486 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1926 
January and August, or those called Katcinas, the same feeling is 
dominant. Each performance is an endeavor to reproduce a tradi- 
tional ancestral Katcina celebration. The performers are masked 
because, according to their stories, the participants in those 
ancient rites are reputed to have had zoomorphic, or at least 
only partially anthropomorphic forms. 'The symbolism of the 
mask portrays the totems of those legendary participants, and 
those of corn, rain, water-loving animals, lightning and the like, 
therefore predominate. 
I have shown in preceding papers that both the symbols and 
figurines on Katcina altars refer to the sun, rain clouds, and the 
fertilization, growth and maturation of corn. It has likewise been 
made evident that the ceremonial acts of the priests are employed 
to affect the supernaturals who control these elements or produce 
these necessities. 
The priests strive to reproduce traditional ceremonials without 
innovations, and are guided in their presentation by current legends. 
Masked personations of ancestral spirits are, therefore, introduced 
that the performance may be more realistic, or closer to the reputed 
ancestral ceremony. This feeling is at base the reason why the 
priests, unable to explain why they perform certain rites in certain 
ways, respond, “ we make our altars, sing our songs, and say our 
prayers in this way because our old people did so, and surely they 
knew how to make the corn grow and the rains fall.” 
It appears from what is written above that the cosmic super- 
naturals which appear on the Hopi Katcina altars are the same as 
pointed out in the previous article, the Sun, the Sky, Earth, Fire, 
Ancestors, and that idols are likewise prominent. The Hopi, like 
all the pueblos, are commonly called sun worshippers, but the rela- 
tions of the altars of the Katcina cult to Sky God (Sun) worship 
is very instructive. 
In conclusion it should be said that, although the ceremonial prac- 
tices of the Hopi Katcinas appear very complicated, they are in 
reality simpler than the literature of them would seem to indicate. 
In the first place, we must bear in mind that in the Hopi religion the 
association of religion and ethics is very weak, the duty of the priest 
being to perform his part of the ceremony as nearly as possible in the 
traditional way it was inherited from his ancestors. Secondly, the 
rite and ceremony show that the main object desired is a material not 
a spiritual one, primarily to fertilize Indian corn, his national food, 
and incidentally to protect his own life and that of his family. The 
objects of his worship form together a complex composed of closely 
allied elements in which the supernatural powers that control the 
food are preemiment. 
