The Sacred Hoop: Recovering the Feminine in American Indian Traditions

Hutchamun Kiuk, the timekeeper or officer who keeps track of
the ritual calendar (which is intrinsically related to the solstices
and equinoxes), plays a central role in the ritual. The presence of
Kochinnenako and Hutchamun Kiuk and the Shiwana Miochin
and Sh-ah-cock means something sacred is going on for the
Keres.
The ritual transfers the focus of power, or the ritual axis, held
in turn by two moieties whose constitution reflects the earth’s
bilateral division between summer and winter, from the winter
to the summer people. Each moiety’s right to power is confirmed
by and reflective of the seasons, as it is reflective of and
supported by the equinoxes. The power is achieved through the
Iyani (ritual empowerment) of female Power, 6 embodied in
Kochinnenako as mask dancer and/or Irriaku. Without her
empowering mediatorship among the south and north Shiwana,
the cacique, and the village, the season and the moiety cannot
change, and balance cannot be maintained.
Unchanging supremacy of one moiety/season over the other is
unnatural and therefore undesirable because unilateral
dominance of one aspect of existence and of society over another
is not reflective of or supported by reality at meteorological or
spiritual levels. Sh-ah-cock, is the Winter Spirit or Winter
Cloud, a Shiwana (one of several categories of supernatural),
and as such is cold and connected to sleet, snow, ice, and
hunger. He is not portrayed as cold because he is a source of
unmitigated evil (or of evil at all, for that matter).
Half of the people (not numerically but mystically, so to
speak) are Winter, and in that sense are Sh-ah-cock; and while
this aspect of the group psyche may seem unlovely when its time
is over, that same half is lovely indeed in the proper season.
Similarly, Miochin will also age—that is, pass his time—and
will then give way for his “rival,” which is also his complement.
Thus balance and harmony are preserved for the village through