Page 153 - TheHopiIndians

MESA FOLK OP HOPILAND 145

came. Dr. J. Walter Fewkes believes that the great
serpent of Mexican and Central American mythology
is this same being, which shows the debt of the Hopi
to the culture of the south.
Now the Kachinas throng the pueblos and a perfect
carnival reigns with the joyful Hopi. There is a be
wildering review of the hosts of the good things and
bad, interwoven with countless episodes. Songs of
great beauty, strange masked pageants, bright-tinted
piki and Kachina bread attract powerfully three of the
senses, and the Hopi enjoy the season to the full with
the knowledge that the growing crops thrive toward
perfection in the fields below the mesa.
The Kachinas are the deified spirits of the ancestors,
who came from San Francisco Mountains and per
haps from the Rio Grande and other places, to visit
their people. Their name means the "sitters," be
cause of the custom of burial in a sitting posture, and
they resemble "The watchers sitting below" of Faust.
They are believed to guard the interests of the Hopi
and to intercede with the gods of rain and fertility.
Their first coming is in December at the Soyal cere
mony, and others continue to come till August when
the great Niman, or Farewell Kachina, is celebrated
with songs, dances, and feasting.
These deified spirits, or Kachinas, are personated by
Indians who sometimes go outside the town, dress
themelves in appropriate costume, present themselves
at the gate, and are escorted through the streets with