Dec. 1901. The Oraibi Powamu Ceremony — Voth. 81 



leading to the village. Such offerings are usually deposited on the 

 four sides, north, west, south and east, of the village, but I have 

 been told repeatedly that these balls and feathers were offerings to 

 Hukangwu, the God of the High Winds and Sand Storms, which the 

 Hopi so much dread, because they destroy so much of their crop 

 either by covering it with sand, by cutting it off as the sharp particles 

 of sand are swept along the ground with great velocity, or by drying 

 it up. These sand storms almost invariably come from the south- 

 west and the west, the direction in which these offerings were 

 deposited. I was also informed that the places where these offerings 

 are deposited mark the shortest circuit of certain races which take 

 place shortly after the Powamu ceremony is over. In these contests 

 the racers* start on the west side of the mesa, run around the point 

 of the mesas as close as possible and ascend on the east side. At the 

 next race, a few days later, the circuit is larger, and it enlarges with 

 each race, so that at last the whole distance described is from eight 

 to ten miles, but does not, I was told, go inside of the places where 

 those four black balls are deposited. "f (See PI. XLV, a.) 



Eleventh Song. As soon as this messenger starts the eleventh 

 song is commenced, during which nothing takes place, the chief priest 

 only beating time with the aspergill. 



Twelfth Song. At its conclusion four men take a little corn-meal 

 from the baho tray and each then puts into his blanket one of the 

 baho stands, the food ball and the two reed tubes, and takes them 

 outside of the village; the one having the objects from the north side 

 of the altar going to the north side of the village, the one with those 

 from the west side going to the west side, etc. These four messen- 

 gers were all different in 1896 and 1901, except Lomaashniwa. He 

 took out the west side objects both in 1896 and 1898 and the east side 

 objects in 1901. I followed him in 1896 to the west and in 1901 to 

 the east side, and Moshohungwa in 1898 to the east side of the mesa. 

 Arriving at a place a few hundred yards from the village and about 

 one-third down the trail to the valley the messenger stopped, held 



♦The races all start on the west side of the village; the first from a place called Tflpchochmo; 

 the second from a spring called Lftnangva; the third from the same place but pointing in a different 

 direction and for a larger circuit than the former: the fourth from a place called Tutuck-molmik- 

 Pflhpamik; the fifth from the same place but pointing in a different direction and for a wider 

 circuit; the sixth from a place called Yuhtukiungwu; the seventh from Wuptowiungwu. 



tThe first ball is taken to Wuptowiungwu, a place west of the village from which the last of 

 the oncoming races starts, the others starting at various places close by. The messenger first 

 cleans the ground, lays down the ball, puts the nakwakwosi and corn-meal on it and then gives it a 

 kick in the same manner in which the balls are kicked later in the foot races. He then proceeds to 

 three different places southwest and south of the village, where he disposes of the three remaining 

 balls and nakwakwosts in the same manner. 



