March, 1905. The Traditions of the Hopi • — Voth. 49 



(L6q6nmuru).* So the young man ran and when he came back his 

 father asked him: "How is it now, are you strong?" "Yes," the son 

 replied, "my legs are strong now." "All right," the father said. 

 Both of them were sorcerers (Povv^aka), bad men. 



Hereupon the father dressed four masks for him : the mask of the 

 Ydhponcha, the Ldnang Katcina, Aha Katcina (Oraibi: Kuruwd), and 

 the Katcfn-mana. The first resembles that of Skeleton (Mdsauwuu), 

 only it had small bunches of hair on each side and in front. All 

 these masks the young man put on his head, first that of the Mdna, 

 secondly the LAnang Katcina mask, thirdly the Aha mask, and 

 lastly that of the Ydhponcha. The father had dressed them during 

 the night. He then strung a number of fingers which he had cut off 

 of old dry corpses, and tied them to both of his son's wrists as rat- 

 tles. He furthermore prepared a long cedar-bark fuse which he 

 handed to the young man. After he had thus dressed his son, the 

 chief said : " Now you run back to Pine Ridge and set the pine timber 

 there on fire, then you come back here. " The son did as he had been 

 told and coming back he climbed up to the house of his father. He 

 now acted as a Ghost (du^langwu). The people had not noticed his 

 going or coming. After he had arrived in the house he ground com 

 on his sister's small mealing stone. While he was grinding he sang: 

 ' ' Tdtawunaha ! t6tawunaha ! " =* Hereupon he left the house and again 

 ran away and set other timbers on fire. 



The next night he returned, again ground a little corn, and 

 departed. This time the people became suspicious, and when they 

 assembled in their kivas in the morning they inquired who had been 

 about. They said: "Some one had gone into the house of the chief 

 and ran away again," and they requested some young men to hide 

 away the next night and watch. By this time several fires could be 

 seen in the distant timbers. The next night a number of young men 

 watched, hiding away at the different comers of the village, and one 

 also in the recess of the plaza. During the night the Powdka again 

 lighted several fires in the timbers and came rushing into the village. 

 When he arrived there his fuse had gone out, but they saw him enter 

 into the village and ascend into the house of the village chief, where 

 they heard him grinding and singing again. He again immediately 

 left the house and passed one of the watchers, the latter jumping up, 

 but the ghost dashed by springing across the plaza, where the watcher 

 became so scared that he did not make himself known , but remained 

 in a crouching position. So he dashed away and lighted other fires. 



' Simply for practice, it seems from the story. 

 - The meaning of this could not be ascertained. 



