FEWKEs] THE POWAMU CEREMONY 287 



side of the kiva. Each of the male personages wore a yucca fillet on 

 his head aud his legs were decorated with clay streaks; he wore white 

 kilts and girdles, with dei^eudeiit fox skins. They also had tortoise 

 rattles ou the legs and carried a gourd rattle in the right hand. Their 

 costume was as follows: They were without masks; the hair was loose 

 and an imitation of a squash blossom was tied therein. The face was 

 not colored, but ou the right shoulder curving to the breast was daubed 

 a mass of blue and green pigment. On the left shoulder and over 

 the breast they were painted with yellow, and bright red streaks were 

 drawn from the neck down tlie center of the breast and middle of the 

 back. The upper jiart of the right arm was colored yellow, the left 

 forearm green, the ujiper j)art of the left arm green. These colors 

 were reversed on the right arm. The right leg also was yellow aud 

 the left leg was green with two contrasting bands below the knee. 

 The hands, waist, and upper portion of the thighs were whitened. 

 They likewise wore white kilts tied with girdles (wukokwena and 

 nanelkwena). A gray fox-skin depended from the loins. Each had a 

 tortoise-shell rattle on the right leg and ou the left leg geiierally a gar- 

 ter to wliich small sleigh-bells were attached. Their moccasins were 

 blue or green. In his right hand each carried a blue or green jiainted 

 rattle, and in the left a sprig or small branch of spruce. Those per- 

 sonating females neither wore fox-skins nor held anything in the left 

 hand. The fenuile persouators carried in the left haiul a bundle of 

 straw held well up before the face. After they had been sprinkled 

 with meal they began to sing, and the couple in the center on the west 

 side joined hands, holding them above the head — the female with the 

 palm turned up, the male with the palm down and lingers imbricated. 

 They advanced close to the fireplace and then returned to tlieir respec- 

 tive places. The persouators executed this figure four times in sequence 

 aud then went out. 



Immediately after this presentation the delegation from the Moukiva, 

 led by a masked person, entered. The bodily decorations of these 

 were uot uniform; one had a figure of a gourd drawn on his breast, 

 another zigzag lines, and still aiiother ])arallel bars. The males carried 

 a gourd rattle in the right hand; they wore no fillets on the head but 

 allowed the hau' to hang loosely. The female persouators held a bunch 

 of straw' and a sprig of spruce in the left hand, carrying it high up 

 before the face. They sang the same song and executed the same 

 figure as that already mentioned in the account of the presentation by 

 the men from the village of Hano. The grou])s finished their visits at 

 about midday. 



^The signification of tbe bundle of straw may be that here we have the symbolic broom of the puri- 

 iication ceremony, if I am right in my iDterpretatlon that the Powiimtl is a lustral ceremony. In 

 Nahuatl ceremonial. Ochpanitzli. the mother. Toci carries the broom, which is her symbol in this cel- 

 ebration, as shown in Seler s interpretation of the Humboldt maiuiscript.s. In this coniiection the 

 reader is referred to the facts mentioned elsewhere in this article that all the kivaa are replastered in 

 the course of the Powiimh 



X 



