PREFACE. 



The sun plays a very conspicuous part in the Hopi religion. There 

 is, as far as I know, no secret or altar ceremony where some prayer 

 offerings for the sun are not prepared and deposited. But in no other 

 society's ceremonial does the sun cult occupy such a large part as in 

 that of the two Flute orders, the Blue and the Drab. Not only are 

 many prayer offerings made for the sun, sun symbols used, etc., in the 

 regular Flute ceremonies (see Plate XLVIII), but these two societies 

 each celebrate a one day ceremony in winter and one in summer for the 

 special purpose of making prayer offerings for the sun. They call 

 these observances Tawa Baholawu, (Sun Prayer Offering making). This 

 paper gives brief descriptions of these sun ceremonies. None of them 

 is entirely complete, but as a good deal of similarity exists between them 

 they will give a fairly good idea of the general nature of this phase of 

 the Hopi sun cult, until more complete and detailed data can be ob- 

 tained. As the dissensions and quarrels among the Oraibi have already 

 very materially affected the completeness of the different ceremonies 

 in that village, it was thought best to publish the data which we have, 

 though they may be more or less fragmentary. 



All the ceremonies of the Drab Flute society are more elaborate than 

 those of the Blue Flute order. This may be due to the fact that the 

 number of Blue Flute members belonging to the liberal faction, and who 

 do not participate in their ceremonies, is smaller than that of the Drab 

 Flute members who belong to the conservative faction and hence refuse 

 to take part in any ceremony of their — the Drab Flute — society. The 

 latter has usually a greater number of singers and players, and prepares 

 more prayer offerings than the Blue Flutes. The only instance where I 

 have ever seen these two societies cooperate is the nine day summer 

 ceremony. Here the two great observances interlink repeatedly, which 

 makes a cooperation imjjerative, as without it the great mutual cere- 

 mony would be incomplete and hence in the mind of the Hopi fail to 

 accomplish its purposes. 



