Title: The American Museum journal
Identifier: americanmuseumjo17amer (find matches)
Year: c1900-(1918) (c190s)
Authors: American Museum of Natural History
Subjects: Natural history
Publisher: New York : American Museum of Natural History
Contributing Library: American Museum of Natural History Library
Digitizing Sponsor: Biodiversity Heritage Library

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570 THE AMERICAN MUSEUM JOURNAL the same clan as my father's Ijiothor, ami accordingly he is distinguished by a separate word. But the Hopi carry this principle to what might be considered ridiculous lengths. Not content with extending the meaning of terms within a certain generation, they sometimes class together relatives who differ very widely in point of age. Thus, the son of the father's sister is not a cousin as in English, but a "father,"—obviously for no other reason than that he is a fellow-clans- ritualistic performances. But in some of the more important of the religious fraternities ceremonial offices were found to be definitely associated with certain clans, and to descend not from father to son but from maternal uncle to sister's son, or from elder to younger brother. In other words, they do not normally pass out of the clan. During my first stay I witnessed only a single ceremony, the Niman Kateina (Kach- inai. The Hopi divide their ceremonial
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Village of Sliil)iiulovi risini; I'ruiii tlir .MuliUi- uir.sa man of the father. But the climax is reached in the designation of the paternal aunt's female descendants, all of whom (through females) are called "paternal aunt" to the nth generation. This, however, is really not the happiest way of expressing the facts. We should rather say that a single term is used to denote any female member of the father's clan from his own generation downward. The clan theory is thus well borne out by the Hopi data. As kinship proved to be inextricably bound up with the clans, so the clans proved to be intimately connected with ceremonialism. This does not indeed apply to all the year into two parts—masked dancers or Katcinas participating during the one season and unmasked dancers in the other. The former impersonate ancestral spirits, and Cottonwood effigies of them, which they distribute at the close of their performance, are treasured by the children as dolls. The Niman or "Home-going" ceremony terminates the mummers' season. In the summer of 1916 I was almost "surfeited with honey" in a ceremonial way. I attended two performances of the Snake Dance, saw the Flute Dance, the Mamajau'to, and an entirely anomalous Kateina performance. All of these have been described before, with the

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