echnique existed, autonomous from the Spanish.2 It bears the same heraldic bird mo

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tives together with the se
rpent, which fo
r the Mokis-as in
all pagan religious practic
e-commands cult
ic devotion as th
e most vital symbo   

l. This serpent still appe

• ars on the base of contemporary vessels e
• xactly as Fewkes found it on prehistoric ones: coiled, with a feathered head. On the rims, four terrace-shaped attachments carry small representations of animals. We know from
• work on Indian mysteries that these animals-for example, the frog and the spider represent the points of the compass and that these vessels are placed in front of the fetishes in the subterranea
• n prayer room known as the kiva. In the kiva, at the core of devotional practice, the serpent appears as the symbol of lightning (Figure 1 ). In my hotel in Santa Fe, I received from an Indian, Cleo Jurino, and his son, Anacleto Jurino, original drawings that, after some resi
• stance, they made before my eyes and in which they outlined their cosmologic world view with col

ored pencils (F

• igure 4). The father, Cleo, was one of the priests and painter of the kiva in Cochiti. The drawing showed the serpent as a weather deity, as it happens, unfeathered but otherwise portrayed exactly as it appears in the i
• mage on the vase, with an arrow-pointed tongue. The roof of the world house bears a stair-shaped gable. Above the walls spans a rainbow, and from massed
• clouds below flows the rain, represented by short strokes. In the middle, as the true master of the stormy worldhouse, appears the fetish (not a serpent figure): Yaya or Yerrick. In the presence of such pa
• intings the pious Indian invokes the storm with all its blessings through magical pr
• actices, of which to us the most astonishing is the handling of live, poisonous serpents. As we saw in Jurino's drawing, the serpent in its lightning shape is m
• agically linked to lightning. The stair-shaped roof of the worldhouse and the serpent-arrowhead, along with the serpent itself, are constitutive elements i
• n the Indians' symbolic language of images. I would suggest without any doubt that the stairs contain at least a Pan-American and perhaps a worldwide symbol of the cosmos. A photograph of the underground kiva of Sia, af
• ter Mrs. Stevenson, shows the organization of a carved lightning altar as the focal point of sacrificial ceremony, with the lightning serpent in the company of other sky-oriented symbols. It is an altar for lightning from all points of the compass. The Indians crouching before it have p
• laced their sacrificial offerings on the altar and hold in their hand the symbol of mediating prayer: the feather (Figure 5). My wish to observe the Indians directly under the influence of official C
• atholicism was favored by circumstance. I was able to accompany the Catholic priest Pere Juillard, whom I had met on New Year's Day 1895 [sic] While watching a Mexican Matachina dance, on an inspection tour tha
• t took him to the romantically situated village of Acoma. We traveled through this gorse-grown wilderness for about six hours, until we could see the village emerging from the sea of rock, like a He
• ligoland in a sea of sand. Before we had reached the foot of the rock, bells began to ring in honor of the priest. A squad of brightly clad redskins [Rothiiut

e] came run

ning with lightnin

g speed down the path to carry up our luggage. The carriages remained below, a necessity that proved ill fated: the Indians stole a ca

• sk of wine the priest had r
• eceived as a gift from the nuns of Bernalillo.
• Once on top, we
• were immediately received with all the trappi

ngs of honor by the. Governador-Spanish names for the ruling village chiefs are still in use. He put the priest's hand to his lips with a slurping noise, inhaling, as it were, the greeted person's aura in a gesture of reverential welcome. We were housed in his large main room together with the coachmen, and on the priest's request, I promised him that I would attend mass the following morning. Indians are standing before t

he church d

oor (Figure 6). Th   

Course Schedule

ey are not easily

led inside. This requires a loud call by the chief from the three parallel village streets. At last they assembled in the church. They are wrapped in colorful woolen cloths,

• woven in the open by nomadic Nava
• jo women but produced also by the P
• ueblos themse
• lves. They are ornamented in white, red, or blue and make a most picturesque

Contact your impression. The interior of the church has a genuine littl