176 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY (Bull. 184 
member an iariko, a rattle, some hicami, mokaitc, and paiyatyamo. 
The new member’s mother came forward with a basket into which 
she put his paraphernalia to take it home. The new member was 
escorted home. Everyone then went home except the Caiyeik and 
the gowatcanyi. They divided the food. The Caiyeik picked up 
their paraphernalia. It was almost sunrise when the gowatcanyi 
went to their room. 
The next day the gowatcanyi of Sia went out and got the visitors’ 
horses. All the visiting shamans and gowatcanyi—from Santo 
Domingo, San Felipe, and Santa Ana—set out for home together. 
They were accompanied by all of the Sia Caiyeik for about half a 
mile to the place where the roads for the three pueblos separated. 
There they said goodbye and the Sia shamans went back. 
OPI, OR WARRIORS’, SOCIETY 
The Opi group would more properly be called a scalp-taker’s so- 
ciety, for merely to engage in warfare or fight with an enemy, is not 
enough to qualify one for membership. If a man killed an enemy 
and did not touch him he would not be qualified, or obliged, to join 
the Opi. But if a man kills an enemy and “gets his blood on him, 
and takes away his things,” i.e., articles of clothing, his weapons, 
and fetishes, and above all takes the slain enemy’s scalp, then he 
must become a member of the Opi. The informant was asked if a 
Sia who had served in the armed forces during World War II and 
had killed one of the enemy would become an Opi.2® The informant 
replied, ‘‘No, because that was not the Indians’ war.”’ ‘But what if 
the Sia took the enemy’s scalp after he had killed him?” ‘Well, 
in that case they might make him an Opi and put him through all 
the ceremonies.” The last of the Opi, Cpo‘na (cpona is the name of 
a pottery canteen), died about 1916; he had killed a Navaho near Sia. 
In taking a scalp one removed all the skin of the head (excluding 
the face) upon which hair normally grows. The scalp was even- 
tually tanned, ‘just like buckskin.”” We have no record of the care, 
bathing, and feeding of scalps at Sia as was practiced at some other 
Keresan pueblos (White, 1932 b, p. 13; 1935, p. 60; 1942 a, p. 305). 
The scalps that had been kept in the pueblo were buried with the 
last Opi.*° 
Only men were eligible to become Opi. The society had two heads, 
Masewi and Oyoyewi, the war god twins of mythology. They were 
probably the war priests, as distinct from War chiefs, in Stevenson’s 
account. The head of the Opi is said to have been an officer of 
* At Acoma during World War I the Kapina medicine society held a 4-day ceremony every month to help 
the American troops, which included a few Acoma, in France (White, 1943 a, p. 309). 
30 The last Opi at Acoma took the scalps out into the country and buried them (White, 1943 a, p. 308). 
