596 ANNUAL, REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1920. 



personating the Fire God responded and all indicated their satis- 

 faction by the expression, " antcai." 



A torch was lighted in the flame by a courier, who hurried away 

 with it to all the other kivas and set on fire wood that had been 

 collected in the fireplaces. This wood when ignited was from time 

 .to time renewed and burned until the close of the ceremony. No 

 one was allowed to profane this flame for secular purposes, and on 

 the last day of the ceremony the ashes were carried by the different 

 societies, generally in watermelon rinds, to the west rim of the mesa, 

 where they were thrown over the cliffs with pinches of prayer meal. 

 The fire is not kept burning for any great length of time after the close 

 of the new fire rites in Hopi kivas. 



The events following that on the night the sacred fire is kindled 

 illustrate its connection with a renewal of life. The Fire God, besides 

 being a god of life, is likewise the Skeleton God or God of Death, 

 because his realm, like that of the Sun God, is the underworld where 

 live the breath bodies of the dead when they leave this earth. Offer- 

 ings are carried to the shrine of the Fire God, which is situated in 

 the plain west of the pueblo. Near it a fire is built in fire ceremonies 

 and in it offerings are placed. 



One role played by priests wearing imitation horns of the moun- 

 tain sheep, on which account they are called the horned priests, 

 is instructive. They are the guardians of an idol called Talatumsi, 

 which is kept in a shrine among the rocks in the foothills near the 

 stairway trail to Walpi. This idol (pi. 3, fig. 2) is brought into the 

 pueblo by the chief of the Horn priests, and prayers are said to it 

 during the elaborate new fire ceremonies by the members of this 

 priesthood. This idol represents the same conception as the two idols, 

 called Alosaka, that formerly had a shrine in the rocks at the base 

 of the mesa on which the ruined pueblo Awatobi now stands. They 

 were removed from their shrine about 1889 and are now used by the 

 priests of the Middle Mesa, who claimed them as part of their reli- 

 gious paraphernalia, as is recorded in my account elsewhere 8 pub- 

 lished of the ruins in Tusayan. 



The days following the kindling of the new fire are largely occu- 

 pied by certain public dances which may be explained on the theory 

 of sex worship or phallicism. 



It is well not to give a realistic description or elaborate discus- 

 sion of these public dances accompanying the new fire ceremony, 

 but the reader who may have an interest in them is referred to my 

 article on the new fire at Walpi, 9 where he will find an account of 

 the dance of the Tataukyamu (pi. 4), and notice of the phallic 

 emblems painted on their bodies or similar objects borne in their 



8 Archeological expedition in 1895, 17th Ann. Rept. Bur. Amer. Ethn., 1901. 



9 New Fire Ceremony at Walpi, Amer. Anthrop., n. s. Vol. II, No. 1, 1900. 



