ANCESTOR WORSHIP — FEWKES. 499 



demand presents, food, tobacco, or other gifts. They ask flour to 

 bake into bread from the women of the household, and present minia- 

 ture traps to men and boys, telling them to use them in snaring food 

 for meat. They also threaten those who disregard their demands, 

 saying, on their departure, that they will return in a few days and 

 if the required gifts are not forthcoming they will do violence to 

 the recalcitrant ones, cut off their heads, flog or mutilate their bodies. 

 They brandish their knives, bows, arrows, and other weapons with 

 which they threaten to kill those who do not furnish the presents. 

 These monsters make the routine of all the pueblos on the mesa on 

 their strange mission. 



A few days later they return and gather great quantities of food, 

 which they cslttj into the kivas. This food is cooked and devoured 

 in the great feast which closes the festival. The fact that the number 

 of participants in the annual celebration of the coming of the Katci- 

 nas is large, necessitates great quantities of food, which has no doubt 

 done much to keep alive this unique episode in the celebration of 

 Powamu. 



The masks of the Natackas are shaped like the heads of alligators ; 

 one is painted yellow, one green, one red, and one white, correspond- 

 ing to north, west, south, and east. They constitute a striking ele- 

 ment in the Katcina festival but otherwise than gathering food for 

 the celebrants are not ceremonially important. 



A bogey Katcina, very much feared by the children, appears in 

 the Hopi village at the time of the great Eeturn Katcina celebration. 

 She is the monster who bears on her back a basket and in her hand a 

 knife, threatening to cut off the heads of naughty children and carry 

 them away in her basket. At her coming the children shiver and 

 hide away in back rooms of the house. This unwelcome visitor is 

 shown in pi. 7, the third figure from the extreme right. 



The Hopi recognize quadruplets of every Katcina, differing in 

 colors but having the same sj^mbolism. Each cardinal direction has 

 its characteristic color; north is yellow, west is green or blue, south 

 is red, and east is white, and there is a Katcina for each of these 

 different cardinal points bearing corresponding colors. 



In addition to the masks which are used in the course of the yearly 

 celebrations, many households have others, black and dingy with age, 

 that once belonged to related clans now extinct, but are preserved as 

 heirlooms. The svmbols on these are characteristic and have a 

 meaning to those who now own them, but are never seen in public. 



In the days when the Hopi still preserved their aboriginal customs 

 one often saw on entering a room a number of wooden images sus- 

 pended from the rafters, which the Hopi call Katcinas. These 

 images have been called idols, but a little study shows that they 

 should be regarded as dolls bearing the symbolism of the Katcinas. 



