314 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 184 
GAOTIYe 
This is a woven rug, or blanket, about 4 or 5 feet long and 3 feet 
wide. It is hung on the rear wall of the house for the Blessed Virgin 
in the south plaza on August 15, I have never seen it on any other 
occasion, and Anglo-Americans would certainly not be permitted to 
enter the house to examine it on the saint’s day, I am sure. It 
appears originally to have been white, but has become yellowed and 
dirty with age and use. It has black designs which appear to have 
been embroidered upon it. They were too complicated for me to 
sketch them from memory, and no informant has ever been willing 
to sketch them for me. As a matter of fact, no informant would 
ever tell me anything but a fragment about it: “It has to do with 
the Opi,” one informant stated. ‘A woman wears it in the Opi Ahina 
dance. It is owned by Jose Vigil Medina [born 1893, Coyote clan, 
permanent drummer for the singers, and a Shima medicineman]. He 
had this gaotiye made by an old woman at Isleta; she copied it from 
an old one that Jose’s family had.” 
I would judge from the unique design and use of the géotiye, and 
from the attitude of informants toward it—especially their obvious 
unwillingness to discuss it—and, finally from my similar experience 
with the géotiye at Santa Ana (White, 1942 a, pp. 250, 343), that 
this is a very important and sacred object. My guess is that the 
designs represent an episode in mythology. We have data on this 
item of paraphernalia from Sia and Santa Ana only, as far as I know. 
We certainly ought to know more about it. 
DRUMS 
The drums used in Sia ceremonies—with the possible exception 
of the White man’s drum used by the kahera at the feast for the 
Blessed Virgin and when he accompanies Santiago and Bocaiyanyi— 
are sacred objects: after one has been made it is “given life and 
heart”? (presumably in a ritual performed by a medicineman or a 
society). Each one has a name and each belongs to a certain man 
in the pueblo. When the Wren kiva was destroyed by fire about 
1946, one of the ceremonial drums, which was in the kiva at the time, 
was burned also. Recollection of this fact prompted an informant 
to remark that drums can die, “just like people.’”” When a drum dies 
a mortuary ceremony is held for it by a medicine society as it would 
be for a person. 
Much skill is required to make a good drum, my informants em- 
phasized. Certain men in the Rio Grande pueblos are noted for 
their skill and are specialists in the manufacture of drums. My 
informants cited Cochiti drum makers as outstanding (see also Lange, 
