Page:American Anthropologist NS vol. 22.djvu/29

.

MASON] THE PAP AGO HARVEST FESTIVAL 17

bring a small bundle of sticks with them and give one to each new- comer. Thus everyone receives a stick which keeps him from be- coming ill at the celebration and which he takes home with him to serve as medicine. With it he brushes himself clean.

The greater part of the ten days is spent in learning and prac- tising the songs to be sung in the ceremony. The men from each of the five villages build a small enclosure or corral which is the headquarters of this village and where the practising is done. As each group finishes its enclosure it sings a song to gain the blessing which is vouchsafed to the first village to complete its corral. Here the singers gather every evening and practise. They are known as vi'pinyiM (singular vinyiu) and form a numerous body, each village having as many singers as it can secure. There are eight principal vi^pmyiu from each village and an indefinite number of choristers. Each of the eight composes a song and teaches it to the chorus who do the actual singing at the festival, the com- posers not taking part. Each singer wears a mask made of a gourd painted in bright colors and carries a rattle. 1 There are thus eight songs sung by each village chorus at the Vigita and new songs are composed and sung every year. Every evening after the completion of the village enclosure the singers meet and practise their songs so that there will be no mistakes on the final day.

Another numerous body of men are the nanawitcu (singular

1 ". . .a different kind of mask, neatly made from a gourd, and painted. It is worn by a singer at the same great feast. . . . There are three sections of colors on the singers' masks symbolizing clouds of similar hues. The upper part is painted with red ochre; then comes a black band which is produced by a mixture of sap from the mezquite and oxide of iron; the white band is made with chalk. The zigzags of the red section symbolize clouds, the dots are grains of corn. The designs on the white section denote clouds and lightning. The singers (viinim) have the same kind of rattles as the clowns, consisting of a number of the small bags spun by an insect (Attacus orizaba), with a pebble inside of each, and attached to a band around the ankle. The band should be cut from the skin of a black dog, which is killed for the purpose in the practising enclosure.

" The singer has the upper body nude, his trousers being turned up as high as possi- ble and his feet bare. He wears no head-dress, but attempts to appear neatly attired, tying around the loins a colored bandanna or perhaps a shawl borrowed from his wife- Around the waist, the neck, and the upper part of the arm bright-colored strips of cloth are tied. His body is smeared with red ochre on which are spots of white, symbolizing grains of corn." Lumholtz, p. 94, 95; plate opp. pp. 96, a-d.

2

�� �