White} THE PUEBLO OF SIA, NEW MEXICO 263 
FEAST FOR THE DEAD 
This ceremony is called Basa sizonyitsaityuko, ‘grandfathers com- 
ing back from the west” (Baza ‘grandfather’; Bonami, ‘west’). The 
Place of Emergence, through which the people passed when they came 
up from Shipap in the lowest of the four worlds, is located in the 
‘middle North,’ and it is said that when a person dies ‘‘he goes back 
to Shipap.”” But the Home of the Dead is at Gyityipokai, a house 
located in the Northwest Corner of the world (see fig. 12). 
Our mother Utctsiti loved her hano sicti (people common) so very much that 
she set aside a day for them to come back to the place where they once lived. 
This day was November first. The people used to come back in the bodies that 
they had when they were alive on this earth. But it made the people that were 
living feel very sad to see their relatives who had come back [from the land 
of the dead]. And when the dead had finished their visit and the time had come 
for them to go back to Shipap, the living people wanted to go back with them, 
but they could not do this. All this caused so much grief that Utctsiti decided 
that the dead should come back to visit their former homes in spirit only. This 
is the way it is today. 
On the morning of November 1, and perhaps even before, the people 
of Sia prepare food for the souls that will return on that day. At 
the same time all medicinemen go to their respective ceremonial houses 
to make prayersticks; tiamunyi and the tcraikatsi hold open house in 
the hotcanitsa at this time, also. A capitani (governor’s helper), 
functioning as a helper to fiscale, rings the church bell all morning. 
It is rung slowly during the morning, but about 1 or 2 o’clock in the 
afternoon it is rung rapidly; this tells the people that the dead have 
returned to Sia. 
The souls of persons who had been members of societies go to their 
respective ceremonial houses; the others go to the houses of their own 
families or closest relatives. ‘The souls of persons who now have no 
close relatives living go to a ceremonial house. All of the women of 
Sia take food to the ceremonial houses (this probably means that a 
woman will take food to one, or possibly more, of the ceremonial 
houses; not that each woman takes some food to each house). Each 
society has a little atcin (slat altar)—‘not the regular one’’—set up 
and a little sand, or meal, painting laid down, upon which an iariko 
(corn-ear fetish) and medicine bowl of water are placed. When the 
38 Stevenson (1894, p. 143) has the gist of thisin her account also. But she mentions something else that 
is exceedingly interesting and which we have not encountered elsewhere among the Keresan pueblos: the 
spirits of the dead cannot ‘‘ pass through the entrance to the other world [the land of the dead]; they must 
first die or grow old and again become little children to be able to pass through the door of the world for the 
departed.” 
One cannot help but think of the desire to reenter the womb of the mother that is found among some psy- 
choneurotics in our society. The spirits of the dead among the Keres actually do return to, and enter, the 
“four-fold womb of the earth,”’ and, according to Sia philosophy, they must become little children before 
they can pass through the entrance to the afterworld. And did not Jesus Christ say that people would have 
to become like little children in order to enter the Kingdom of Heaven? 
