FEWKEs] THE SOYALUNA CEREMONY 271 



First, lie drew back to the fireplace, and then with a shuffling gait 

 approached the symbolic opening in the floor called the sipapii. 



Anawita then shouted at the top of his voice, and the shuffler sprang 

 in the air and vaulted over the sipapii. Then everybody in the room 

 shouted loudly and a song in concert followed. A moment later the 

 visiting societies dashed down the ladder, each bearing a splendid 

 shield ornamented with the figure of the sun and a rim of radiating 

 eagle feathers. Each society had its distinctive sun shield, which on 

 entering was handed to the chief. As he received it he stamped on 

 the sipapu and a fierce song was sung. Meanwhile two members of 

 the society stood apart from their fellows against the southern wall 

 facing each other, each holding a squash flower emblem in a bouquet 

 of spruce twigs and an ear of corn in his left hand. 



Suddenly the fifteen or twenty members of the society drew back 

 from their chief, who then sprang upon the sixiapii plauk, and quickly 

 turning faced them as all burst forth in an ecstatic shouting, with wild 

 flinging of their arms as they approached the shield-bearers. They 

 naturally formed two clusters, and as the shield-bearer daslied his 

 shield in their faces they surged back, to leap again toward him. 

 This seeming assault, wild though it appeared, was maintained in time 

 with the song. The two chieftains joined their men, all in ecstatic 

 frenzy, and one of them, shaking his shield, sprang from right to left, 

 drawing back his assistants in rhythm with the beating of the feet of 

 all on the floor. After a few moments of most exhaustive movements 

 some of the weaker staggered up the ladder, and shortly after one of 

 the chiefs fell fainting to the floor, overcome by exhaustion and the 

 intense heat of the room. One splendid athlete danced with vigor for 

 fully five minutes, and then swept toward the ladder where the assist 

 ant was standing in readiness to receive his shield. An^jther stride 

 and he reached the foot of the ladder and suddenly became as rigid as 

 a corpse. The men who belonged to the Moiikiva took no part in this 

 exhaustive dance but stood in readiness to carry those who fainted up 

 the ladder to the cool air outside. 



It has been suggested tliat this assault of the men on the bearer of 

 the sun shield dramatizes the attack of hostile x^owers on the sun, and 

 that the object is to offset malign influences or to draw back the sun 

 from a disappearance suggested by its southern declination.' In this 

 j)OSsiblo interpretation it is well to consider that immediately preced- 

 ing it the archaic offerings and i^rayers to the great snake were made, 

 as described, in the presence of spectators. The idea of hostility of 

 the great snake to the sun is an aboriginal American conception. In 

 the Maya Codex Cortesianus {33b) the plumed snake is represented^ 



'TIiL* dance -svitU the aun-shield remotely resemliles certain so-called "sun dances," whicli have 

 been described among the nomads, in which physicul exhaustion and sufiering are common features. 

 This dance, it must be borne in mind, took place when the sun was at the winter solstice, and the 

 dramatization of attack and defense may hare some meaning in connection with this fact. 



20n the authority of Cyrus Thomas, "Are the ifaya hieroglyphs phonetic?" American Anthropolo- 

 gist, Washington, July. 1893, p 26G. His reasoning that the scribe of tlie codes intended to repre- 

 sent this aati'onomical event is plausible but not conclusive. 



