156 FEWKES: INITIATION AT HANO 



chiefs, stood up and were flogged, in the same way. As each 

 person passed to the altar after receiving the blows he took a 

 little liquid from the medicine bowl or meal from the basket, 

 rubbed it on his wounds, without a word, and took his seat on 

 the floor. The personators then left the room, after which the 

 chief spoke at length, in Tewa idiom, to the assembled people. 

 The author did not understand Tewa, but was told by an inter- 

 preter that he spoke to them on the meaning of the rite. He 

 may have explained that it was a dramatization of an old legend 

 and that the floggers were their own relatives personating super- 

 natural beings. Following the speech the spectators then 

 crowded around the altar, dipped their hands in the medicine, 

 and took a handful of meal with which they rubbed their bodies, 

 as both liquid and meal are considered salutary. At the close 

 r»f the ceremony the children were led out of the room by their 

 parents to their own homes. 



On February 15, the day subsequent to that in which the 

 flogging above described was performed, there was celebrated 

 at Walpi one of the most unusual of all rites of the Bean-plant- 

 ing festival. The main events of this ceremony were prayers 

 to a supernatural being called Masauu, the god of planting, 

 also known as the supernatural of the "surface of the earth." 

 The dramatic reception of Masauu occurred in a Walpi kiva at 

 8 o'clock in the evening and lasted far into the night. It is 

 such an unusual event, having been witnessed by the author 

 but once, that although it has no direct connection with the 

 child-flogging it is introduced here, for want of a more ap- 

 propriate place. 



On the night when Masauu's visit was personated all fires 

 throughout the East Mesa were extinguished. No one was 

 met in the streets. • Women and children were in hiding in 

 back rooms, and darkened house terraces were deserted, for the 

 dread being is greatly feared by all the Hopi. Knowing that 

 he was to be personated that night, the author resorted to the 

 chief kiva, in Walpi, early in the evening, and found about 20 

 men engaged in decorating their bodies with white kaoline 

 paint, drawing lines down their backs and legs and placing 



