BDNZEL) KELIGIOITS LIFE 537 



departed blossom with a hundred piles of glowing embers. The 

 masked gods return to the kiva where they dance imtil day. Any- 

 one, man, woman, or child, who desii'es good luck, may go to the 

 Idva at this time to receive the blessing of the presence of the gods. 



The day is one of great festivity and rejoicing. All day the gods 

 from the east dance on the roof of the Iciva, throwing food and other 

 articles to the populace. Meanwhile the bow priests summon to the 

 kiva the men chosen to impersonate the gods during the coming year. 

 When they have all arrived the waijds of office are distributed by the 

 pekwin. 



The merrymaldng continues in the plaza until simdown, when 

 Pautiwa appears. He visits all the kivas. On the roof of each he 

 lays down the crook of office for the Ca'lako god to be chosen from that 

 kiva. The bar of the hatchway he marks with four lines of coi-n meal, 

 to indicate that the masked gods will visit the village. Then using 

 a twig to represent a scalp, he performs a brief ritual symbolizing the 

 taking of an enemy scalp. Thus he brings the new year. After 

 visiting all the Idvas he departs for the west, taking Ci'tsukii and 

 Kw'e'lele with him. 



After dark each house in the village is visited by Tcakwenaoka, 

 a female masked impersonation and the special guardian of women in 

 childbirth.^- She is accompanied by other masked gods. As the 

 group reaches each door live coals are thrown out of the house as a 

 rite of purification. Tcakwenaoka comes only once to bring the 

 blessing of fecundity. The other gods return for four consecutive 

 nights, in accordance with the promise of Pautiwa. In early days the 

 first dance of the winter series took place four days after the departure 

 of the exorcising divinities (Stevenson, p. 141). Now it takes place any 

 time the leaders wish. This closes the celebration of the solstice, unless 

 the retreat and dance of the fewekwe which follow 10 days after the 

 coming of Pautiwa be considered as part of the solstice ceremonies. 



Theoretically the second half of the Zuiii year repeats the ceremonial 

 calendar of the first six months. As in December, the sununer 

 solstice is marked by a ceremonial period called i'tiwana, the middle. 

 As in the winter, this is a sjmchronization of independent cults. But 

 here the resemblance ceases. The actual ceremonies, and above all 

 the relative weight of various elements, are quite difi'erent. 



Before the summer solstice the pekwin makes daily observations of 

 the sunsets from a shrine at Ma'tsaka, a ruin a few miles east of Zufii. 

 When the sun sets behind a certain point on the mesa to the northwest 

 the pekwin begins his plantings to the sun and to the ancestors. On 

 the morning after his fourth planting he announces that in eight days 

 everyone shall make praj^er sticks for the sun, the moon, the ancients, 



" In 1927 the visit ol TcakwenaoTjii was omitted. The man who owns her mask, a very dangerous one, 

 and knows her ritual, was in prison for bin-glary. No one else dared touch the mask. (See p. 931.) 



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