SUN" WORSHIP FEWKES. 511 



same time the sun ceremonies are celebrated among the Hopi, and 

 sun symbolism is prominent on the paraphernalia used at that time. 



The horned serpent called Avanyu is the main idol in the winter 

 solstice altars * of the Tewa pueblo, Hano, two of which are manu- 

 factured each year of clay and laid on the floor back of the sand 

 paintings (pi. 6). Dramatic rites are performed before this altar 

 and the sun is suggested by the stick called sun ladder (pi. 11) in the 

 rear of the altar. 



The Tewa Avanyu, like the Hopi horned serpent, represents the 

 great power of the Sky, the male fructifying element, father of all 

 life, personated by a clay image. The six horned serpents of the 

 Tewa, ascribed by some authors to the different cardinal points, 

 is a parallel conception with the six horned serpents of the Hopi. 

 They are not different beings, but the same Sky god localized. 



The worship of the power of the sky as symbolized among the 

 Pueblos by a great plumed or horned serpent sheds a light on the 

 reverence which the Mayas and other Central American cultures of 

 prehistoric times paid the power they personated as the plumed ser- 

 pent (Kukulkan and Quetzalcoatl) whose many representations occur 

 on prehistoric buildings devoted to worship in Mexico and Central 

 America. There figures of the great serpent symbolize the same 

 great male power of nature as the rude figurines of the Hopi. Prof. 

 E. B. Tylor has shown that Quetzalcoatl represents the sun, but the 

 meaning of his cultus is much deeper. Quetzalcoatl symbolizes the 

 same conception as the plumed serpent of the Hopi, not the sun 

 alone but the great father of all life, the male fructifying power of 

 nature of which the sun is a visible representative of an attribute. 



In some of the Hopi festivals the worship of the horned serpent 

 seems to be hopelessty entangled with another characteristic of a 

 less highly developed culture. I refer, of course, to the flute festival 

 and its relation to the well-known snake dance of the Hopi. This en- 

 tanglement is due to mutual acculturation of the Horn, Snake, and 

 Flute peoples, the latter of which came from the same region as 

 the Patki people who introduced into Hopiland the plumed serpent 

 worship. The confusion is increased by the introduction of living 

 reptile worship in the snake dance. It is well, therefore, to consider 

 this relationship. 



There are at Walpi two great midsummer ceremonials unconnected 

 with the great serpent cult which alternate in August each year — 

 one, the snake dance, occurring in odd years; the other the flute 

 dance, that is performed in even years. The former shows few ob- 

 jective evidences of Sky serpent worship; the latter contains many 

 personations and symbols of that cult, due to an ancient association 

 of the Horn and Snake clans ; the union of the former with the flute 

 clans antedating the separation of Snake and Horn people 



1 Winter solstice altars at Hano. Amer. Anthrop., n. s., Vol. I. 1899. 



