690 THE TUSAYAN RITUAL. 



for rain exclaim, " Whose heart is bad, whose thoughts are leaving the 

 straight path," and as they bewailed that the rains were delayed, 

 sorrowfully resumed their songs and incantations. 



An individual intrusts his prayer to sacred meal, but a society of 

 priests has a more powerful charm. In the formal worship by a 

 society of priests this prayer bearer becomes more complicated by 

 appendages. It is furnished with accessories, all of which are symbolic. 

 The meal is placed in a corn-husk packet surrounded with symbolic 

 charms, feathers of birds which love water, herbs which grow in damp 

 places. Such a prayer bearer with symbolic attachments is called a 

 paho, and as if to betray its meaning in its name, the exact translation 

 of this word is the water-wood, the wood which brings the water. 

 These prayer sticks have many different forms, but are always called 

 by the generic name, water-sticks. As their form becomes complicated 

 by reason of symbolic accessories, their manufacture is an act which 

 takes time, and as the prescribed symbols are known only to the initi- 

 ated, their construction gives rise to a complex series of secret rites. 

 The paho itself is a sacred object, consequently whittlings from it, 

 fragments of string, corn husks, or feathers, used in its construction, 

 are also sacred and must not be profaned. They are, therefore, care- 

 fully gathered up and deposited with a prayer in some sacred place. 



The simple act of breathing a prayer on a pinch of meal is all suffi- 

 cient in an individual's use of prayer meal, but in the complicated 

 paho this simple act is insufficient in their belief. The prayer bearer 

 intrusted with the prayers of a community of priests must be laid on 

 an altar, smoked upon, prayed over, and consecrated by song before it 

 is deemed efficacious. The production of this altar, the fetishes which 

 stand upon it, the formal rites attending the ceremonial smoke, and 

 the character of the songs thus develop each its own complex series 

 of rites. Lastly, even the casting of the meal has led to complica- 

 tions. The paho must be offered to the god addressed in a dignified 

 manner worthy of its object and the care used in its consecration. A 

 special courier carries it to a special shrine. He is commissioned to 

 his task with formal words, and he places his burden in the shrine 

 with prescribed prayers. It has thus been brought about that the 

 manufacture, consecration, and final deposition of the elaborate paho 

 or stick to bring the rain occupies several hours, and when repeated, 

 as it is in all great ceremonies for several consecutive days, makes a 

 complicated series of rites. 



The ritual of the Tusayan Indians is composite as their blood kin- 

 ship. Peoples from other parts of the arid region have joined the 

 original nucleus, each bringing its rites and its names of the sun god. 

 Each of these components clung to their own ceremonials, and thus 

 several series of rites developed side by side, adding new names to 

 supernatural beings already worshiped. This state of things is not 

 peculiar to Tusayan. Ita, the Egyptian sun god, has not more aliases 

 than Tawa, the solar deity of the Mokis. So receptive is the Pueblo 



