486 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1921. 



everything else organic and inorganic has life, which may be 

 influenced by magical processes, rites, songs, and prayers. The Hopi 

 believe that a few days after burial this spirit leaves the grave and 

 follows the sun to his realm in the underworld. It is customary to 

 place bowls containing food on the grave, and it is thought that the 

 spirit of the food nourishes that of the dead, but coyotes or other 

 wild animals consume the material food left in these mortuary bowls. 

 Prayers are said to the spirit. 



There exists also a belief that is strictly aboriginal — having origi- 

 nated independently of white influence, although possibly somewhat 

 modified by it — that the spirits of the dead return to earth either to 

 vex or bless mankind. The place of abode of the various tribes who 

 believe in a future life is supposed to be the underworld. Of this 

 abode little is said by the Indians, but there are descriptions of it in 

 Hopi stories, showing that in their minds life in it is like that on the 

 surface of the earth. 



This world, inhabited by spirits of the dead, or the underworld, is 

 spoken of in a vague way as being the home of the unborn. Out of it 

 in the beginning came the races of man. It might be called the womb 

 of the earth, while the place of emergence is known to the Hopi as the 

 sipapu. The life of the spirits of the dead in this underworld re- 

 sembles that on its surface. Here they preserve their clan organiza- 

 tion, have their altars and sacred rites, and plant and harvest. 



The relation between the living and the dead is apparently not 

 severed by death, but the " breath-bodies " of those that have passed 

 on revisit the pueblo and are represented by masked personations 

 called Katcinas (pi. 1) , which are past members of living clans. They 

 are identified as ancestors, but perhaps it would be better to call them 

 " other clan members." These personations of the dead, or Katcinas, 

 return to the earth and take part in the pageants, also called Katcinas, 

 that indicate many existing beliefs of the Hopi as to their nature. 



Various definitions have been given of the word katcina. It was 

 derived by one writer from the Spanish word " cochino," pig ; by 

 another from katci, life, na, father of, a much more probable inter- 

 pretation. The word is not confined to the Hopi, but is widespread 

 in the Eio Grande pueblos, from which it possibly originally came. 

 The Zuiii equivalent appears to be koko, and it is instructive to note 

 that Katcinas or Kokos are believed to return to the " Dance Hall of 

 the Dead," Kothualowan, said by both Hopi and Zuni to be situated at 

 Winema, in the Little Colorado Valley, about midway between the 

 two peoples. 



It is the author's belief that the idea of personating the ancients 

 by masques existed in the Eio Grande pueblos and that it was trans- 

 mitted to the Hopi mesas via the Little Colorado Valley. 



