1032 ZUNI KATCINAS [eth. ann. 47 



Malokatsik (Salt Old Woman) 

 (Plate 42, a) 



Costume. — On her head she has piles of raw cotton heaped up the 

 way the salt is heaped up in the Salt Lake. At the back of the head 

 lapapoa (a combination of parrot tail feathers, downy feathers, and 

 §mall parrot feathers). The mask is painted white all over. Around 

 the head strings of beads with a turquoise ear pendant over the fore- 

 head. The cheeks are painted with circles of red and blue. A light 

 blue kilt is folded around the neck. 



Her hands are painted white. She should not wear the underdress 

 and the moccasins, but just the black dress, the white fringed belt 

 and a white blanket, with bare arms and bare feet, but now she wears 

 the other things. 



In her left hand she carries the mother com (mikapane), the flat- 

 tened ear, such as is left by mothers to take care of their babies when 

 they are away. In the right hand a crook called tatsik'ane tsiitsikona 

 (crook to make a noise). This used to be given her by Pautiwa, but 

 now she borrows the crook of one of the rain priests. These crooks are 

 kept with the rain priests' bundles in the sacred houses, and each year 

 at the winter solstice the feathers are renewed. The length of the 

 crook is from the wrist to the inner joint of the elbow. The large 

 feather is eagle; then bluejay ; Kewia; mocking bird; onaiika ; hummiing 

 bird. Hanging from the crook is a lacowan'e of a feather from the leg 

 of the eagle and all the small feathers on the crook. Hanging from 

 the crook are two old abalone shells. She carries the crook to bring 

 the rain. 



She comes in the mixed dance. Stevenson, (page 361) describes the 

 appearance of Malokalsik with Kohakwa oka (white shell women) and 

 the Sun for an isolated ceremony. 



Myth. — Long ago when the people first came here they used to live 

 where the Black Rock Lake now is. When the girls wanted to stay 

 out late with the boys they would tell their mothers they were going to 

 get salt. They would take their sacks and go out and get a httle salt 

 and bring it home and then go for more so as to stay out late. And 

 they used to befoul the salt at the edge of the lake and then go out 

 to dig it where it was nice and clean. They treated our Salt Mother 

 as though her body were not sacred. And every day during the 

 winter Salt woman heard the dancing going on at Itiwana, every 

 night and in the daytime too. Then she was lonesome and one night 

 she thought, "I shall go to the south and look for another place to 

 live. I should like to be a little nearer to Katcina Village so that 

 when night comes I can go there to visit whenever I get lonesome. 

 I shall go to the south for I have heard that they come from the 



