Each December, a runner climbs to a shrine in the San Francisco Peaks, where he scatters a meal and plants plumes that are to be brought back in July, by another runner, for the final festival, Niman, linked with the harvest. At the harvest festival, the deities return to the underworld, through the San Francisco Peaks. Interestingly, it is claimed that the seasons in the Underworld are one season behind.
As mentioned, the actual return of the deities to the Hopi Mesas is celebrated at Powamu, the Bean- Planting Ceremony in February. Each matriarch receives a bundle of fresh bean sprouts to plant for the coming year. The festival lasts eight days and concludes with dancing, which takes place in the nine kivas of the mesa. Everyone wears fresh mud from the sacred spring and each job of plastering has been signed with the print of the slim hand of the girl who did it. All Hopi babies receive a tihu – a kachina doll – at their first Niman ceremony, while the girls receive further dolls at each Powamuya and Niman ceremony, up until or near marriageable age, although married women sometimes still get them from their husbands. The dolls are created as a teaching tool given to these children and is presented to them by one of the masked dancers. Boys and girls are normally properly initiated into society between the age of six to ten, when they are allowed to participate in the performances and discover that the masked dancers are their own relatives – very much like finding out who Santa Claus really is – though I, of course, never said that.
Hopi Powamu Ceremony, 1893
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Each December, a runner climbs to a shrine in the San Francisco Peaks, where he scatters a meal and plants plumes that are to be brought back in July, by another runner, for the final festival, Niman, linked with the harvest. At the harvest festival, the deities return to the underworld, through the San Francisco Peaks. Interestingly, it is claimed that the seasons in the Underworld are one season behind.
As mentioned, the actual return of the deities to the Hopi Mesas is celebrated at Powamu, the Bean- Planting Ceremony in February. Each matriarch receives a bundle of fresh bean sprouts to plant for the coming year. The festival lasts eight days and concludes with dancing, which takes place in the nine kivas of the mesa. Everyone wears fresh mud from the sacred spring and each job of plastering has been signed with the print of the slim hand of the girl who did it. All Hopi babies receive a tihu – a kachina doll – at their first Niman ceremony, while the girls receive further dolls at each Powamuya and Niman ceremony, up until or near marriageable age, although married women sometimes still get them from their husbands. The dolls are created as a teaching tool given to these children and is presented to them by one of the masked dancers. Boys and girls are normally properly initiated into society between the age of six to ten, when they are allowed to participate in the performances and discover that the masked dancers are their own relatives – very much like finding out who Santa Claus really is – though I, of course, never said that.