26th of July: The Piptuyakyamu

Wilfred Tewawina, Moencopi, Bialac Collection

25th:The Koyemsi

Henry Shelton, Orabi, 1986

24th of July: The Paiyatamu, the sun youth

Henry Shelton, Orabi, 1991, Simpson Collection

23st of July: the Paiyakyamu or Kossa

Alvin Makya James, Orabi.

23th of July: the Tsukuwiimkya

Carver unknown, Jacka collection

22 th of July: the clowns of the hopi, tradition keepers and delight makers

Pueblo Clowns (sometimes called sacred clowns) is a generic term for jester or trickster in the Kachina religion practiced by the Pueblo Indians of the southwestern USA. There are a number of figures in the ritual practice of the Pueblo people. Each has a unique role and belongs to separate Kivas (secret societies or confraternities), and each has a name that differs from one mesa or pueblo to another.

They perform during the spring and summer fertility rites. Among the Hopi there are five figures who serve as clowns: the Payakyamu, the Koshare (or Koyaala or Hano Clown), the Tsuku, the Tatsiqto (or Koyemshi or Mudhead) and the Kwikwilyak. With the exception of the Koshare, each is a kachinam or personification of a spirit. It is believed that when a member of a kiva dons the mask of a kachinam, he abandons his personality and becomes possessed by the spirit. Each figure performs a set role within the religious ceremonies; often their behavior is comic, lewd, scatological, eccentric and alarming. Among the Zuni, to enter the Ne’wekwe order, one is initiated «by a ritual of filth-eating»; «mud and excrement are smeared on the body for the clown performance, and parts of the performance may consist of sporting with excreta, smearing and daubing it, or drinking urine and pouring it on one another».

Anthropologists, most notably Adolf Bandelier in his 1890 book The Delight Makers, and Elsie Clews Parsons’s Pueblo Indian Religion, have extensively studied the meaning of the Pueblo Clowns. Bandelier notes that the Tsuku were somewhat feared by the Hopi as the source of public criticism and censure of un-Hopi like behavior. Their function can also include defusing community tensions, providing their own humurous interpretation of popular culture, re-enforcing taboo and communicating tradition.

Daryl Seckletstewa, E Comins Collection

http://www.kivapub.com/index.php?fuseaction=books.viewind&bookid=34

20th of July: Hopiland

19th July: Canyon de Chelly

19th July: Zuni girl with jar, by Edward Curtis

19th July: Zuni Pueblo

Zuni Pueblo consisting of approximately 12,000 people is located in the northwestern part of New Mexico. The pueblo is about 35 miles south of Gallup, NM and 150 miles west of Albuquerque, NM. The reservation, covering 418,304 acres, just rests on the western border of New Mexico.

The ancient homelands of the Zunis are along the middle reaches of the Zuni River where their cultural ancestors lived for centuries. Near the settlements and villages left by the ancient people, the Zuni Indians built compact villages of multi-storied houses. These were the towns seen and lived by Coronado and his men and called them the «Seven Cities» in the land of Cibola. The mythical Seven Cities of Cibola (Spanish word for «buffalo») lured Coronado to the southwest in 1540 in a treasure quest. Unfortunately, with the exception of the village of Zuni, all those sites were abandoned long ago.

For the last three hundred years, most of the Indians had lived in a single village, the Pueblo of Zuni. Within the boundaries often small, rather cramped reservation are smaller farming villages at Pescado, Nutria, and Ojo Caliente, which were established probably in the eighteenth century but which in more recent years have been occupied only during the time of planting and harvest. Beyond the boundaries of the reservation, there are ancient sites and areas, sacred points and shrines, and places of pilgrimage central to Zuni life and history.

A corner of Zuñi, by Edward Curtis

http://www.ashiwi.org/