Note 36 — Front matter
Reading edition
A Hopi prayer combines two elements of ceremony—prayer proper and sacrifice, the former spoken or not, the latter always expressed by symbols. As they are an agricultural people, their aboriginal wealth is an agricultural product, as corn. Their poverty of corn and the requirement of their ritual necessitated sacrifices of meal, a highly practical substitution. So likewise tobacco smoke is a sacrifice, the burning of rare herbs, or the pine needles in the “New Fire” ceremony.
The act of sacrificing animals or human beings is not a part of their present ritual, but a knowledge of its efficacy exists. They have legends of human sacrifice on rare occasions in the past. The killing of an animal and smearing the body of the man representing Masawuh with its blood, at the time of Lieutenant Brett’s visit to Oraibi in 1891, is an instance of animal sacrifice. Several survivals of animal sacrifices in warrior ceremonies might be quoted from legends.