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the beams that support the roofs of Moqui dwellings or tucked away in little niches or standing up in rows on stone shelves. They are male and female, some vigorously pronounced; the females have extraordinary headdresses only, but the males are most modestly decorated. The male is called O-mow and the female A-tose-ka; but they are still Cachinas. These gods are used during the ceremonies in the estufas; all possess great antiquity, and when not in use are hidden away by their custodians where they cannot be found except by those who have them in charge. There were two found by a gentleman in a cave under the mesa on which stand the ruins of Awatubi. The male was four feet one inch and the female three feet nine inches in height. He carried them to his house, some twelve miles distant, but they were soon missed by the Indians who venerated them, and a delegation was sent to the gentleman to tell him of the loss of the gods and implore his help in their recovery. They spoke so earnestly, and believed so firmly that ill fortune would follow them if these Cachinas were not found, that he finally said that he had brought them from Awatubi, not realizing that they were so much esteemed; he then led them to a room where they had been placed. The gentleman said the Moquis were beside themselves with joy at the restoration of their gods. This happened some years ago, and since that time no white man has seen them.

"Of this circumstance Mr. J. Walter Fewkes writes in 1891: "The worship of the horned A-losa-ka is more strictly characteristic of the pueblo of Mi-con-in-o-vi (Mishongnavi), where this fra

ternity is probably more numerous than at Walpi. The images of A-lo-sa-ka were once in the possession of Mr. Keam (T. V.) for a few days, but at the earnest solicitation of almost the whole population of Mi-con-in-o-vi they were returned to the priests. At that time they were carried from Keams Canyon back to the pueblo with great ceremony, when a pathway of sacred meal was made for many miles along the trail over which they were borne.' Some Moqui idols or gods are not, perhaps, so sacred as those above referred to. Dr. Oscar Loew, chemist of the Wheeler expedition in 1874, refers to some gods which were for sale, and his experience is that of visitors to the Moquis to-day. The Moquis like money, silver especially. If the wooden gods or figures which Dr. Loew saw in the house of a chief were designed as objects of worship, no profound veneration was manifested for them, since they were readily parted with for a trifling quantity of tobacco.

"The gods made from trunks or limbs of small trees, which by chance have grown to resemble in part a man, are regarded with great favor, especially for gods for the estufa, it being believed that the spirit of a Cachina is in such wood. The material employed in making the Cachinas is usually cottonwood. Such as have ceremonial vestments on are of wood, the clothes being of white cotton cloth, richly embroidered in colors; the cloth used is from the Moqui looms and is of a peculiar fabric; the clothes, including headdress, are also made of feathers. The colors employed in making these gods are not

used with any regard to rule, but as each individual fancies.

"About the heads of some are coronets of five or six small squares of wood. These coronets sometimes resemble a Maltese cross, with a near approach to a Grecian border on them, the lines being in green. The bodies of the wooden gods are usually painted white, and frequently a bit of the down of a feather is glued to the points of the coronet, which may be a symbol, copied from the halos around the heads of the images of saints in Catholic churches. The Spanish Catholic influence is quite apparent in many of the Moqui images, and also in some of their customs, on their pottery, and in figures on their blankets."

CHAPTER X.

THE HOPI (OR MOQUI) (Continued).

THE SNAKE DANCE-STORY OF ITS ORIGIN-DE-
SCRIPTION OF BY PETER MORAN PREPARA-

TION FOR-ACCOUNT OF BY CHARLES F. LUM-
MIS SPECIAL AGENT SCOTT'S REPORT ON.

The story of the Moquis would be incomplete without not only a reference to, but a full description of the Snake Dance, which is an attractive feature of this Indian tribe, many Arizonans making visits to Walpi every other year to witness it. This dance is held at Walpi in August of every other year, and is an invocation or plea for water and good crops. The details of the dance vary from year to year because everything connected with it is transmitted orally from tradition, and much depends upon the imagination and originality of the priests in charge. The old men of this tribe, as, in fact, of every other tribe of Indians, are the keepers of the mysteries and the directors of all ceremonies, so that while certain essentials are never departed from, such as fasting by the dancers, the race from the spring, the preparation of antidotes or decoction for snake bites, the dance itself is conducted according to the whims of the veteran leaders. The snake estufa at Walpi is hewn out of the solid sandstone of the mesa and covered with logs, brush, and dirt. There is a ladder in it, but there are no benches around it.

Like every other religious ceremony among the Indians of the southwest desert, it is performed for the purpose of influencing the gods to send the rains that the yield of corn and beans and melons in the little hand-tilled fields at the foot of the mesa may be sufficient for the sustenance of the people. Here, according to J. W. Schultz, in the Pacific Monthly for August, 1908, is the story of it which the priests of the Moquis relate, in hushed voices, to certain favored ones:

"Away back in the long ago-when the Moquis lived in cliff dwellings, a youth would sit day after day on the edge of the height, gazing down at the rushing river so far below. He was different from all the other young men of the tribe, he did not care for sports-he did not court the young girls; always, day after day, he sat gazing at the river, silent, solemn, a faraway look in his eyes. His parents became anxious about him, fearing that he was mentally unsound, and the youths and maidens jeered at him, joked about him, saying: 'He is an old man; old man without mind or strength.'

"After sitting on the edge of the cliff day after day for several summers and winters, he went to his home one evening and said to his mother: 'I must leave you for a while; I have been gazing at the river this long, long time and it is calling me; I must go down it and learn where it ends-if end it does; I must see that far land through which it flows.'

"His mother began to cry, and brokenly-between her sobs-begged him to think no more of such a journey. 'No one has ever been away

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