Annual report of the Bureau of ethnology to the secretary of the Smithsonian Institution .. . ded. The rain priests considered this game so efficacious in bringing rainthat they organized a fraternity, which they called Showekwe (Arrow-reed people), for the express purpose of playing the game for men were designated by the rain priests as the original membersof the Showekwe. The prayers of this fraternity were sure to bringrain. When the gods visited Ftiwanna (Middle place, the site of thepresent Zuni), eight days after the first appearance of Kiaklo (see page65) in Ftiwanna, certain
Annual report of the Bureau of ethnology to the secretary of the Smithsonian Institution .. . ded. The rain priests considered this game so efficacious in bringing rainthat they organized a fraternity, which they called Showekwe (Arrow-reed people), for the express purpose of playing the game for men were designated by the rain priests as the original membersof the Showekwe. The prayers of this fraternity were sure to bringrain. When the gods visited Ftiwanna (Middle place, the site of thepresent Zuni), eight days after the first appearance of Kiaklo (see page65) in Ftiwanna, certain ancestral gods gathered in the ceremonialchamber of the Kiakwemosi where the first body of rain priests, theGalaxy fraternity, and the1 ten members of the Showekwe were assem-bled. The Kovemshi at this time gave their songs and prayers to thefraternities present, after which the Newekwe and Showekwe alter-nated annually in personating the Kovemshi (see page 33). The Great Fire and the Cactus fraternities are more recent acces-sions to the personators of the Kovemshi. The four fraternities. STEVENSON] GAMES e> 2 9 now personate these o-ods in turn (see page 235); at least such was thecase until the Showekwe became so degenerated that the director ofthe fraternit} preferred to choose the personators of the Koyemshifrom the fraternities at lai-ge rather than to call on the men of hisown. The fraternity no longer exists in its original purity, havingdegenerated into a body of professional gamblers which hears no rela-tion whatever to the one organized by the rain priests; hut the gameis still played by the priests and others in all sacredness for rain. The reeds used for ceremonial occasions are rarely brought out atother times. Such reeds are old and are preserved with care, and it isconsidered a great privilege when one having lost heavily at the namemay secure, as indicated in the succeeding paragraph, a ceremonial setof reeds through which to recover his possessions. The fol
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