 As evening begins to overtake the hot afternoon, the narrator, a linguist studying Uto-Aztecan languages still spoken in the Southwestern United States, is shocked to find herself face to face with an eerily beautiful young girl. Our stories begin in the dwindling sunlight with the unsettling appearance of Tiponi Ankti. __________________________________________________________________________ "Bocat katsena," she insisted. "Bocat katsena!" The bocat katsena was the term for a masked dance that took place in Hopi villages. Somehow it had terrified her. We were outside of the reservation, but her Hopi was perfect. It was impossible that she was not a Hopi child, one who had probably disobediently wandered away. "What about the bocat katsena?" I inquired quietly. I had been aimlessly strolling when suddenly she appeared. The sun shone brilliantly against the layers of sandstone, but she seemed somehow in shadow. I thought she must be from the reservation when she answered me in a studied English. "They were dancing the bocat katsena, then the race, and then he took out his thunder knife..." her eyes widened as her sentence trailed off. "Whose thunder knife? Who?" I reached out instinctively to smooth her hair in a comforting gesture. She pulled sharply back and looked at me violently. She responded gravely, "Bloody Hand." The dance, the thunder knife, combined with the strange name - she must be talking about a qatsina. Someone must have frightened her with a qatsina story. I was still unfamiliar with the beliefs surrounding the spirits. Though I knew many of the stories were humorous, there were more than a few that could keep anyone awake at night. "Tell me," I offered, knowing that it was futile to tell any child their fears were unreal. As I was preparing my stock phrases of reassurance, I noticed the hem of her little gown was dripping. She pulled fiercely away as I reached toward her, but made no effort to deter me from running my fingers through the puddle that had formed at her feet. It was blood. Her gown dripped blood. The adult within me bristled to authority. "Where have you been? What have you been doing? Tell me, now." "I tried, I tried..." she sobbed, and began muttering phrases in Hopi that I did not understand. "What? Wha....sometimes dead is better?" Somehow my beginner's ear picked this phrase out clearly from her mumbling. "Owi. Sometimes dead is better." A glint of recognition slowed her sobs. She asked, "You know Hopi?" "Owi, yes, but very little." I answered. "You must tell Apo; his son is dead." "And you must tell me what you are talking about, now."  "During this morning of this day, the dancers came to dance the masked dance. At noon, as everyone in the village was settling down for their meal, Apo's son came out onto the roof of Apo's home." "Standing there he watched the dancers file in for the dance. He noticed a dancer he had never seen before, with a bright print of a hand on his mask." "After the dance the dancers began to leave, but the one in the hand print mask began to gesture. He wanted a race between him and one of the men of the village. No one in the village had ever seen this dancer. Chief sent messengers to the dancer four times to try to appease him, but the dancer in the hand print mask would not stop gesturing. He insisted on a foot race, pointing to the East, demanding to race away from the sunset." "Apo's son had been watching and the dancer in the hand print mask saw him, and motioned, choosing him as a competitor. The chief had no choice. Several men led Apo's son to the starting point at the big corral where the horses are kept, encouraging him. How proud his father would be when he discovered that his son had raced a qatsina."  "They began to run. Soon they were outside of the village, but I was there. I kept close because I have learned to be suspicious of the qatsinas' whims. Apo's son outdistanced the qatsina and not an instant later the qatsina's anger, so much quicker than his feet, was a rage. He grabbed his thunder knife and threw it, hitting Apo's son. He ran up to the body, scalped him viciously, and in his rage ran back home. I tried to cover his skull with my gown, but he bled out entirely as I held him." Horrified, I reached out for her again. She pulled further back, this time angry. "Stop reaching for me," she said gravely, her eyes ordering me more than her voice. "Did he hurt you?" "He cannot. You must go tell Apo. People must come, quickly. The qatsina has taken the scalp back to his cave. They must recover the body. Tell them, the qatsina with the bloody hand print on his mask is not to be summoned. He takes people, the Bloody Hand Print." My astonishment kept me from questioning; the blood at her feet was proof that some violence had indeed been committed. "Come with me. We have to make sure you're not hurt." "Qa. I stay in the desert. I do not need your help. They cannot hurt me anymore." "Little girl...." "My name is Tiponi Ankti. I am no longer a little girl." "What are you saying? What do you mean they can't hurt you and 'anymore'?" "Sometimes dead is better." Then she was gone. There was only the blood on my hand, the puddle seeping slowly into the dry earth. Author's Note: This retelling of the story "The Bloody Hand Print Qatsina" contains almost all of the elements of the original story, which is very short. The original story simplistically tells how a young boy watching the qatsina dance is wrangled into a foot race with the Bloody Hand Print qatsina, a qatsina entirely unknown in the village. The story finished with all of the villagers realizing that the Bloody Hand Print qatsina is dangerous and to be feared. In this retelling the reader does not see the villagers or learn of their fear, but Tiponi does tell the narrator to warn the villagers about the deadly qatsina. The "Bloody Hand Print Kacina" story gives a glimpse of the violence and destruction that even the slightest whim or frustration of a qatsina can cause. The Bloody Hand Print qatsina is an important character in Hopi folklore and one of the few qatsinas to have an entire tale dedicated to it, and to warning the Hopi people about him. Researchers have documented that in many Native American traditions there is a recurrent motif of the taking of human trophies. The story of the Bloody Hand Print qatsina serves as an example of this motif in the Hopi tradition. Bibliography: ~ BENEDICT, Ruth. Tales of the Cochiti Indians. 1932. Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletin No. 98. Accessed Online through the Sacred Texts Archive. Last updated: Unknown. ~ GRUNE, Dick. Survey of an Uto-Aztecan Language. 1997. Accessed online through Hopi Language Summaries. Last updated: Unknown. ~ CHACON, Richard J. and DYE, David H. The Taking and Displaying of Human Body parts as Trophies by Amerindians, First Edition. 2007. Springer Publications. Accessed Online through GoogleBooks. Image Information: Hand Kachina, known for scalping in the Rio Grande pueblo oral traditions. Southern Tiwa. Web Source: Chacon & Dye. Traditional Dance, 1879. John K. Hillers. |
