STEVENSON] WINTER SOLSTICE CEREMONIES 121 



distance from the village. The words of a shi'wanni will oivc an 

 idea of the dread these people have of failure in the custom concerning 

 firelight: "Whj^did the woman [reference to the camp manager of 

 the wn'iter] go outside last night with a light? She was seen by one of 

 my neighbors. Alas! alas! alas! I will have no crops for four years. 

 I shall be poor. Rains Avill come and fall all around my fields, upon the 

 fields of my brothers, but none will come to me." The writer endeav- 

 ored to console him by saying that he could not possibly be respon- 

 sible for the acts of one of her part3\ "It was done from my house 

 and I must be the sufferer. Did she carry a lamp or candle?" When 

 informed that a candle was carried, distress was again depicted on his 

 face. "It might have been better had she carried a lantern, for then 

 the light would have been at least partially housed." 



On the morning of the fifth day the fire-tender covers with ashes the 

 coals on the fire altar in the ki'wi*sine and goes to his home for his 

 breakfast. After his meal the fire-tender deposits his individual te'- 

 likinawe and returns to the ki'wl^sine where a fire burns throughout 

 the day. At night he covers the coals with ashes before he sleeps. In 

 the morning the fire is again kindled from the coals. After a time 

 the fire-tender covers the coals with ashes and goes a distance from 

 the village for cedar, to be consumed on the fire altar. On his return 

 in the evening, after he has taken his meal in his own house, he again 

 rekindles the fire, which burns until he is ready to sleep, when he covers 

 the coals as before. He leaves the ki'wi'sine only to eat and to go for 

 wood each day until the closing of the festival. No food must be taken 

 in the ki'wi'sine for ten days. If this rule should be broken, the 

 offender would not only have his crops destroyed by crows and mice, 

 but would be in great danger of death. 



There is no perpetual fire kept in the ki'wi'siwe of any pueblo, nor has there 

 been one since the introduction of matches among the Indians and since they 

 have found their way to the woods clear from enemies. In times past the scarcity 

 of wood near home and the danger attending journeys for wood, which was 

 brought upon their backs (as they had no beasts of burden until the invasion of 

 the Sjianiards), compelled the strictest economy in fuel and necessitated a central 

 fire for each village. This not only gave warmth to a large numlier of priests while 

 they performed their religious and other duties, but furnished coals with which to 

 light small fires elsewhere when needed for domestic and other purjioses. Fire fur- 

 nishes warmth and light after the sun is gone to his home for the night, and it cooks 

 the food and conveys the si^iritual essence of food to the gods. Fire is therefore a 

 goddess, second in importance only to the sun. Thus the elements attending the 

 physical wants become features of the psychical. 



From the fifth to the eighth day the pueblo is buzzing with the mills 

 and the songs of the grinders, and on the eighth day every household is 

 busy preparing varieties of food, for on the following morning the 

 fraternities will adjourn, when meat may be eaten and the appetite 

 generally sated. 



