Annual report of the Bureau of American Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution . d. The rain priests considered this game so efficacious in l)ringing rainthat they organized a fIaternity, which they called Showckwe (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 Itiwanna (Middle place, the site of thepresent Zuni), eight days after the first appearance of Kiiiklo (see page65) in Itiwanna, ce
Annual report of the Bureau of American Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution . d. The rain priests considered this game so efficacious in l)ringing rainthat they organized a fIaternity, which they called Showckwe (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 Itiwanna (Middle place, the site of thepresent Zuni), eight days after the first appearance of Kiiiklo (see page65) in Itiwanna, ceitain ancestial gods gathered in the ceremonialchamber of the Kiakwemosi where the first body of rain priests, theGalaxy fraternity, and the ten members of tiie Showekwe were assem-bled. The Koyemshi at this time gave their songs and prayers to thefraternities present, after which the Newekwe and Showekwe alter-nated annually in personating the Ko\emshi (see page 33). The Great Fire and the Cactus fraternities are more recent acces-sions to the personators of the Koyemshi. The four fraternities. STEVENSON] GAMES 329 now personate these gods in turn (see pane 235); at least siu-li was thecase until the Showekwe became so degenerated that the director ofthe fraternitv preferred to choose tlie personators of tlie Koyenishifron) the fraternities at large 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 l)ears no rela-tion whatever to the one organized by the rain priests; Init the gameis still played by the ])riests and others in all sacredness for rain. The reeds used for ceremonial occasions are rarely brought out atother times. Such reeds are old and ar(> preserved witii care, and it isconsidered a great privilege when one having lost heavily at the gamemay secure, as indicated in the succeeding paragraph, a ceremonial setof reeds through which to recover his possessi
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1890, booksubjectindians, bookyear1895
