White] THE PUEBLO OF SIA, NEW MEXICO 165 
less; Indians are forever telling you that their pueblo is better than, or 
ahead of, their neighbors in one respect or another.” And Sia’s re- 
lations with Acoma, where the snake ceremony has actually been 
observed, are probably closer than Cochiti-Acoma relations. Hodge’s 
inference that the Snake ceremony is dependent upon the presence of 
a Snake clan likewise is unfounded (Hodge, 1896, pp. 134-135). 
There is no Snake clan in Sia, and informants assert positively that 
clan affiliation is irrelevant to membership in the Snake society; at 
least four clans are represented by members since 1940. 
Many years ago Fewkes (1895, p. 118) made a careful, point by 
point comparison of the snake ceremonies of the Hopi pueblos and of 
Sia and concluded that, despite a number of differences, ‘‘in essentials 
the Snake dance is the same in two widely separated pueblos.” He 
called attention to the similarity between the Keresan word for snake 
and the Hopi word, tcua (1895, p. 139, n. 4). He noted further that 
words which he believed to be Keresan appear in the Hopi ceremony, 
and also that a personage appears which he thinks is foreign and pos- 
sibly Keresan (Fewkes, 1897, p. 306). The words Fewkes thought 
to be Keresan are, as he spells them, Tca-ma-hi-ye, a-wa-hi-ye, yo-ma- 
hi-ye, and tci-ma-hai-ye.* We recognize them as names of warriors 
of the cardinal points (see ‘‘Cosmology’’), and they sound to me like 
Keresan words. 
Weather control ceremonies.—The Snake society performs both the 
summer, or wet, and the winter, or dry, ceremonies. 
Masks——The Snake society has only two kinds of masks: one 
mask of No’wira and four of Mokaitc (mountain lion). 
Membership.—There have been nine male and two female members 
of the Snake society between 1940 and 1957. Four of the men had 
died before 1957. The last to be initiated, according to my data, 
was a youth who was inducted about 1950. Of the two women 
members, one had been bitten by a snake; the other had merely been 
treated by the society for some reason. 
KOSHAIRI AND KWIRAINA 
The Kosbairi and Kwiraina societies always go together in Keresan 
pueblo culture, with the possible exception of Acoma (White, 1943 a, 
pp. 307-308). ‘They are not, properly speaking, medicine, or curing, 
societies; their functions appear to be primarily concerned with 
fertility. They are distinguished in mythology from other societies; 
Stevenson says that Koshairi and Kwiraina obtained their power 
28 See the Cochiti tale about their superiority over the Sia with regard to killing Navahos in Benedict 
(1931, p. 197). 
2 Fewkes cited these words in ““The Snake Ceremonials at Walpi’”’ (1894, p. 92), where he calls them “‘ar- 
chaic words.’”’ It was later that he came to believe that they were foreign, Keresan terms, apparently. 
600685—62——_12 
