Ho'ok

Ho'ok is the ogress of O'odham story, a monstrous woman born of a mortal after an uncanny conception in a gambling game. Endowed with claws and an insatiable appetite, she grows into a terror who snatches and devours the children of the settlements. When the people can bear it no longer they appeal to Elder Brother, who arranges a great four-day dance and lures Ho'ok into a cave; there he puts her to sleep, seals the entrance, and destroys her with smoke and fire. Her name is the ordinary O'odham word for a witch or monster, and her killing is remembered in ceremony. Places in the desert, including a cave in the Baboquivari country, are pointed out as the scene of her death.

Domains

• monsters

Powers

• seize and devour children

Relations

• enemy: I'itoiElder Brother lures her into a cave with a dance and destroys her with smoke and fire.Dean Saxton and Lucille Saxton, O'odham Hoho'ok A'agitha (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1973) (secondary)

Sources

• Ho'ok is a monstrous woman, born abnormally to a mortal, who grows into a child-devouring ogress and is destroyed by Elder Brother in a cave.: J. William Lloyd, Aw-aw-tam Indian Nights (Westfield, N.J.: The Lloyd Group, 1911) (secondary); Dean Saxton and Lucille Saxton, O'odham Hoho'ok A'agitha (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1973) (secondary)
• Her destruction is commemorated in O'odham ceremonial tradition.: Ruth M. Underhill, Papago Indian Religion (New York: Columbia University Press, 1946) (secondary)