Sunday, January 25, 2015

Snow


Weather: Snow Wednesday and Thursday.

What’s still green: Juniper, piñon, and other evergreens, yuccas. Rose stems; leaves on grape hyacinth, Japanese honeysuckle, alfilerillo.

What’s gray: Salt bushes, winterfat, snow-in-summer.

What’s reddened: Cholla, twigs on peach, apricot, apple and sandbar willow; purple aster leaves.

What’s yellowed: Young stems on globe and weeping willows; arborvitae have browned.

What’s blooming indoors: Zonal geraniums.

Animal sightings: Small birds.


Weekly update: The magic has passed. For a few days snow was beyond vocabulary. Everything was its opposite.

The sun rose in the west


and set in the east.


It began Wednesday with a few large flakes that turned to something so small it might have been snow turning into water as it fell. It kept coming down, but not accumulating. It sank into the ground and wetted every surface.

Late in the afternoon, when light was failing but the needle hadn’t moved on the thermometer, it began accumulating.

Through the night, snow fell on wet surfaces that must already have turned to ice. When the weather service forecast heavy snow it was thinking about the density of flakes in the air. For the plants, heavy snow meant a burden.

In places deciduous branches collected snow and didn’t allow it to penetrate.


In the morning, the wood’s warmth began melting the coat from within. Drips formed. Birds escaped to fences and overhead lines.

Even yesterday when I drove by orchards, their floors still covered with snow, each tree stood in a circle of brown of its own making.

The weather bureau said, when the snow had moved on late Thursday, the skies would be clear and the night cold because little of the snow pack had disappeared. It was four degrees when I looked at thermometer on my front porch Friday morning.

In a few hours, branches furred over.


The sun rose higher in the sky. Its rays bounced off the metal roof. Surface heat melted snow that drained over the edge. On its way down, the warmed water was rechilled. Plants below were encased in ice.


Physicists describe it as an interplay of water, temperature, and light. When all else fails the weather bureau resorts to "unknown precipitation." By Saturday, Shy and Guyer and whoever else works in the Albuquerque office were concerned with variations on fog that would cloud visibility.

I looked out over the Jémez. It was just before temperatures warmed enough to create bogs over frozen ground. Snow was rising from Santa Clara canyon.


Photographs: Thursday was the 22nd, Friday the 23rd, and Saturday the 24th.

1. Thursday 7:47 am, looking east.
2. Thursday 5:54 am, peach and bird.
3. Friday 7:07 pm, looking west.
4. Thursday 5:30 am, looking east.
5. Thursday 7:50 am, Apache plume.
6. Friday 7:54 am, black locust.


7. Thursday 7:52 am, rose stem.
8. Saturday 3:26 pm, looking west.
9. Friday 7:09 am.

Monday, January 19, 2015

Powamu


Weather: Snow Tuesday clung for a while to stems and seed heads; I wonder which appreciated the winter moisture and which were harmed; last snow 1/13.

What’s still green: Juniper, piñon, and other evergreens, yuccas. Rose stems; leaves on grape hyacinth, Japanese honeysuckle; small alfilerillo plants hidden between chunks of gravel in drive.

What’s gray: Salt bushes, winterfat, snow-in-summer.

What’s reddened: Cholla, twigs on peach and apricot, purple aster leaves; sandbar willow wood is getting red, apple branches almost burgundy.

What’s yellowed: Young stems on globe and weeping willows; arborvitae have browned.

What’s blooming indoors: Zonal geraniums.

Animal sightings: Small birds.


Weekly update: Powamu, the second part of the annual Hopi Kachina cycle, begins soon. The Badger clan officiates at Oraibi in place of Muyingwa, the god of germination.

Powalawu, the opening ceremony, occurs on the day after the dark of the moon. This year the darkest day would be Tuesday. Early in the morning, men gather in the Badger kiva where the chief makes prayer sticks. A member of the Sand Clan is sent to bring sand for the mosaic of four sacred colors representing the house of the sun.

Four prayer sticks are placed in the mosaic with four herbs: Bigelovia bigelovii in the north, Artemisia filifolia in the west, Fallugia paradoxa in the south, and another form of Bigelovia bigelovii in the east.

The two forms of rabbit bush, Apache plume, and sand sagebrush sandwort are shrubs used as windbreaks. Alfred Whiting says the first comes in many varieties and in the 1930s were identified as Chrysothamnus speciosus gnaphalodes. Today they are grouped under Ericameria nauseosa.


Midway through the song cycle, a messenger is sent to bury four ceremonial balls in four places southwest of the village to protect it against sand storms.

After the last song, messengers again leave with more food balls. One is deposited with a dead mouse on an ant hill to ask the insects to leave the crops alone.

The next morning the Badger chief takes the remaining prayer sticks to each kiva where he smokes, then tells men they may plant beans. Men bring containers of soil from a place east of the mesa. In the evening, they plant beans of all types. For the next three evenings, they continue sowing.

The kivas now must be kept warm. Men are appointed each night to stay and keep fires going. During the day they clean fields and make gifts for the young children. In the evenings they practice the songs and steps for the dances that come on the final day.


Powamu begins eight days later, when half the waxing moon is visible. The beans may have broken ground and men wait for leaves and vines to appear.

In years when there are enough children of age, they are made formal members of the communities. In the past, the initiation climaxed with ritual whippings of both boys and girls with yucca whips. Younger children were shorn of their hair.

Around three in the morning on the eighth day men harvest most of the bean plants. Some they tie to the children’s presents. The Eototo and Aholi kachinas appear. The first represents the village chief.

The afternoon includes a feast in the Badger kiva of gravy, piki, and boiled bean plants. In the homes, people eat mutton stew and beans. The first full display of kachinas occurs when they emerge from all the kivas to deliver the gifts to children.


At night, while the moon is still nearly full, the kachinas go from kiva to kiva to dance. Half are dressed as women who form a separate line. The Bean Dance lasts until dawn.

On the final afternoon, the last of the beans are cut. In a ritual that was archaic in the 1890s, young women dressed as katchimama carried trays of harvested beans to four places outside the village. Then the kachinas resumed their human forms to take the trays home.

Three days after the close of Powamu the first foot races of the season are run in widening circles outside the village. They stay within the boundaries set by the balls planted in Powalawu.

Notes:
Titiev, Mischa. Old Oraibi, 1944;

Voth, Henry R. The Oraibi Powamu Ceremony, 1901.

Whiting, Alfred F. Ethnobotany of the Hopi, 1939.


Photographs:
1. Native Seeds/Search says Hatiko (the white) and Hopi Gray (the brown skinned) are "sprouted and used during Spring ceremonies. Both are limas.

2-3. A few hours after being dropped in water, the skin of Hopi Gray and Hatiko had begun to pucker, 11 January 2014. As they absorbed more water, the skins smoothed again.

4. The first sign of germination by Hopi Gray was the outer skin splitting, 16 January 2014.

5. The first sign of germination by Hatiko was air bubbles above the beans, 18 January 2014.


6-7. The root emerged on both a day or so later, 19 January 2014.

Sunday, January 11, 2015

Ceremonial Corn


Weather: Winds and clouds; last snow 1/1.

What’s still green: Juniper, piñon, and other evergreens, yuccas. Rose stems; leaves on grape hyacinth, Japanese honeysuckle, alfilerillo.

What’s gray: Salt bushes, winterfat, snow-in-summer.

What’s reddened: Cholla, twigs on peach, apricot and apple; purple aster leaves; sandbar willow wood is getting more orange.

What’s yellowed: Young stems on globe and weeping willows; more arborvitae have browned.

What’s blooming indoors: Zonal geraniums.

Animal sightings: Small birds.


Weekly update: The most archaic agricultural ritual embedded in Soyal is the use of corn meal. Kivas are opened to the kachinas by leaving meal paths outside the hatches. When the spirits arrive, they are fed corn meal: they only need the essence of food to survive. Their impersonators are sprinkled with meal.

During the ceremonies at Oraibi only white corn was used. Heinrich Voth said the sun representative at Oraibi, who later was attached by the stars, the shield bearers, carried a "white corn ear" with his bow and arrow. Before the hawk impersonator appeared, three women entered dressed in white. Each carried a "white corn ear." The three mana danced with the hawk.

When the altar was built, the staffs of four chiefs were added. They had "two large turkey feathers and a white corn ear fastened to them." After the Mastop kachinas left on the eighth day and before the messengers were dispatched to the sacred spring, the officiating priest again donned the apparel of the sun representative. "In one hand he held a white corn ear (to which was fastened a corn husk packets) an the six old eagle wing feathers used in his war ceremony."

On the final day at Walpi, before the altar was completely dismantled, the Pátki clan chief distributed "fragments of white wafer bread," according to Andrew Stephen. In the afternoon, just before the corn was brought out from the kiva, two women appeared. One was given a "black corn ear," the other a "white ear."


The ceremonial use of colored corn must have come long after new varieties were introduced. The seed corn sent to the Pátki kiva mound was multicolored, but the number of ears in a bundle varied from three to six. No obvious attempt was made to combine one of each color into a bundle tied with yucca. More likely, each woman included a sample of each type of corn her husband would plant. Elsie Clews Parsons said the blessed ears were placed on top of the seed corn, to be used first in the summer.

Niman, the summer ceremony, used more overt color symbolism. Alexander Stephen said, on the fourth day at Walpi in 1893, the ritual chief brought "the six ears of corn of the directions." As he sang, he handled the six ears in order, sprinkling them with water, then with corn meal.

He later tied the six ears into a bundle that was hung on the west wall of the kiva until the eighth day when he used them to make the Directions Altar. He set an ear in each direction with stones of the same color: opaque quartz with yellow, green agate with blue, red spar with red, white spar or tooth with white, clear quartz with black, pinkish annular beads of spar with sweet corn.


Initiation ceremonies also used the six colors of corn. During Naash’naiya in 1891, Stephen saw six ears of corn laid with different hued skins of birds and pebbles in the appropriate locations at the base.

He happened to be in Walpi in 1893 during the rites attending a girl’s first menses. He said, on the first day, the girl ground white corn, which had been shelled by the women. On the second day she ground blue corn and red on the third. On the morning of the fourth, yellow was ground, and black in the afternoon. A feast followed attended only by women.

Notes: See the last six posts for the history of corn varieties, the identity of towns, the ceremonies and their elements. Spar is a form of gypsum.

Stephen, Alexander. Notebooks, 1882-1894, edited as Hopi Journal, 1936, by Elsie Clews Parsons.

Voth, H. R. and George A. Dorsey. The Oraibi Soyal Ceremony, 1901.


Photographs:
1. Common white corn meal, Tennessee Red Cobb; Paramount Food Grains, Quinter, Kansas.

2. When corn is ground, the hard shell breaks into large pieces than does the interior. Medium grind white whole grain corn meal, Bob’s Red Mill, Milwaukie, Oregon.

3. Same corn meal as #2 in mass as it would be in a bowl.

4. The differences between outer and inner parts of the corn kernel are more obvious with medium ground whole grain yellow corn meal, Bob’s Red Mill.

5. Same corn meal as #2 in mass as it would be in a bowl. The camera software exaggerates the yellow.


6. Much commerical corn meal has the center germ removed so it won’t spoil. Aunt Jemima degerminated yellow corn meal with added nutrients, sold by Quaker Oats, Chicago.

Sunday, January 04, 2015

Soyal


Weather: Very cold mornings early in the week (Monday was 8 degrees on my porch). Then came the winds on Tuesday that were so strong it was the coldest so far this season in the house (56 in the backroom). By Thursday, that cold had met warm water and we got a little snow. Though I don’t understand how, I think the water was generated by tropical storm Jangmi, which drowned the Philippines about the time that airplane crashed in the Java Sea.

What’s still green: Juniper, piñon, and other evergreens, yuccas. Rose stems; leaves on grape hyacinth, Japanese honeysuckle, alfilerillo.

What’s gray: Winterfat, snow-in-summer; four-wing salt bushes are gray-green.

What’s reddened: Cholla, twigs on peach, apricot and apple; purple aster leaves; sandbar willow wood is rust brown.

What’s yellowed: Young stems on globe and weeping willows; more arborvitae have browned.

What’s blooming indoors: Zonal geraniums.

Animal sightings: Small birds.


Weekly update: Agricultural rituals begin on the eighth day of Soyal. At Walpi, an altar is erected in the Pátki clan kiva. The frame is covered by faux white, red, yellow, and green (rather than blue) corn flowers, and larger, yellow, squash blossoms. Clouds of raw, white cotton sit above.

In the afternoon, four messengers collect bundles of seed corn from each household, which are placed at the base of the altar. A water serpent sits on the mound behind the frame with his nose peaking through the flowers. At Oraibi, the corn flowers are mounted on posts planted on each side of the altar frame.

While private rituals are being performed in the Pátki kiva, two kachinas appear in the plaza from the northwest. The Mastop make advances to women, young and old. When they finish, four messengers emerge from the kiva with objects they bury at a sacred spring.

Singing in the main kiva continues through the night. Around two in the morning at Oraibi, members of the Agave Society bring in a picture with seeds attached to the edges with clay. The officiating chief scrapes the seeds into a tray with a corn cob and scrapes the bottom rows of flowers in the altar. At Walpi, the screen also has four corn flowers in the border.

After day light, the altars are dismantled and the ears of seed corn returned to women. The Qöqöqlom kachinas appear in the afternoon. Their dance, the first of the season, completes opening the kivas for the other kachinas who will follow in a few weeks at Powamu.


Like the hunting and warrior rituals discussed last week, these elements encapsulate layers of past practices. The surface may be Roman Catholic. Elsewhere, plants are blessed on Assumption Day in mid-August and animals on the feast day of Saint Francis in early October.

However, the group credited with introducing Soyal migrated from an area less affected by Franciscans than most. The Pátki, also called the Corn, Cloud, Sun, or Water clan, say they were driven from San Carlos in the Gila River valley of southern Arizona by destructive floods. Their ancestors were invited to use their powers during a great drought on Third Mesa. When the rains came, they were allowed to stay.

Andrew Stephen saw animal figures included in baskets at the Soyal altar in 1892. The blessed effigies were planted in corrals. Jesse Walter Fewkes saw miniature animals in the kiva of the Agave Society, one of the four organizations for adult men. In the 1930s, Mischa Titiev saw prayer sticks tied to the tails of farm animals.

The use of animal surrogates may be older than Soyal. The Hakataya, who lived in the drainages of the Colorado and Gila rivers southwest of the Anasazi and Hohokam, made split twig figures of animals that were deposited deep inside caves. Some have been recovered that are 4000 years old.

Fewkes believed the image on the screen represents Alosaka, a germination god introduced by the now extinct Squash Clan. The Patuñ originally lived along the Little Colorado river. Their practices have been continued, with modifications, by the Badger and Tansy Mustard Clans.

More overt fertility rituals permeate festivities. Before the four messengers leave the Pátki kiva to collect seed corn, they lay on the ladder and go "through the motions of cohabitation." The Mastop kachinas, who emerged from the Agave Society kiva, run up to women, place their hands of their shoulders, and make "little jumps with both feet" to the same purpose. Women, who shun the clowns, welcome these kachinas.


Notes: More on the annual Kachina cycle, the towns and observers, maybe found in the post for 21 December 2014.

Fewkes, Jesse Walter. "Tusayan Migration Traditions," Bureau of American Ethnography Report, 1901.

_____. "The Winter Solstice Ceremony at Walpi," The American Anthropologist 11:65-87:1898 and 11:101-115:1898.

Schroeder, Albert H. "Prehistory: Hakataya," in Alfonso Ortiz, Handbook of North American Indians, volume 9, 1979.

Stephen, Alexander. Notebooks, 1882-1894, edited as Hopi Journal, 1936, by Elsie Clews Parsons.

Titiev, Mischa. Old Oraibi, 1944; quotation with "jumps."

Voth, H. R. and George A. Dorsey. The Oraibi Soyal Ceremony, 1901; quotation with "cohabitation."


Photographs: Fewkes noticed greasewood was burned in the celebrating kiva. Other types are sold in Española by men in pick-up trucks parked along the roads. Most offer it split and cut to length. In the last month, I’ve taken pictures of both quartered and unsplit fire wood to see the coloring and size.