Note 131 — COMPARATIVE STUDY OF KATCINA DANCES IN CIBOLA AND TUSAYAN

It is desirable that the names of the priests who officiate in ceremonials be given in extended accounts of them in order that the intimate character of this sacerdotal organization may be made out. Until the names of the members of the different societies are complete we are more or less hampered in our studies. The Zuñi equivalent of wympkia appears to be kyalikwe (Tcihkyalikwe, Snake priests from tcihtola, snake, and kyalikwe, wympkia). I am unable to tell to what priests in Tusayan the “Ahshiwanni” correspond. The Tawa (Sun) wympkia or Sun priests have certain points in common with them, but this is as truly an esoteric society as any in Tusayan. I have elsewhere described the Tewa ceremony in which the Sun priests make the páhos and their chief, Kálacai, appeals directly to the rising sun. In that same ceremony páhos are likewise made to the Rain gods directly. In the Katcina celebrations some of the same Sun priests, however, appeal to the leader of the Katcinas to bring them rain, and this personage replies that he will. In this case, supposing, as I think we justly can, that the Katcinas are intercessors between men and gods of highest rank, we have in Tusayan the possible equivalent of the “Ahshiwanni (rain priests)” intrusting their prayers to a zoomorphic and anthropomorphic supernatural personage. The prayer of a single chief for rain for the people, showing something similar to the so-called Ahshiwanni at Zuñi, are not uncommon in Tusayan. In Tusayan an organization of rain priests is not differentiated at the present day from the other societies. All holders of wímis are Rain priests, as well as the organization called the Sun priests, and all at times make special prayers to the Rain gods.