Ahöla

In Hopi mythology, Ahöla, also known as Ahul, is a spirit being, a kachina, represented by a man.

Ahöla is one of the important chief kachinas for the First and Second Mesas because he opens the mid-winter Powamu ceremony, sometimes called the bean planting festival. On the first night of the festival, he performs inside a kiva, a ceremonial room, before going with the Powamu chief to give prayer feathers to Kachina Spring at dawn. Afterwards, Ahöla and the Powamu Chief visit all of the kivas and ceremonial houses, giving bean and corn plants and marking the doorways with stripes of meal. At the end of the ceremony, Ahöla descends to a shrine, bows four times to the Sun, and asks for health, happiness, long life, and good crops.

ources

* [http://www.nps.gov/archive/meve/edu_resources/artifacts/pages/i30m_jpg.htm] Mesa Verde National Park
*"Kachinas : A Hopi Artist's Documentary." Barton Wright. Seventh Edition. Northland Publishing Company with the Heard Museum. Flagstaff, AZ: 1974.