286 PROCEEDINGS OF THE NA^TIONAL MUSEUM. vol.54. 



upon which is tied a rabbit. The hunter after ceremonial purifica- 

 tion enters the tower and patiently waits for an eagle to swoop down 

 upon the rabbit, and when this occurs the man reaches through the 

 frame and seizes the eagle by the legs. In its struggles to escape the 

 eagle becomes exhausted, rendering its subjugation easier, but the 

 hunting needs, on the part of the Indian, great patience, courage and 

 address.' Eagles so captured are impounded until the feathers are 

 needed. The Zuni keep them in cages." Especially important in 

 Hopi ceremonies is eagle down and the supply is gathered from 

 young birds taken from the nests whose ownership is vested in the 

 clans.* These birds are brought to the pueblo, stripped of down and 

 killed by pressure on the sternum and buried in the eagle cemetery. 

 The wild turkey was formerly kept for its feathers* and at present 

 the domestic turkey is used in its stead. The great demands for 

 feathers of various birds in the ceremonies necessitates efforts to 

 maintain the supply, and extraordinary skill in capturing them. 



Communal hunts, so-called, should be considered from the social 

 and religious side of Hopi life rather than from the economic stand- 

 point. The origin of the custom may have been utilitarian, neces- 

 sitated by the habits of game in an open country, the primitive gre- 

 garious method of Hopi hunting by driving, running down, and 

 surrounding the quarry, the protection of numbers in the presence 

 of enemies, and finally the carefree enjoyment of such hunts in com- 

 pany with congenial spirits intent on getting the most out of the 

 occasion. In fact to an observer of a hunting party in action, the 

 peaceful people seem to be anj^thing but that, and to have let them- 

 selves loose with the intention of massacring everything living in 

 sight. The hunt may be divided into two periods — the departure to 

 the field with hilarity, the fierce hunt, though only for rabbits, and 

 the subdued return with whatever the gods of the chase have awarded 

 in the way of game. 



The Hopi trap the coyote, the fox, and other mammals and birds. 

 The common form is the deadfall, the weight consisting of a flat 

 stone held up on a peg with rounded ends, the lower resting on a con- 

 vex surface of wood, giving a. very unstable support. The bait is 

 tied to the peg and a slight pull upsets the support and releases the 

 stone. A similar trap is found among the Zuiii. The simplicity of 

 this device is noteworthy; it can be prepared in a short time from 

 material readily at hand and without tools, the rubbing necessary to 

 round the sticks being done on stones. The figure four device is not 

 known to the Hopi and indeed on account of the meager environment 



1 Pi-operty rights in eagles among the Hopi, .T. Walter Fewkes, Amer. Anthrop. (n. s.), 

 vol. 2, Oct.-Dec, 1900, p. 70. 



■■^ Zuni Follj Tales, F. H. Gushing, New York, p. 34. 



3 Fewkes, Amer. Anthrop. (n. s.), vol. 2, 1900, p. G9. 



■• Winship, in 14th Ann. Rept, Bur. Amer. Ethnol., p. 517. 



