3 An account of his costume may be instructive 

 as embodying their symbolic conception of these supernaturals. 



Each personator of the Sky-god wears on his head a mask- 

 helmet, painted black, and adorned with clusters of feathers, 

 long beards made of horsehair with attached feathers hanging 

 from their chins. The body, upper arms, and thighs are painted, 

 smut from the bottom of an old cooking pot serving for black 

 paint. Markings are drawn with gypsum on the upper arms 

 and thighs, and the legs and forearms are painted with the same 

 material. Several ears of corn strung together form their belts 

 from which, reaching to their knees, hangs a fringe of horsehair 

 stained red, the body being naked. This crude representation 

 of the Sky-god has the same symbolic marks as a wooden idol 

 of this god on a Hopi altar, and is called Tunwup Katcina. 



The three personators dressed near a shrine outside the kiva 

 on the trail below the pueblo and entered Hano from the east 

 in order to preserve the illusion that they came from a distant 

 place in the east, where the sun, whom they personify, rises. 

 They entered the kiva where spectators had already assembled, 

 and shortly after their appearance, the man personating the 

 Earth-woman entered the room passing through the hatchway 



2 These beans were forced to sprout in midwinter in a superheated atmosphere 

 of the kiva, and were carried later by the Sun-god to represent symbolically 

 fructification of food plants. Children were formerly taught that these sprout- 

 ing beans are brought by a supernatural being, not being permitted to know that 

 they were raised by their parents in the kiva. 



3 These men belonged to Hano clans. There are two Sky-gods in their myth- 

 ology, one representing the sun, and the other the moon. 



