900 ZXJNI KATCINAS 



[ETH. ANN. 47 



sonations are the same as those found farther west. We may conchicle 

 that although less exuberant, the Keresan katcina cult is about the 

 same as that of Zuni in ideology, techniqtie, and ceremonial patterning."- 

 However, it does not overshadow other activities, as is the case 

 at Zuni. 



Unfortunately, our information concerning katcina impersonation 

 in the Tanoan pueblos is fragmentary and very unsatisfactory. The 

 Tewa are secretive in all things and especially secretive concerning 

 katcinas. Doctor Parsons *' attributes this secrecy to the proximity 

 of Mexicans, who everywhere are barred from katcina ceremonies. 

 Its very existence has been repeatedly denied and long was in doubt. 

 There is no single eye-witness description of any masked ceremony; no 

 comprehensive account of the ideology ritual and organization of the 

 cult; no information upon which to base an opinion of the role of the 

 katcina cult in communal or individual life. Whatever the cause may 

 be, such extreme secrecy is incompatible with the full flowering of the 

 cult. From what slight information we have, the cult in all Tanoan 

 villages appears meager and rudimentary. Various theories are 

 offered in explanation of the different patterning of the same material 

 in different villages. It has been suggested that the katcina cult is 

 of western origin and never took deep root in the east; and, conversely, 

 in the east it has been crowded out by church worship while it con- 

 tinued to flourish in the west, where Catholic influence was less strong. 

 Either or both may be true in the absence of any conclusive evidence. 



The general type of mask and costume is similar for all villages, and 

 certain special impersonations are found under similar or different 

 names in different pueblos. Wherever this has been observed it has 

 been noted in the foUowing remarks on mdividual katcinas. How- 

 ever, these facts of special distributions baldly stated do not seem 

 particularly significant. It seems to the present writer significant 

 that something resembling Zuni Kokokci is danced in every pueblo 

 from which we have data, but it also seems quite insignificant 

 that a dance generally called nawic, but at Zuiii called Nahalico 

 (there is another different mask caUed Nawico), also has a wide 

 distribution. The characteristic face painting of this katcina in 

 connection with a headdress of four turkey wing feathers has been 

 spread all over the region. The dance has no particular character at 

 Zuni. I have not actual^ seen it nor read descriptions of it elsewhere, 

 and therefore its distribution must remain one of those quaint facts 

 of wide dissemination of apparently trivial and fortuitous details. 



Very little credence should be given to native accounts of prove- 

 nience of specific features, when these accounts deal with events outside 



^3 The katcina cult of Keresan villages has been described for Cochiti by Dumarest (Notes on Cochiti) 

 and Goldfrank (Social and Ceremonial Organization of Cochiti): for Laguna by Parsons, for Acoma and 

 San Felipe by White (mss). 



S3 Social Organization and the Tewa, p. 150. 



