302 THE HAKO, A PAWNEE CEREMONY [eth. ann. 22 



ineu anil women of the party with the ponies laden with gifts and 

 needed supplies of food. 



Over the wide praii'ie for miles and nules this order was preserved 

 day after day until the journey eaiin^ to an end. If from some dis- 

 tant vantage point a war party sliould descry the procession, the 

 leader would silently turn his men that they might not meet the Hako 

 party, for the feathered stems are mightier than the warrior; before 

 them lie must lay down his weapon, forget his anger, and be at peace. 



No object met on the journey to the Son presented its ordinary 

 aspect to the Hako party. Everytliing seen was regarded as a mani- 

 festation of the supernatural powei'S under whose favor this ceremony 

 was to takejilace; hence the trees, tlie streams, the mountains, the 

 buffalo were each addressed in song. This attitude toward nature is 

 strikingly brought out in the two songs, which are in sequence, sung 

 at the crossing of a stream. 



Tiiroughout this ceremonj' water is treated as one of the lesser 

 powers. It is employed only for sacred purposes, and is never used in 

 the ordinary way. To pi-ofano water would bring piinishment upon 

 the whole party (see the first ritual, line 20), and consequently when 

 a stream ran across a line of travel no person could step into it as he 

 commonly would do. A halt was called and the Ku'rahus led in the 

 singing of tlie song in which Kawas is asked to gi-ant the party permis- 

 sion to ford the stream. According to Pawnee rituals, water at the 

 creation was given to the woman, so Kawas, repre.senting the mother, 

 could grant permission. The request is embodied in four stanzas. 

 In the first the water touches the feet; in the second tlie feet stand in 

 the water; in the third the feet move in the water; in the fourth the 

 water covers the feet (note the resemblance of entering the stream to 

 entering the lodge, seventh ritual, part i). 



After the stream was crossed the people halted on the bank to sing 

 the song to the wind, led by the Ku'rahus. It also is in four stanzas. 

 The wind is called upon to come and dry tlie water which the people 

 may not irreverently touch. In the first stanza tlie wind touches the 

 people; in the second it lightly brushes their bodies; in tlie third it 

 circles about them; in the fourth it envelops them, 'lluis the wind, 

 one of the lesser powers, conies between the jieople and the penalty 

 incurred by profanely touching water. 



In these ceremonies the people were constantly reminded that they 

 were in tlie presence of the unseen powers manifested to them in the 

 natural objects met upon the journey. To those initiated into the 

 inner meaning of the rite, the appeal at the crossing of the stream to 

 Kawas (the feminine element) and to the wind (typical of the breath 

 of life) was connected with the sj'mbolism of running water, explained 

 in the seventh ritual as representing the giving of life from genera- 

 tion to generation. 



Tlie seventh, eighth, ninth, and tenth songs originally belonged to 

 the journey, but we are told the ])u(ral() are no longer seen; neither 



