524 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN" INSTITUTION, 1918. 



his face showing. He carefully watches the point of sunrise, and 

 as soon as he sees the light of the rising sun he gives the signal that 

 the time has come for the dedication of the child. There then 

 emerges from the room a procession, led by the mother of the child, 

 and followed by the grandmother, or oldest woman of the clan, who 

 carries the baby strapped to one of the primitive cradles charac- 

 teristic of these people. The mother traces along the roof a line of 

 sacred meal extending from the entrance of the room to the place 

 where the father is seated. The grandmother follows her daugh- 

 ter holding the cradle in such a way that the head of the child will 

 not diverge on one side or the other from this line, the purpose 

 being that the life of the child may not be crooked, but morally 

 follow the symbolic straight line drawn by the mother. The two 

 women are attended by the other relatives of the family, mostly girls 

 and women. As the head of the procession approaches the father, 

 which is so timed that the sun has just appeared above the horizon, 

 the grandmother holds the baby up to the sun, and the mother says 

 a short prayer, dedicating her child to the being she regards, as do 

 all pious Hopi, the father of all life, at the same time adding the 

 name which she desires her child should bear. At the conclusion 

 of this simple ceremony all return to the household, where a feast 

 has been provided. The baby being the honored person, is placed 

 at the head of the two lines around the bowls of food, but before 

 anyone begins to eat the mother takes in her hand a pinch of every 

 kind of food and throws it in the fire, with a prayer to the gods of 

 the hearth. She then returns to the food bowls, takes a second 

 pinch of all the different kinds of food provided in the feast, and 

 carries it to the baby, placing it in its mouth. The signal is then 

 given and all those present, augmented by many others who perhaps 

 were led to the household for that purpose, begin the feast. 



This dedication of the baby to the sun is the first of several rites 

 which occur in the individual life of every Hopi. When the child 

 arrives at years of discretion it is customary to impart to him the 

 knowledge of his relationship to supernatural beings. In other 

 words, up to that time children have been taught to believe that the 

 personations of Katcinas are gods that from time to time perform 

 their elaborate dramatization in ceremonial dances. It is deemed 

 necessary to impart to youths the fact that the priests who personate 

 these beings are their own relatives, but this knowledge must be ob- 

 tained by a flogging, or by personal suffering. The rite of flogging 

 the children is complicated, and has been elsewhere described, but it 

 suffices our purpose here to mention the fact that the person who 

 flogs the children represents the Sun god. The whole ceremony is 

 explained by an ancient legend which is somewhat as follows, omit- 

 ting details not germane to our subject. 



