628 FEWKES 



sonage of importance in all their legends. This being is asso- 

 ciated with the Hopi version of the flood, for it is said that in 

 ancient times, while the ancestors of certain clans lived in the 

 far south, at a place called Palatkwabi, this monster on one 

 occasion rose through the middle of the pueblo plaza to the 

 zenith, drawing after him a great flood, which submerged the 

 land and obliged the Hopi to migrate, and to seek refuge in 

 the north, their present home. At this time, which was long 

 ago in their annals, the Serpent rose to the zenith and, calling 

 out from the clouds, demanded the sacrifice of a boy and girl. 

 'J'o this demand the Hopi acceded with children of their chiefs, 

 whom the monster took and sank back into the earth, leaving a 

 black rock to mark the place of sacrifice. 



When the two serpent efligies automatically rise from the two 

 vases throwing back the semicircular flaps with rain-cloud sym- 

 bols, it represents the event recorded in legends — the Hopi 

 version of a flood. 



The snake effigies knocking over the miniature field of corn 

 symbolize floods, possibly wind, which the Great Serpent 

 brings. 



The effigies of the monsters emerge through orifices closed 

 by disks, upon which sun symbols are depicted to show how 

 floods which destroy the fields come from the sky, the realm of 

 the sun. 



The masked men, called 'mudheads,'are ancients which have 

 come to have superhuman powers in causing corn to grow and 

 mature. They struggle with the monsters who would destroy 

 the farms of man. The acts in which they appear represent in 

 a symbolic way the contest of early man with supernatural 

 powers which set at naught the labors of the agriculturalist. 



But nowhere is the dramatic element more prominent than in 

 the representation of the conversion of corn into meal, when 

 the personators of the Corn Maids, or effigies of the same, grind 

 the meal in the kivas or public plazas, as is described in the 

 preceding pages. 



We have this exhibition in at least two forms, one by figur- 

 ines, another by masked girls. Although the masks or mask- 

 ettes, which these girls wear, vary slightly in symbols, there is 



