14 HOPI KATCINAS [eth. ann. 21 



His uncle, Homovi, who h;is never been to school, and is unac- 

 quainted with the English language, drew some of the best pictures, 

 the technic[ue of which is so like his nephew's that it is safe to con- 

 clude that the drawings of the latter are aboriginal in character. A 

 few of the pictures were drawn by Winuta, whose work, like that of 

 Homovi, is unmodified by white influence. A boy who had attended 

 a Government school in Lawrence, Kansas, also made a few paint- 

 ings, but as they show the influence of instruction in this school they 

 are not valuable for the purpose had in mind in publishing this collec- 

 tion, and they have not been reproduced here. 



While, then, their character has possibly })een somewhat influenced 

 by foreign art, the pictures here reproduced and described may be 

 regarded as pure Hopi, and as works little affected by the white 

 teachers with whom of late these people ha\'e come into more intimate 

 contact than ever before. 



To facilitate the painting the author provided the artists with paper, 

 pencils, brushes, and pigments; he left the execution of the work 

 wholly to the Indians, no suggestion being made save the name of 

 the god whose representation was desired. They carried the materials 

 to the mesa, and in a few days returned with a half-dozen paintings, 

 which were found to be so good that they were encoui'aged to continue 

 the work. In some instances, the ai'tists painted pictures of gods 

 which the author had never seen personated. 



When the paintings were delivered, the author wi'ote under them 

 the names of the beings represented, with such information as could 

 be gathered concerning the special sA-mbolism upon them. Later 

 other Hopis were asked to identify the pictures, which they readily 

 did, the names the}' gave being nearly always the same as those given 

 by the artists. This independent identification was repeated many 

 times with different persons, and the replies verified one another almost 

 without exception. The talks about the paintings elicited new facts 

 regarding the symbolism and the nature of the beings represented 

 which could not have been ac(|uired in other ways. Several men made 

 critical suggestions which were of great value regarding the fidelity 

 of the work and embodied information which is incorporated in the 

 exposition of the collection. At one time the reputation of these 

 pictures was so noised about in the pueblos that visitors came from 

 neighboring villages to see them. At first the collection was freely 

 offered to all comers for inspection, on account of the possibility that 

 new information might be thus gathered, until some person circulated 

 a report that it was sorcery to make these pictures, and this gossip 

 sorely troubled the painters and seriously hampered them in their 

 work, but the author was able to persuade the artists and the more 

 intelligent visitors that no harm would come to them on account of 

 the collection. 



