SUN WORSHIP FEWKES. 497 



perform dramatic rites, which indicate what the priests want, and 

 the accompanying songs or verbal prayers are those which are con- 

 sidered efficacious, having been passed down from a remote past 

 for that end. 



Let us take for illustration the elaborate sun rite that occurs at 

 the winter solstice, near the end of December. The date of this 

 celebration is determined by the Sun priests, who watch the course 

 of the sun as it daily sets on the western horizon, retreating farther 

 and farther south, as if to withdraw altogether. Each day its alti- 

 tude at noon is less as its setting is more and more to the south ; the 

 sun is evidently slowly departing from the earth. When it reaches 

 its most distant southern point and sets behind the San Francisco 

 mountains in the notch at Eldon Mesa, an official announcement is 

 made through the town crier that the sun has descended into his 

 house in the west. This from experience they know is the time 

 when a supreme effort must be made to offset the power which is 

 driving him away from his children and then the priests must use 

 all their magic medicine to cause the sun to return to his people. 

 The sun's efforts to return are then most feeble, and must be aug- 

 mented by all the supernal powers of which man is capable. 



The most important rites connected with "calling back the, sun "are 

 held in secret, on which account they occur in a ceremonial chamber 

 called a kiva, to which only the initiated have entrance. This room 

 is occupied by men belonging to the Sun clans, and by others, mainly 

 old men, called Sun priests. A detailed description of the altar 

 (pi. 1) and other paraphernalia in the kiva at this dramatization 

 need not be made, but a few general features may be mentioned. 

 At one end of the room, near the ceremonial opening in the floor 

 called the sipapu, there is erected an assemblage of objects which 

 may be called an altar, composed of an elaborate framework, to 

 which are attached painted circular disks made of gourds, repre- 

 senting flowers. These symbols form a screen, 1 behind which some 

 of the actors conceal themselves. 



In the middle of this screen there is left an opening through wdiich 

 protrudes a head of a serpent effigy. On the floor in front of 

 it are arranged various objects, the most conspicuous of which is 

 a stack of corn ears, future seed, neatly arranged in a pile. Here 

 are also certain emblems and paraphernalia belonging to the priests, 

 among which may be mentioned a badge or palladium of the Patki 

 priesthoods, their medicine bowl, a prayer meal basket or tray, and 

 various fetishes. Before the screen stand masked men representing 

 certain supernaturals, and along the sides of the room sits the chorus 



1 The Winter Solstice Ceremony at Walpi. Anier. Anthropologist, n. s., Vol. XI, pi. 1, 

 1S98. 



