532 AMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGIST f>. S.. i, 1899
that the latter is a solar god. In his performance he does not, to be sure, wear a mask with solar symbols, but he imitates a bird in action and voice. He is a patron of warriors, like the sun ; he is the first god to return, and the Soydlufia is a celebration to cause the sun to return. The eagle or a raptorial bird is the sun bird ; the sun fertilizes the earth, and the ceremonial acts of the Bird-man at the Winter Solstice dramatize fertilization. In short, the conclu- sion to which studies of the ceremonial acts of the Bird-man, reinforced by those of comparative symbolism, have led me, that the Bird-man personates the sun or a solar deity.
Ceremony with the Al6saka Screen
After the bird personator had retired, a short interval elapsed, all the spectators of the previous rites remaining seated. A screen was then handed through the kiva hatchway and propped upright near the fireplace with blocks of clay and stones. This screen (plate XXVi) was estimated to be between four and five feet long, by about three feet wide, and was decorated on the side turned toward the fireplace and the raised floor of the kiva. The entire middle of the screen was occupied by a picture of Aldsaka, identical with that on the sun-shield used in the Walpi SoydluHa.' The head of this figure bore two curved horns, with two fan shaped lateral attachments; the chin was painted black; in the right hand an ear of corn was represented, and in the left a monkohu or whitened slab of wood with attached feathers.
A triple rain-cloud symbol was depicted on the screen above the head of the Aldsaka figure, and to the left were four parallel bars with a vertical row of four dots. In the lower left-hand corner there was a symbolic picture of the sun, and on the right side of Aldsaka appeared an elongated figure which possibly may have represented a sprouting seed. To each side of the screen were attached four artificial flowers, and to the upper edge a number of hoops covered with raw cotton, possibly representing snow.
1 Amtritan Anthropologist, vol. XI, 1898, pi. ii.
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