{"id":"TITIEV1972-001","label":"Sky god over a miniature cornfield","people_or_site":"Hopi / Hotevilla (Third Mesa)","country_current":"United States","historic_region":"Hotevilla, Third Mesa, Navajo County, Arizona","macroregion":"North America","local_name":"tovokinpi","source_term":"whizzer (bull-roarer)","source_language":"English","object_description":"A whizzer carried, with a lattice lightning frame, by the katcina personating the sky god Sotukinangwa'a.","function_summary":"Thunder for the sky god in a Palulukonti puppet play: he rose from behind the screen to shoot lightning over a miniature cornfield.","attestation_type":"ethnographic_attestation","source_key":"titiev1972oraibi","source_type":"primary_ethnography","source_url":"https://archive.org/details/hopiindiansofold0000titi","page_or_plate":"Titiev 1972 pp. 324–325, fig. 19; King 1987 p. 37 and n. 36","map_confidence":"high","plot_status":"plot","coordinate_basis":"Hotevilla village, Third Mesa.","jade_complex_role":"","blurb":"In the winter of 1934 Hotevilla staged a puppet play for the Palulukonti, the Water Serpent ceremony, though that year no serpent puppets came out; only the songs remembered them. A painted screen stood across the room, and in front of it corn sprouts set in little clay cones made a miniature cornfield before the puppet maidens, who were worked to look as if they were grinding sweet-corn meal. Behind the screen crouched the sky god Sotukinangwa'a, carrying a whizzer and a lattice lightning frame. From time to time he rose to the shoulders and shot lightning 'over—but not directly at—the cornfield.' Now and then a sandpiper puppet was made to skate across the top of the screen.","pull_quote":"One katcina dressed as the sky god, Sotukinangwa'a, and carrying a whizzer (bull-roarer) and a lightning frame, was also behind the screen.","pull_quote_translation":"","pull_quote_cite":"Titiev 1972, The Hopi Indians of Old Oraibi, pp. 324–325","term_gloss":"","cls":"sacred","class_label":"Sacred / spirit","color":"#8A5A2B","is_candidate":false,"flags":["snake","agriculture","weather"],"f_jade_complex":false,"f_women_taboo":false,"f_women_special":false,"f_snake":true,"sources":[{"citation":"Mischa Titiev, The Hopi Indians of Old Oraibi: Change and Continuity (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1972), pp. 324–325","url":"https://archive.org/details/hopiindiansofold0000titi"},{"citation":"William R. King, 'Dionysos Among the Mesas: The Water Serpent Puppet Play of the Hopi Indians', American Indian Culture and Research Journal 11:3 (1987), pp. 17–49","url":"https://escholarship.org/uc/item/18d4b46s"}],"source_citations":"Mischa Titiev, The Hopi Indians of Old Oraibi: Change and Continuity (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1972), pp. 324–325; William R. King, 'Dionysos Among the Mesas: The Water Serpent Puppet Play of the Hopi Indians', American Indian Culture and Research Journal 11:3 (1987), pp. 17–49","source_display":"Mischa Titiev, The Hopi Indians of Old Oraibi: Change and Continuity (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1972), pp. 324–325; William R. King, 'Dionysos Among the Mesas: The Water Serpent Puppet Play of the Hopi Indians', American Indian Culture and Research Journal 11:3 (1987), pp. 17–49","date_citation_display":"","object_display":"A whizzer carried, with a lattice lightning frame, by the katcina personating the sky god Sotukinangwa'a.","function_display":"","confidence_display":"high","attestation_label":"ethnographic attestation","etymology_hedge":"","people_key":"hopi","display_name":"Sky god over a miniature cornfield","image":{"full":"assets/objects/TITIEV1972-001_fewkes1903_plLVIII_cotokinunwu.jpg","thumb":"assets/objects/TITIEV1972-001_fewkes1903_plLVIII_cotokinunwu_thumb.jpg","alt":"A painted katcina with a white box mask and single curved green horn, holding a small red-zigzag whizzer on a cord in his raised right hand and a lattice lightning frame at his waist.","credit":"J. W. Fewkes, Hopi Katcinas Drawn by Native Artists (21st ARBAE, 1903), pl. LVIII","license":"Public domain (published 1903)","source_page":"https://archive.org/details/hopikatcinasdraw00fewk","rehosted":true,"representative":true,"caption":"A Hopi painting of Cotokinuñwû holding a lightning frame and whizzer."},"slug":"titiev1972-001-hopi-hotevilla-third-mesa"}