Outlines of Zuñi Creation Myths
by Frank Hamilton Cushing · English · Gutenberg #48342 · 391,286 chars · public domain (US)
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Title: Outlines of Zuñi Creation Myths
Author: Frank Hamilton Cushing
Release date: February 23, 2015 [eBook #48342]
Most recently updated: October 24, 2024
Language: English
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OUTLINES OF ZUÑI CREATION MYTHS
BY
FRANK HAMILTON CUSHING
CONTENTS
Page
Introductory 325
The survival of early Zuñi traits 325
Outline of Spanish-Zuñi history 326
Outline of pristine Zuñi history 341
Outline of Zuñi mytho-sociologic organization 367
General explanations relative to the text 373
Myths 379
The genesis of the worlds, or the beginning of newness 379
The genesis of men and the creatures 379
The gestation of men and the creatures 381
The forthcoming from earth of the foremost of men 381
The birth from the sea of the Twain deliverers of men 381
The birth and delivery of men and the creatures 382
The condition of men when first into the world of daylight born 383
The origin of priests and of knowledge 384
The origin of the Raven and the Macaw, totems of winter and
summer 384
The origin and naming of totem-clans and creature kinds, and
the division and naming of spaces and things 386
The origin of the councils of secrecy or sacred brotherhoods 387
The unripeness and instability of the world when still young 388
The hardening of the world, and the first settlement of men 388
The beginning of the search for the Middle of the world, and
the second tarrying of men 390
The learning of war, and the third tarrying 390
The meeting of the People of Dew, and the fourth tarrying 390
The generation of the seed of seeds, or the origin of corn 391
The renewal of the search for the Middle 398
The choosing of seekers for signs of the Middle 398
The change-making sin of the brother and sister 399
The birth of the Old-ones or ancients of the Kâ´kâ 401
The renewal of the great journey, and the sundering of the
tribes of men 403
The origin of death by dying, and the abode of souls and the
Kâ´kâ 404
The loss of the great southern clans 405
The saving of the father-clans 405
The awaiting of the lost clans 406
The straying of K‘yäk´lu, and his plaint to the Water-fowl 406
How the Duck, hearing, was fain to guide K‘yäk´lu 407
How the Rainbow-worm bore K‘yäk´lu to the plain of Kâ´‘hluëlane 408
The tarrying of K‘yäk´lu in the plain, and his dismay 409
How the Duck found the lake of the dead and the gods of the
Kâ´kâ 409
How the gods of the Kâ´kâ counselled the Duck 410
How by behest of the Duck the Kâ´yemäshi sought K‘yäk´lu to
convey him to the lake of the dead 410
How the Kâ´yemäshi bore K‘yäk´lu to the council of the gods 411
The council of the Kâ´kâ, and the instruction of K‘yäk´lu by
the gods 412
The instruction of the Kâ´yemäshi by K‘yäk´lu 413
How the Kâ´yemäshi bore K‘yäk´lu to his people 413
The return of K‘yäk´lu, and his sacred instructions to the
people 413
The enjoining of the K‘yäk´lu Ámosi, and the departure of
K‘yäk´lu and the Old-ones 414
The coming of the brothers Ánahoho and the runners of the Kâ´kâ 414
The dispatching of the souls of things to the souls of the dead 415
The renewal of the great journeying, and of the search for the
Middle 415
The warning-speech of the gods, and the untailing of men 416
The origin of the Twin Gods of War and of the Priesthood of the
Bow 417
The downfall of Hán‘hlipiŋk‘ya, and the search anew for the
Middle 424
The wars with the Black people of the high buildings and with
the ancient woman of the K‘yákweina and other Kâ´kâkwe 424
The adoption of the Black people, and the division of the clans
to search for the Middle 425
The northward eastern journey of the Winter clans 426
The southward eastern journey of the Summer clans 426
The eastward middle journey of the People of the Middle 427
The settlement of Zuñi-land, and the building of the seven
great towns therein 427
The reunion of the People of the Middle with the Summer and
Seed peoples 428
The great council of men and the beings for the determination
of the true Middle 428
The establishment of the fathers and their tabernacle at
Hálonawan or the Erring-place of the Middle 429
The flooding of the towns, and the building of the City of Seed
on the mountain 429
The staying of the flood by sacrifice of the youth and maiden,
and the establishment of Hálona Ítiwana on the true Middle 429
The custom of testing the Middle in the Middle time 429
The cherishing of the Corn maidens and their custom as of old 430
The murmuring of the foolish anent the custom of the Corn
maidens 430
The council of the fathers that the perfection of the custom be
accomplished 431
The observance of the ‘Hláhekwe custom, or dance of the Corn
maidens 431
The sending of the Twain Priests of the Bow, that they bespeak
the aid of Paíyatuma and his Flute people 432
The finding of Paíyatuma, and his custom of the flute 433
The preparations for the coming of Paíyatuma and his People of
the Flute 434
The coming of Paíyatuma and his Dance of the Flute 435
The sacrilege of the youths of the dance, and the fleeting of
the Maidens of Corn 435
The mourning for loss of the Maidens of Corn 435
The seeking of the Maidens of Corn by the Eagle 436
The seeking of the Maidens of Corn by the Falcon 437
The seeking of the Maidens of Corn by the Raven 438
The beseeching of Paíyatuma, and his reversal of the people's
evil 439
The seeking of the Maidens of Corn by Paíyatuma 442
The finding of the Maidens of Corn in Summerland 443
The return of the Maidens of Corn with Paíyatuma 443
The presentation of the perfected seed to the fathers of men,
and the passing of the Maidens of Seed 443
The instructions of Paíyatuma for the ordinances and customs of
the corn perfecting 445
The final instructions of Paíyatuma, and his passing 446
OUTLINES OF ZUÑI CREATION MYTHS
BY FRANK HAMILTON CUSHING
INTRODUCTORY
THE SURVIVAL OF EARLY ZUÑI TRAITS.
During the earlier years of my life with the Zuñi Indians of
western-central New Mexico, from the autumn of 1879 to the winter
of 1881--before access to their country had been rendered easy by
the completion of the Atlantic and Pacific railroad,--they remained,
as regards their social and religious institutions and customs and
their modes of thought, if not of daily life, the most archaic of the
Pueblo or Aridian peoples. They still continue to be, as they have
for centuries been, the most highly developed, yet characteristic and
representative of all these people.
In fact, it is principally due to this higher development by the
Zuñi, than by any of the other Pueblos, of the mytho-sociologic
system distinctive in some measure of them all at the time of the
Spanish conquest of the southwest, that they have maintained so long
and so much more completely than any of the others the primitive
characteristics of the Aridian phase of culture; this despite the
fact that, being the descendants of the original dwellers in the
famous "Seven Cities of Cibola," they were the earliest known
of all the tribes within the territory of the United States.
Like the other Pueblos, the Zuñians, when discovered, were found
living in segregated towns; but unlike the other groups (each
separate community of any one of which was autonomous except on
rare occasions) they were permanently and closely confederated in
both a political and hierarchical sense. In other words, all their
subtribes and lesser towns were distinctively related to and ruled
from a central tribe and town through priest-chiefs, representative
of each of them, sitting under the supreme council or septuarchy of
the "master priests of the house" in the central town itself, much
as were the divisions and cities of the great Inca dominion in South
America represented at and ruled from Cuzco, the central city and
province of them all.
It thus happened that, although one or another of the Zuñi subtribes
was at different times partially and temporarily conquered by the
Spaniards, they were never as a whole people subdued; and, although
missions and chapels were ultimately established at one and another
of their towns by the Franciscan friars, they were never all of them
immediately under mission influence and surveillance at any one
time until a comparatively recent date. The evidences and tragic
consequences of this may be traced throughout the history of Spanish
intercourse, and as the measure of its effect in minimizing the
influence of Spanish thought and example on Zuñi culture and habits is
of great importance in determining to what extent the following sacred
myths may be regarded as purely aboriginal, a brief outline of this
history is regarded as desirable.
OUTLINE OF SPANISH-ZUÑI HISTORY.
The first discovered of the Seven Cities of Cibola or Zuñiland, called
by the Zuñis themselves Shíwona, was by native account the most
easterly of their towns, the K‘yä´kime of tradition and the Caquima of
later Spanish record. According also to native tradition it was entered
by Estevanico, the negro spy of Fray Marcos de Niza, and the Black
Mexican of Zuñi story, in the spring of 1539. The negro was forthwith
killed by the inhabitants; but the friar, following him shortly after,
saw from the mesa heights to the southward one of the seven villages,
and, making good his escape, reported his discovery to the viceroy of
Mexico, Don Antonio de Mendoza.
Only a year later the largest of the westerly towns, Háwik’uh (Aquico)
was stormed and its inhabitants partly subdued, partly driven away to
the great tribal stronghold, Thunder mountain, by that valiant knight,
Don Francisco Vasquez de Coronado, and his vanguard of hardy mail-clad
soldiers. The little army occupied as headquarters, for several months,
the town they had captured, and later the more numerous rear of the
army were quartered at the more central and eastern town of Mátsaki
(Muzaque). During this time Coronado and his comrades in arms were
able to reassure and pacify the natives, insomuch that when, two years
afterward, they were returning through Zuñiland en route to Mexico from
the conquests of the farther Pueblos and their vain search for the
golden province of Quivira, they were entreated to remain and join the
tribes. But Fray Juan de Padilla, the heroic priest of the expedition,
had found more fertile fields to the eastward, and only three or four
Mexican Indian allies of the Spaniards were fain to stay.
When, in 1581-'82, Francisco Chamuscado and his 9 soldiers recklessly
penetrated those vast and lonely wilds of the southwest (in 1888 I
sketched his graven signature and those of many of his successors on
El Moro, or the Rock Mesa of Inscriptions, 35 miles east of Zuñi)
and passed through the country of Cibola, he was not hindered by its
people. And when Antonio de Espejo, in 1582, with scarcely more of a
company, was on his way toward Tusayan or the Hopi country, in the
northwest, he stopped at the central town of Alona (Hálona) and was
well received. To this day the marks, said by the Zuñis to have been
made by the "iron bonnets of his tall warriors," are shown on the
rafters of one of the low, still used prehistoric rooms facing the
great northern court (once the central and main one) of Zuñi, and
attest to the hospitality so long ago accorded them there.
Again, in the autumn of 1598, Juan de Oñate and his more considerable
force of soldiers and priests, after their general tour of formal
conquest in the other Pueblo provinces, were met as they approached
the Zuñi towns by delegations of singing priests and warriors, and
were received with such showers of white prayer-meal on entering that
they had to protect themselves from these offerings, as they supposed,
of peace. This incident, and that of the ceremonial hunt and feast
given them afterward, signifies conclusively the estimation in which,
up to that time, the Spaniards had been held by the priestly elders
of Zuñiland. Precisely as the returning Kâ´kâkwe, or mythic-dance
dramatists, personating gods and heroes of the olden time are received
twice yearly (before and after the harvest growth and time), so were
these soldiers and friars received, not as enemies nor as aliens, but
as veritable gods or god-men, coming forth at the close of autumn from
out the land of day, whence come the ripening breaths of the Frost gods!
As yet, the Franciscan friars, although sometimes baptizing scores of
the Zuñi--much to their gratification, doubtless, as quite appropriate
behavior on the part of such beings when friendly,--had not antagonized
their ancient observances or beliefs; and the warriors who accompanied
them had never, since the first of them had come, and after fighting
had laid down their dreadful arms and made peace and left hostages,
albeit mortals like themselves, with their forefathers--had never again
raised their fearful batons of thunder and fire or their long blades of
blue metal like lightning.
But all this was soon to change. When, nearly a quarter of a century
later still, Fray Alonzo de Benavides became father-custodian of New
Mexico, he undertook to establish missions throughout the country. More
than twenty missionaries were introduced into the Pueblo provinces by
him, and soon afterward Esteban de Perea brought thirty more from Spain
and old Mexico. Among the latter were Fray Martin de Arvide and Fray
Francisco de Letrado. Fray Letrado was assigned to Zuñi some time after
1628. By the end of the following year the Indians had built for him
at Hálona the little Church of the Purification or of the Immaculate
Virgin, and at Háwik’uh the church and conventual residence of the
Immaculate Conception.
Fray Francisco was an old man and very zealous. Unquestionably, he
antagonized the native priests. It is as certain that, at first
welcoming him, they gradually came to look upon his religion as no
less that of mortal men than their own, and to regard its magic and
power of appeal to the gods as of small account in the making of rain
or the quelling of war and sorcery. Wherefore, although baptized by
dozens as they had been, they brooked but ill the compulsory attendance
at mass and other observances and the constant interferences of the
father and his soldiers (for a small escort, unluckily, accompanied
him) with their own acts of worship. When in the winter of 1630 Fray
Martin de Arvide joined Fray Letrado at Háwik’uh, on the way to
establish missions among the Zipias, a pueblo people said by the Zuñis
to have lived considerably to the southwestward of them at that time,
and called by them Tsípiakwe ("People-of-the-coarse-hanging-hair"), he
foresaw for his brother and himself speedy martyrdom. He had but fairly
departed when, on the Sunday following, the people delayed attending
mass, and Fray Francisco, going forth to remonstrate with them, met
a party of the native religionists armed with bows and arrows and in
mood so menacing that in expectancy of death he knelt where he had
stood, clinging to his crucifix, and, continuing to entreat them, was
transfixed by many arrows.
Thus speedily was slain the first resident priest of Zuñi; thus were
the Zuñis themselves disillusionized of their belief in the more than
mortal power of the Spaniard and the deific character of his religion;
for they broke up the ornaments of the altar, burned the church, and
then sallied forth to follow Fray Martin. They overtook him at night
five days later, attacked his party while in camp, overawed and killed
outright his two soldiers, and, joined by his traitorous "Christian
Indians," one of whom, a half-blood, cut off his hand and scalped him,
they killed also this venerable friar and hastened back to their town.
There the ceremonial of the scalp dances of initiation were performed
over the scalps of the two friars, an observance designed both as
a commemoration of victory and to lay the ghosts of the slain by
completing the count of their unfinished days and making them members
by adoption of the ghostly tribe of Zuñi. The scalp-dance is also
supposed to proclaim in song, unto the gods and men, that thenceforward
their people are of the enemy, and unto the gods of the enemy that the
gods of Zuñi are victors over them, whereof and wherefore it will be
well for them to beware. Thus the estimation in which the Spaniard, and
especially his religious representatives, were ever afterward to be
held was fixed on those fatal days at the close of February, 1630.
Now again, after this demonstration, the Zuñis, as in the days of the
great flood, when men had disobeyed the gods, as when Coronado advanced
on Háwik’uh, so soon as they had completed the rites of purifying and
baptizing the scalps, betook themselves to Thunder mountain and thereon
intrenched themselves.
It was not until after two years had passed that they were attacked
there, but not overcome, by Tomas de Albizu and his soldiery and
induced by the priests who accompanied him, and whom the Indians,
knowing them to be unarmed, allowed to approach, to hold parley. It
is probable that Don Tomas, finding it impossible to storm their rock
successfully, promised that if they would yield the wretched mestizo
who had cut off the hand and torn away the scalp of Fray Martin, he
and his people would leave them in peace. At any rate, the mutilator
of the friar was yielded, and in due course was hanged by the Spanish
authorities.
Then gradually the Zuñis descended from their stronghold and a few
years later were peacefully reoccupying the largest four of their
towns. More than thirty years elapsed before the missions of the
Purification at Hálona and the Immaculate Conception at Háwik’uh were
reestablished. In 1670 Fray Juan Galdo was the resident priest at the
one, and at the other Fray Pedro de Avila y Ayala. But in the autumn
of the year named a numerous band of Apache-Navajo attacked the town
of Háwik’uh, and, making for the lower courts where stood the church
and convent, they dragged Fray Avila from the altar, at which he had
sought refuge, clinging to the cross and an image of the Virgin, and,
stripping him, beat him to death with one of the church bells at the
foot of the cross in the courtyard hard by. They then plundered and
burned the church, threw the image of the Virgin into the flames, and,
transfixing the body of the priest with more than 200 arrows, cast upon
it stones and the carcasses of three dead lambs. The mutilated corpse
was thus found the following day by Fray Galdo and carried to Hálona
for sepulture in the Church of the Purification there.
After this tragic occurrence the pueblo of Háwik’uh was abandoned
by the missionaries and for a short time at least by its native
inhabitants as well. Nevertheless, it seems highly probable that other
Zuñis, if not indeed some of the townspeople themselves, had to do with
the tragic affair just related, for there is no evidence that, although
the people of Háwik’uh were numerous, any of them came to the rescue
of the father, or that their town was sacked, whereas the church was
plundered and burned.
They do not seem, however, to have done injury to the priest of Hálona,
for just previously to the summer of 1680 when they, in common with all
the other Pueblo Indians, joined in the revolt against Spanish rule and
religion, they were tolerating the presence of Fray Juan de Bal at this
town and of another priest, it seems, at Háwik’uh.
When the message strands of that great war magician, Popé of Taos,
who had planned the rebellion and sent forth the knotted strings of
invitation and warning, were received by the Zuñis, their leaders of
one accord consented to join the movement and sped the war strands
farther on to the Tusayan country, there insisting with the less
courageous Hopi that they join also, and ultimately gaining their at
first divided consent.
When all the knots had been numbered and untied, then, to a man, the
Zuñis arose to slay Spaniards wheresoever they might encounter them.
They forthwith killed Fray Juan de Bal, the priest of Hálona, burning
his church and destroying the chapels in the lesser towns round about.
Not content with this, they dispatched warriors to the Tusayan country
to see to it that the Hopi remain faithful to their promise and
vigorously to abet them in its fulfilment.
It fared far otherwise with the priest of Háwik’uh. Although his name
is unknown, and although it has been doubted that any other missionary
than Fray Juan of Hálona was with the Zuñis at the time, or that the
mission of Háwik’uh was ever occupied after the death of Fray Pedro de
Avila, yet Vetancurt's chronicles are explicit in stating the contrary,
and that, although the Church of the Conception was again burned, the
priest escaped. This latter statement is substantially true if we
may trust Zuñi tradition, which is very detailed on this point, and
which is trustworthy on many another and better recorded point of even
remoter date.
The elder Priests of the Bow--three of whom were battle-scarred
warriors of nearly a hundred winters at the time of my initiation
into their order--told me that one of their gray-robed _tútatsikwe_
("fathers of drink," so named because they used cup-like vessels of
water in baptizing), whom their ancients had with them at Háwik’uh
in the time of the great evil, was much loved by them; "for, like
ourselves," they affirmed, "he had a Zuñi heart and cared for the
sick and women and children, nor contended with the fathers of the
people; therefore, in that time of evil they spared him on condition"
--precisely the rather sweeping condition these same veterans had in
1880 imposed on me ere they would permit of my adoption into one of
their clans--"that he eschew the vestment and usages of his people
and kind, and in everything, costume and ways of life alike, become
a Zuñi; for as such only could they spare him and nurture him." Not
so much, I imagine, from fear of death--for the dauntless Franciscan
friars of those days feared only God and the devil and met martyrdom as
bridegrooms of the Virgin herself--as from love of the Zuñis, if one
may judge by the regard they even still have for his memory, and a hope
that, living, he might perchance restrain them, alike to the good of
their people and his own people, the father gave way to their wishes;
or he may have been forced to accede to them by one of those compulsory
adoptions of the enemy not uncommonly practiced by the Indians in times
of hostility. Be this as it may, the Zuñis abandoned all their towns
in the valley, and taking the good priest with them, fled yet again to
the top of their high Mountain of Thunder. Around an ample amphitheater
near its southern rim, they rebuilt six or seven great clusters of
stone houses and renewed in the miniature vales of the mesa summit the
reservoirs for rain and snow, and on the crests above the trickling
spring under their towns, and along the upper reaches of the giddy
trail by which the heights were scaled they reared archers' booths and
heaps of slingstones and munitions of heavy rocks.
There, continually providing for the conflict which they knew would
sooner or later reach even their remote fastnesses (as speedily it
began to reach the Rio Grande country), they abode securely for
more than ten years, living strictly according to the ways of their
forefathers, worshiping only the beloved of war and the wind and rain,
nor paying aught of attention to the jealous gods of the Spaniard.
Then at last Diego de Vargas, the reconquistador of New Mexico,
approached Zuñiland with his force of foot soldiers and horsemen. The
Zuñis, learning this, poisoned the waters of their springs at Pescado
and near the entrance to the valley with yucca juice and cactus spines,
and, they say, "with the death-magic of corpse shells; so that the
horses and men, drinking there, were undone or died of bloating and
bowel sickness." In this latter statement the historians of Vargas
and the Zuñi traditions agree. But the captain-general could not have
stormed the Rock of Cibola. With the weakened force remaining at his
command his efforts were doubly futile. Therefore, where now the new
peach orchards of the Zuñis grow on the sunlit sand slopes, 800 feet
below the northern crest of the mesa their fathers so well defended in
those days, Vargas camped his army, with intent to besiege the heathen
renegades, and to harass and pick off such stragglers as came within
the range of his arquebuses.
Now, however, the good friar whom the Indians called Kwan Tátchui
Lók‘yana ("Juan Gray-robed-father-of-us"), was called to council by
the elders, and given a well-scraped piece of deerskin, whitened with
prayer meal, and some bits of cinder, wherewith to make markings of
meaning to his countrymen. And he was bidden to mark thereon that the
Zuñis were good to those who, like him, were good to them and meddled
not; nor would they harm any who did not harm their women and children
and their elders. And that if such these captains and their warriors
would but choose and promise to be, they would descend from their
mountain, nor stretch their bowstrings more. But when they told their
gray father that he could now join his people if that by so doing he
might stay their anger, and told him so to mark it, the priest, so the
legend runs, "dissembled and did not tell that he was there, only that
the fathers of the Áshiwi were good now;" for he willed, it would seem,
to abide with them all the rest of his days, which, alas, were but few.
Then the hide was tied to a slingstone and taken to the edge of the
mesa, and cast down into the midst of the watchful enemy by the arm of
a strong warrior. And when the bearded foemen below saw it fall, they
took it up and curiously questioned it with their eyes, and finding
its answers perfect and its import good, they instant bore it to their
war captain, and in token of his consent, they waved it aloft. So was
speech held and peace forthwith established between them.
That without casualty to the Zuñis an understanding was in some
way soon reached between them and Vargas, the chroniclers of the
expedition agree with this Zuñi legend; and before the end of the
century the Indians had all descended to the plain again and were
gathered, except in seasons of planting and harvest, chiefly at three
of their easternmost towns, and the central one of Hálona Ítiwana,
the Zuñi of today. After the reconquest at least some of the missions
were rehabilitated, and missionaries dwelt with the Zuñis now and
again. But other chiefs than those chosen by the priestly elders of
the people were thenceforward chosen by the Spaniards to watch the
people--gobernador, alcalde, and tenientes,--and these in turn were
watched by Spanish soldiers whose conduct favored little the fostering
of good will and happy relations; for in 1703, goaded to desperation
by the excesses of these resident police, the Zuñis drove at least
three of them into the church and there massacred them. Then, according
to their wont, they fled, for the last time, to the top of Thunder
mountain.
When they finally descended they planted numerous peach orchards among
the cliffs and terraces of Grand mountain and Twin mountains to the
northward of Zuñi, and there also laid out great gardens and many
little cornfields. And with the pretext of wishing to be near their
crops there, they built the seven Sónoli ‘Hlúëlawe (the "Towns of
Sonora"), so named because the peach stones they had planted there had
been brought from Sonora, Mexico. But their real object was to escape
from the irksome and oft-repeated spyings upon and interdictions of
their sacred observances and mythic drama-dances, which, as time went
on, the Spanish frailes, supported by the increasing power of the
authorities at Santa Fé in the first half of the eighteenth century,
were wont to make. So, in hidden and lone nooks on the mountains,
where their fine foundations may be seen even now, the Indian priests
had massive kivas built, and there from year to year they conducted
in secret the rites which but for this had never been preserved so
perfectly for telling, albeit only in outline, in the following pages.
But even thus far from the mission and its warders the plume-wands of
worship, which in earlier times had been made long (each one according
to its kind as long as from the elbow to the tip of one finger or
another of him who made and sacrificed it), now had to be cut short and
made only as long as the hands and the various fingers of those who
made them; for the large plumed messages to the winds and spaces often
betrayed the people, and they must now needs be made of size convenient
for burial or hiding away in crannies or under bushes as near as might
be to the shrines of the sacred precincts where once the fathers had
worshiped so freely.
Toward the end of the century, between 1775 and 1780, the old Church
of Our Lady of Guadalupe, which now harbors only burros and shivering
dogs of cold winter nights and is toppling to ruin in the middle of
the grand plaza of Zuñi, was built and beautifully decorated with
carved altar pieces and paintings, gifts from the King of Spain to the
Indies and work of resident monks as well. Its walls were painted--as
the more recent plasterings scaling off here and there reveal--by Zuñi
artists, who scrupled not to mingle many a pagan symbol of the gods of
wind, rain, and lightning, sunlight, storm-dark and tempest, war-bale
and magic, and, more than all, emblems of their beloved goddess-virgins
of corn-growing with the bright-colored Christian decorations. And
doubtless their sedulous teachers or masters, as the case may have
been, understanding little, if aught, of the meanings of these things,
were well pleased that these reluctant proselytes should manifest so
much of zeal and bestow such loving care on this temple of the holy and
only true faith.
In a measure the padres were right. The Indians thenceforward did
manifest not only more care for the mission, but more readiness to
attend mass and observe the various holy days of the church. To be
baptized and receive baptismal names they had ever been willing, nay,
eager, for they were permitted, if only as a means of identification,
to retain their own _tik‘ya shíiwe_ ("names totemic of the sacred
assemblies"), which names the priests of the mission innocently
adopted for them as surnames and scrupulously recorded in the quaint
old leather-covered folios of their mission and church. Thus it
chances that in these faded but beautifully and piously indicted
pages of a century ago I find names so familiar, so like those I
heard given only a few years since to aged Zuñi friends now passed
away, that, standing out clearly from the midst of the formal Spanish
phrases of these old-time books, they seem like the voices of the
dead of other generations, and they tell even more clearly than such
voices could tell of the causes which worked to render the Zuñis
of those times apparently so reconciled to Spanish teaching and
domination.
For it is manifest that when, as the meaning of his name informs
us, the chief priest of the Kâ´kâkwe, or mythic drama-dancers of a
hundred years ago, entered the Church of Our Lady of Guadalupe and was
registered as "Feliciano Pautiatzanilunquia" (Páutia Tsani Lúnk’ya), or
"Felix Of-the-sacred-dancers-glorious-sun-god-youth," neither he nor
any of his attendant clan relatives, whose names are also recorded,
thought of renouncing their allegiance to the gods of Zuñi or the
ever sacred Kâ´kâ; but that they thought only of gaining the magic of
purification and the name-potency of the gods of another people, as
well as of securing the sanctification if not recognition of their own
gods and priests by these other gods and priests.
That this was so is shown also by the sacred character almost
invariably of even the less exalted tribal names they gave. Thus,
those belonging not to the priesthood, yet to the "midmost" or
septuarchial clans, as "Francisco Kautzitihua" (Káutsitiwa), or
"Francis Giver of-the-midmost-dance," and "Angela Kahuitietza" (Káwiti
Etsa), or "Angelina Of-the-midmost-dance Little maiden;" and those
belonging to yet other clan divisions and the Kâ´kâ, like "Manuel
Layatzilunquia" (Laíyatsi Lúnk‘ya), or "Emanuel Of-the-flowing plume
Glorious-tall-bearer," and "María Laytzitilutza" (Laítsitilutsa), or
"Mary Of-the-soft-flowing-plume Little-bearer;" and, finally, even
the least sacred but mythically alegoric clan names, such as "Manuel
Layujtigua" (Lá-yúhtiwa) or "Emanuel Plume-of-lightness," a name of the
Eagle clan and upper division of the tribe; and "Lucia Jayatzemietza"
(Haíya Tsemi Étsa), or "Lucy Of-green-growing-things-ever-thinking
Little-maiden," which, alluding to the leaves of growing corn and
vines when watched by the young unmarried girls, is one of the Corn or
Seed clan names belonging to the southern division. Only very rarely
were the colloquial names one hears most often in Zuñi (the sacred and
totemic names are considered too precious for common use) given for
baptismal registration. I have found but two or three. One of these is
written "Estévan Nato Jasti" (Náto Hastiŋ) or "Stephen Old-tobacco,"
a Navajo sobriquet which, in common with the few others like it, was
undoubtedly offered reluctantly in place of the "true and sacred name,"
because some relative who had recently borne it was dead and therefore
his name could not be pronounced aloud lest his spirit and the hearts
of those who mourned him be disturbed.
But the presence of these ordinary names evidences no less than that of
the more "idolatrous" ones, the uncompromisingly paganistic spirit of
these supposedly converted Indians, and the unmodified fashion of their
thoughts at the period of their truest apparent allegiance, or at least
submission, to the church. Hence I have not hesitated to pause somewhat
in the course of this introductory sketch to give these examples in
detail, particularly as they evidence not merely the exceeding vitality
of the native Zuñi cult, but at the same time present an explanation of
the strange spectacle of earnest propagandists everywhere vigilantly
seeking out and ruthlessly repressing the native priesthood and their
dances and other ceremonials, yet, unconsciously to themselves,
solemnizing these very things by their rites of baptism, officially
recognizing, in the eyes of the Indians, the very names and titles of
the officiators and offices they otherwise persecuted and denounced.
It was quite of a piece with all this that during the acts of worship
performed in the old church at that time by the Zuñis, whilst they
knelt at mass or responded as taught to the mysterious and to them
magic, but otherwise meaningless, credo, they scattered in secret their
sacred white prayer-meal, and invoked not only the souls of their dead
priests--who as caciques or rulers of the pueblo were accorded the
distinction of burial in the church, under their very feet--but also,
the tribal medicine-plumes and fetiches hidden away under the very
altar where stood the archenemy of their religion!
So, in following farther the Spanish history of Zuñi, we need not
be surprised that all went well for a while after the completion of
the church, and that more than twenty priests were at one time and
another resident missionaries of Zuñi. Nor, on the other hand, need we
be surprised that when in the early part of the present century these
missionaries began to leave the pagan surnames out of their registers
giving Spanish names instead--began to suspect, perhaps, the nature
of the wall paintings, or for some other reason had them whitewashed
away--and sought more assiduously than ever, in the deepest hiding
places of the many-storied pueblo, to surprise the native priests at
their unholy pagan practices, that the records of baptisms in the old
books grew fewer and fewer, and that as the secular power withdrew
more and more its support of the clergy, the latter could no longer
control their disaffected flock, and that finally the old mission had
to be abandoned, never again to be reoccupied save on occasions of the
parochial visits of priests resident in far-away Mexican towns or in
other Indian pueblos.
Nevertheless, although the old church was thus abandoned and is now
utterly neglected, there lingers still with the Indians a singular
sentiment for it, and this has been supposed to indicate that they
retain some conscious remnant of the faith and teachings for which it
once stood.
It is true that the Zuñis of today are as eager as were their
forefathers for baptism and for baptismal names additional to their
own. But it must be remembered that baptism--the purification of the
head by sprinkling or of the face by washing with medicine-water, was
a very old institution with this people even before the Spaniards
found them. With them anyone being named anew or assuming a new
personality or office is invariably sprinkled or washed "that he be
the more cleanly revealed and the better recommended in his new guise
and character to the gods and spirits" invoked for the occasion,
"and thus be constantly recognized by them as their child, named of
themselves, and so be made a special recipient of their favor." This
custom is observed, indeed, on many occasions, as on reaching puberty
or before any great change in life, or before initiation into the
sacred societies, as well as both before and after war, and especially
before and after performance in the sacred dances. The head and face of
every participant in these mythic dramas is washed or sprinkled when
he is being painted and masked to represent or to assume the presence
and personality of the god for whom he is to act or by whom he is to be
possessed.
Thus it may be seen that this custom probably had its rise in the
simple and necessary act of washing the face for painting before the
performance of any ceremony calling for the assumption of a new rôle,
and in the washing away of the paint, when the ordinary condition of
life was to be resumed after such performance. Thus, too, it may be
seen that baptism as practiced by the early Franciscan missionaries
must have seemed not only familiar to the Zuñis, but also eminently
proper and desirable on occasion of their accepting the benefits of
initiation into what they supposed was the Kâ´kâ, or one of the
general sacred societies of these other people. No wonder, then, that
when about to be baptized they insisted on giving their own sacred
names of the Kâ´kâ, if only as a surety of their full recognition under
them in this new Kâ´kâ, no less than under the new names they were
about to receive.
It is also true that the Zuñis do not again burn the dead and cast
their ashes into the river, nor bury the bodies of the clan elders, or
the priests of the tribal septuarchy, in their own houses, as they did
ere the time of Coronado, or "under the ladders," as their funereal
rituals continue nevertheless to say they do. They bury all, now, in
the little strip of consecrated ground out in front of the church;
ground already so overfilled with the bones of past generations that
never a new grave is made that does not encroach on other graves. Bones
lie scattered all about there, rubbish accumulates, the wooden cross
in the center of the place is frequently broken, and the mud walls
inclosing it are sometimes allowed to fall to the ground. Yet in vain I
urged them if only for sanitary reasons to abandon burying their dead
there, and inter them in the sand hills to the south of the pueblo.
"Alas! we could not," they said. "This was the ground of the church
which was the house of our fathers wherein they were buried, they
and their children, 'under the descending ladders.' How, if we bury
our dead in lone places, may they be numbered with our 'fathers and
children of the descending ladders?'"
But far from indicating any lingering desire for "Christian burial,"
this is a striking example of the real, though not apparent,
persistence of their original mortuary customs. For they still
ceremonially and ritualistically "burn" their ordinary dead, as did
their forefathers when first compelled to bury in the churchyard, by
burning some of their hair and personal effects with the customary clan
offerings of food and property, and casting the ashes of all into the
river; and it matters not where these, who virtually exist no more, but
are, in their eyes, consumed and given to the waters, are buried, save
that they be placed with the priestly dead of today, as the "children"
or ordinary dead were placed with the priestly dead in the days of
the "Mísa k‘yakwe" or "Mission-house people." So, too, the priests
of today, or the tribal fathers, are still painted with the black of
silence over their mouths and the yellow and green of light and life
over their eyes and nostrils, as are the gods, and are ritualistically
buried "under the ladders," that is, in their own houses, when actually
buried in the churchyard. Thus, when the gods are invoked, these, as
being demigods, still priests of the beloved, are also invoked, first,
as "Fathers and children of the descending ladder," then as souls in
the clouds and winds and waters, "Makers of the ways of life." So the
whole burial ground of the church is, in the estimation of the Zuñi,
a fetich whereby to invoke the souls of the ancestors, the potency of
which would be destroyed if disturbed; hence the place is neither cared
for nor abandoned, though recognized even by themselves as a "direful
place in daylight."
It is much the same with the old church. A few years since a party of
Americans who accompanied me to Zuñi desecrated the beautiful antique
shrine of the church, carrying away "Our Lady of Guadalupe of the
Sacred Heart," the guardian angels, and some of the painted bas-reliefs
attached to the frame of the altar. When this was discovered by the
Indians, consternation seized the whole tribe; council after council
was held, at which I was alternately berated (because people who had
come there with me had thus "plundered their fathers' house"), and
entreated to plead with "Wasintona" to have these "precious saints and
sacred masks of their fathers" returned to them.
Believing at the time that the Indians really reverenced these things
as Christian emblems, and myself reverencing sincerely the memory of
the noble missionaries who had braved death and labored so many years
in the cause of their faith and for the good of these Indians, I
promised either to have the original relics returned or to bring them
new saints; and I also urged them to join me in cleaning out the old
church, repairing the rents in its walls and roof, and plastering once
more its rain-streaked interior. But at this point their mood seemed to
change. The chiefs and old men puffed their cigarettes, unmoved by the
most eloquent appeals I could make, save to say, quite irrelevantly,
that I "talked well," and that all my thoughts were good, very good,
but they could not heed them.
I asked them if they did not care for their _míssa k‘yakwi_ or
mission-house. "Yea, verily," they replied, with fervor. "It was the
sacred place of our fathers, even more sacred than were the things
taken away therefrom."
I asked if they would not, then, in memory of those fathers, restore
its beauty.
"Nay," they replied, "we could not, alas! for it was the míssa-house of
our fathers who are dead, and dead is the míssa-house! May the fathers
be made to live again by the adding of meat to their bones? How, then,
may the míssa-house be made alive again by the adding of mud to its
walls?"
Not long afterward there was a furious night storm of wind and rain.
On the following morning, great seams appeared in the northern walls
of the old building. I called a council of the Indians and urged that
since they would not repair the míssa-house, it be torn down; for it
might fall over some day and kill the women and children as they passed
through the narrow alley it overshadowed, on their way to and from the
spring. Again I was told that my words were good, but alas! they could
not heed them; that it was the míssa-house of their fathers! How, if
they took it away, would the fathers know their own? It was well that
the wind and rain wore it away, as time wasted away their fathers'
bones. That mattered not, for it was the work of the beloved, whereof
they, the fathers, were aware, but for themselves to move it suddenly
away, that were worse than the despoiling of the shrine; for it was the
house of the fathers, the shrine only a thing thereof, not a thing of
the fathers as verily as was the house itself.
From their point of view this reasoning of the Indians was perfectly
consistent, based as it was on their belief that the souls of their
ancestors were mediators and that their mortal remains and the places
and things thereof were means of invoking them, quite as sacrifices are
supposed to be, for the time being, the mortal and mediate parts of the
gods and spirits to which they have been offered, hence a potent means
of invoking them. This is shown much more clearly in the only other
instance of seeming reverence for the church that I can pause to give.
The Zuñis are careful to remove all traces of Catholicism, or rather
all symbols of the Mexican religion, from their persons or vicinity
during the performance of their sacred dances or rites, seeing to it
that no Mexican word, even, is ever spoken in the presence of the
Kâ´kâ. If a Mexican or anyone suspected of being a Mexican happens
to approach their town during a ceremonial, he is met by watchful
sentinels and led, no matter what his rank, condition, or haste,
to some sequestered room, where, although courteously treated and
hospitably entertained without charge, he is securely locked up and
rigorously guarded until after the dance or other observance is over.
"The fathers of these Mexicans did violence to our fathers," say the
Indians in explanation, "when that our fathers of old called the sacred
Kâ´kâ. Therefore, in those days our fathers sought to hide the dancers
from their eyes. Our fathers come nigh in breath, when now we call
the Kâ´kâ, and they aid our songs and prayers to the beloved Gods of
Rain and Wind. How, if they see we have departed from their customs,
and reveal these things? Then will they be sad at our forgetfulness of
their ways, and filled with fear lest these evil people, beholding,
do sacrilege to their precious Kâ´kâ, and will flee away, nor aid our
songs and prayers for rain, nor our calls for their beloved presence!"
Nevertheless, in autumn, when the harvest is over, one may see the
dilapidated little figure of Saint Francis borne about the pueblo
on the eve of the "Feast of the Dead;" and one may see here and
there candles burning, or such poor substitutes for them as the
Indians can get; and here and there also old rosaries and a few brass
crucifixes revealed. Before they fell, one heard, as the night wore
on, the ancient church bells hammered; and half forgotten, wholly
unintelligible phrases of church Latin chanted. But all this is not
in memory of a "saint's day," as would seem, or as one would be told
were he injudiciously to inquire. It is the feast and drama of the
beloved dead of all days past. And whilst the dead of long, very long
ago, must first be summoned by means of their ancient relics which
best they knew--the tribal medicines and fetiches, and the songs to
them belonging--yet the "old ones of the míssa times knew also these
things of the míssa; and so, that they be lured near and come not as
strangers, but find means of recognition and movement (manifestation)
to us, and happily receive our offerings of food to the fire, they
must (in place of the summoning songs and drums and rattles) hear the
church bells and chants of the Spaniards and see the things which they,
perforce, held to most familiarly and with least fear and secrecy in
times of festival while yet they lived in daylight."
I need not add that this fully accounts for the contradictory behavior
of the Indians in reference to the old church, the burial ground, and
other things pertaining to it. The church could not be rebuilt. It had
been dead so long that, rehabilitated, it would be no longer familiar
to the "fathers" who in spirit had witnessed its decay. Nor could it be
taken suddenly away. It had stood so long that, missing it, they would
be sad, or might perhaps even abandon it.
The Zuñi faith, as revealed in this sketch of more than three hundred
and fifty years of Spanish intercourse, is as a drop of oil in water,
surrounded and touched at every point, yet in no place penetrated or
changed inwardly by the flood of alien belief that descended upon it.
Herein is exemplified anew the tendency of primitive-minded man to
interpret unfamiliar things more directly than simply, according to
their appearances merely, not by analysis in our sense of the term; and
to make his interpretations, no less than as we ourselves do, always in
the light of what he already familiarly believes or habitually thinks
he knows. Hence, of necessity he adjusts other beliefs and opinions
to his own, but never his own beliefs and opinions to others; and
even his usages are almost never changed in spirit, however much so
in externals, until all else in his life is changed. Thus, he is slow
to adopt from alien peoples any but material suggestions, these even,
strictly according as they suit his ways of life; and whatever he does
adopt, or rather absorb and assimilate, from the culture and lore of
another people, neither distorts nor obscures his native culture,
neither discolors nor displaces his original lore.
All of the foregoing suggests what might be more fully shown by further
examples, the aboriginal and uncontaminated character--so far as a
modern like myself can represent it--of the myths delineated in the
following series of outlines. Yet a casual visitor to Zuñi, seeing but
unable to analyze the signs above noted, would be led to infer quite
the contrary by other and more patent signs. He would see horses,
cattle and donkeys, sheep and goats, to say nothing of swine and a
few scrawny chickens. He would see peach orchards and wheat fields,
carts (and wagons now), and tools of metal; would find, too, in queer
out-of-the-way little rooms native silversmiths plying their primitive
bellows and deftly using a few crude tools of iron and stone to turn
their scant silver coins into bright buttons, bosses, beads, and
bracelets, which every well-conditioned Zuñi wears; and he would see
worn also, especially by the men, clothing of gaudy calico and other
thin products of the looms of civilization. Indeed, if one did not see
these things and rate them as at first the gifts to this people of
those noble old Franciscan friars and their harder-handed less noble
Spanish companions, infinitely more pathetic than it is would be the
history of the otherwise vain effort I have above outlined; for it
is not to be forgotten that the principal of these gifts have been
of incalculable value to the Zuñi. They have helped to preserve him,
through an era of new external conditions, from the fate that met more
than thirty other and less favored Pueblo tribes--annihilation by the
better-armed, ceaselessly prowling Navajo and Apache. And for this
alone, their almost sole accomplishment of lasting good to the Zuñi,
not in vain were spent and given the lives of the early mission fathers.
It is intimated that aside from adding such resources to the tribe as
enabled it to survive a time of fearful stress and danger, even the
introduction of Spanish plants, animals, and products did not greatly
change the Zuñis. This is truer than would at first seem possible. The
Zuñi was already a tiller of the soil when wheat and peaches were given
him. To this day he plants and irrigates his peach trees and wheat
crops much as he anciently planted and watered his corn--in hills,
hoeing all with equal assiduity; and he does not reap his wheat, but
gathers it as he gathers his corn in the ear. Thus, only the kind of
grain is new. The art of rearing it and ways of husbanding and using
it remain unchanged. The Zuñi was already a herder when sheep and
goats were given him. He had not only extensive preserves of rabbits
and deer, but also herds--rather than flocks--of turkeys, which by
day were driven out over the plains and mesas for feeding, and at
night housed near the towns or in distant shelters and corrals. It is
probable that his ancestry had even other domesticated animals. And he
used the flesh of these animals as food, their feathers and fur as the
materials for his wonderfully knitted, woven, and twilled garments and
robes, as he now uses the mutton and goat meat for food, and the wool
of the sheep for his equally well-knitted, woven, and twilled, though
less beautiful, garments and robes. Thus, only the kinds (and degree
of productivity) of the animals are new, the arts of caring for them
and modes of using their products, are unchanged. This is true even
in detail. When I first went to live with the Zuñis their sheep were
plucked, not sheared, with flat strips of band iron in place of the
bone spatulæ originally used in plucking the turkeys; and the herders
always scrupulously picked up stray flecks of wool--calling it "down,"
not hair, nor fur--and spinning it, knitting, too, at their long woolen
leggings as they followed their sheep, all as their forefathers used
ever to pick up and twirl the stray feathers and knit at their down
kilts and tunics as they followed and herded their turkeys. Even the
silversmiths of Zuñi today work coins over as their ancestors of the
stone-using age worked up bits of copper, not only using tools of
stone and bone for the purpose but using even the iron tools of the
Spaniard mostly in stone-age fashion.[1]
[1] Some of the primitive Zuñi methods of working metals
are incidentally described in my paper entitled "Primitive
Copper-working, an Experimental Study," in The American
Anthropologist, Washington, January, 1894, pp. 193-217.
This applies equally to their handling of the hoes, hatchets, and
knives of civilized man. They use their hoes--the heaviest they can
get--as if weighted, like the wooden and bone hoes of antiquity,
vertically, not horizontally. They use their hatchets or axes and
knives more for hacking and scraping and chipping than for chopping,
hewing, and whittling, and in such operations they prefer working
toward themselves to working from themselves, as we work. Finally,
their garments of calico and muslin are new only in material. They
are cut after the old fashion of the ancestral buckskin breeches and
shirts, poncho coats of feathers and fur or fiber, and down or cotton
breech clouts, while in the silver rings and bracelets of today, not
only the shapes but even the half-natural markings of the original
shell rings and bracelets survive, and the silver buttons and bosses
but perpetuate and multiply those once made of copper as well as of
shell and white bone.
Thus, only one absolutely new practical element and activity was
introduced by the Spaniards--beasts of burden and beast transportation
and labor. But until the present century cattle were not used natively
for drawing loads or plows, the latter of which, until recently being
made of a convenient fork, are only enlarged harrowing-sticks pointed
with a leaf of iron in place of the blade of flint; nor were carts
employed. Burdens were transported in panniers adapted to the backs of
burros instead of to the shoulders of men.
The Zuñi is a splendid rider, but even now his longest journeys are
made on foot in the old way. He has for centuries lived a settled
life, traveling but little, and the horse has therefore not played
a very conspicuous part in his later life as in the lives of less
sedentary peoples, and is consequently unheard of, as are all new
things--including the greatest of all, the white man himself--in his
tribal lore, or the folk tales, myths, and rituals of his sacred
cult-societies. All this strengthens materially the claim heretofore
made, that in mind, and especially in religious culture, the Zuñi is
almost as strictly archaic as in the days ere his land was discovered.
OUTLINE OF PRISTINE ZUÑI HISTORY.
If a historic sketch of Spanish intercourse with the Zuñi people
indicates that little change was wrought on their native mood by so
many years of alien contact, an outline of their pristine history, or
a sketch of their growth and formation as a people, will serve yet
further to show not only how, but also why, this was so, as well as to
explain much in the following outlines of their myths of creation and
migration, the meaning of which would otherwise remain obscure.
Linguistically the Zuñi Indians of today stand alone, unrelated,
so far as has heretofore been determined, to any other Indians
either sedentary, like themselves, or unsettled, like the less
advanced peoples of the plains. Nevertheless, although they as yet
thus constitute a single linguistic stock, there are present and
persistent among them two distinct types of physique and numerous
survivals--inherited, not borrowed--of the arts, customs, myths, and
institutions of at least two peoples, unrelated at first, or else
separate and very diversely conditioned for so long a period of their
preunited history that their development had progressed unequally and
along quite different lines, at the time of their final coalition. That
thus the Zuñis are actually descendants of two or more peoples, and
the heirs of two cultures at least, is well shown in their legends of
ruins and olden times, and especially in these myths of creation and
migration as interpreted by archeologic and ethnographic research.
According to all these tokens and evidences, one branch of their
ancestral people was, as compared with the other, aboriginal in the
region comprising the present Zuñi country and extending far toward
the north, whence at some remoter time they had descended. The other
branch was intrusive, from the west or southwest, the country of the
lower Rio Colorado, their earliest habitat not so clearly defined and
their remoter derivation enigmatical, for they were much more given
to wandering, less advanced in the peaceful arts, and their earliest
ruins are those of comparatively rude and simple structures, hence
scant and difficult to trace, at least beyond the western borders of
Arizona. Considering both of these primary or parental stocks of the
Zuñi as having been thus so widely asunder at first, the ancestral
relations of the aboriginal or northern branch probably ranged the
plains north of the arid mountain region of Utah and Colorado ere
they sought refuge in the desert and canyons of these territories.
Yet others of their descendants, if still surviving, may not unlikely
be traced among not only other Pueblos, but also and more distinctly
among wilder and remoter branches, probably of the Shoshonean stock.
The ancestral relations of the intrusive or western branch, however,
were a people resembling the semisettled Yumans and Pimans in mode of
life, their ruins combining types of structure characteristic of both
these stocks; and if their descendants, other than Zuñis themselves,
be yet identified among Yuman tribes, or some like people of the lower
Colorado region, they will be found (such of them as survive) not
greatly changed, probably, from the condition they were all in when,
at a very distant time, their eastward faring kinsfolk, who ultimately
became Zuñis, left them there.
It is quite certain that relatives, in a way--not ancestral--of the
Zuñis still exist. Not many years before Fray Marcos de Niza discovered
Cibola, the Zuñians conquered some small towns of the Keres to the
south-southeastward of the Zuñi-Cibola country, and adopted some of
the survivors and also some of their ritual-dramas--still performed,
and distinctively Keresan in kind--into their own tribe. Previously
to that--previously, indeed, to their last and greatest union with
the settled people mentioned as the aboriginal Zuñi--a large body of
the western branch and their earlier fellows (called in the myths of
creation "Our lost others") separated from them in the country south
and west of the Rio Puerco and the Colorado Chiquito, and went, not
wholly as related in the myths, yet quite, undoubtedly, far away to
the southward. I have identified and traced their remains in Arizona
toward and into Mexico as far as the coast, and if, as the Zuñis still
believe, any of them survive to this day, they are to be looked for
lower down in Mexico or in the still farther south, whither, it is
said, they disappeared so long ago. But, as before intimated, these
relatives (by adoption in the one case, by derivation in the other)
were not, strictly speaking, ancestral, and thus are barely alluded to
in the myths, and therefore concern us less than do the two main or
parental branches.
Of these, the one which contributed more largely in numbers, certain
culture characteristics, and the more peaceful arts of life to make
the Zuñis what they were at the time of the Spanish conquest, was the
aboriginal branch. The intrusive or western branch is, strange to say,
although least numerous, the one most told of in the myths, the one
which speaks throughout them in the first person; that is, which claims
to be the original Shíwi or Zuñi. Of this branch it is unnecessary
to say much more here than the myths themselves declare, save to add
that it was, if not the conquering, at least, and for a long time,
the dominant one; that to it the Zuñis owe their vigor and many, if
not most, of their distinguishing traits; and that, coming as they
did from the west, they located there, and not in the north, as did
all these other Pueblo Indians (including even those whom they found
and prevailed over, or were joined by, in the present land of Zuñi),
the place where the human family originated, where the ancestral gods
chiefly dwell, and whither after death souls of men are supposed to
return anon.
According to their own showing in the myths they were, while a
masterful people, neither so numerous at the time of their coming, nor
so advanced, nor so settled, as were the peoples whom they "overtook"
from time to time as they neared the land of Zuñi or the "Middle of the
world." They did not cultivate the soil, or, at least, apparently did
not cultivate corn to any considerable extent before they met the first
of these peoples, for, to use their own words, they were "ever seeking
seeds of the grasses like birds on the mesas."
There is abundant reason for supposing that the "elder nations"--these
peoples whom they "overtook," the "People of the Dew," the "Black
people," and the "Corn people" of the "towns builded round"--were
direct and comparatively unchanged descendants of the famous cliff
dwellers of the Mancos, San Juan, and other canyons of Utah, Colorado,
and northern New Mexico. The evidences of this are numerous and
detailed, but only the principal of them need here be examined.
The ruins of these rounded towns of the Corn tribes which Hernando de
Alvarado and Fray Juan de Padilla saw in 1540 while going southeastward
from Zuñi, are especially characteristic of the Zuñi region, and extend
quite generally both southward toward the Rito Quemado and the Salinas
in western central New Mexico, and, by way of the Chaco, northward
nearly to the Colorado boundary. They are as often half round as they
are wholly oblong or circular, and even when completely rounded or
oval in outline are usually divided into two semicircular parts by an
irregular court or series of courts extending lengthwise through the
middle, and thus making them really double villages of the half-round
type.
A comparison of the ground plans of these round or semicircular ruins
with those of the typical cliff ruins reveals the fact that they were
simply cliff towns transferred, as it were, to the level of the open
plains or mesa tops. Their outer or encircling walls were, save at
the extremities of the courts, generally unbroken and perpendicular,
as uninterrupted and sheer, almost, as were the natural canyon walls
surrounding to the rearward the older cliff towns to which they thus
corresponded and which they apparently were built to replace; and the
houses descended like steps from these outer walls in terraced stories,
facing, like the seats of an amphitheater, the open courts, precisely
as descended the terraced stories of the cliff dwellings from the
encircling rock walls of the sheltered ledges or shelves on which they
were reared, necessarily facing in the same manner the open canyons
below. Thus the courts may be supposed to have replaced the canyons,
as the outer walls replaced the cliffs or the back walls built nearest
them in the rear of at least the deeper village caves or shelters.
Other structural and kindred features of the cliff towns are found
to be equally characteristic of the round ruins, features which,
originating in the conditions of building and dwelling in the cliffs,
came to be perpetuated in the round towns afterward built on the plains.
So limited was the foothold afforded by the scant ledges or in the
sheltered but shallow hollows of the cliffs where the ancient cliff
dwellers were at first forced as a measure of safety to take refuge and
finally to build, that they had to economize space to the utmost. Hence
in part only the women and children, being smaller and more in need
of protection than the men, were accommodated with dwelling places as
such, the rooms of which were so diminutive that, to account for them,
theories of the dwarfish size of the cliff dwellers as a race have been
common. As a further measure of economy these rooms were built atop of
one another, sometimes to the height of several stories--up, in fact,
to the very roof at the rear of the cavern in most cases--and thence
they were terraced toward the front in order that light and air might
be admitted as directly as possible to each story.
For the double purpose of accommodating the men and of serving as
assembly rooms for councils and ceremonial functions, large circular
chambers were constructed almost always out in front of the terraced
dwelling cells of the women and children, and thus in the more exposed
mouths of the caverns or shelters the villages nestled in. These round
assembly rooms or kivas were often, indeed, built up from sloping
portions of the sheer outer edge of the village cave shelf, in order to
be as much as possible on a level with or even below the limited ground
space between them and the houses farther back, so that the front along
the lower and outermost row of these house cells might remain open and
unobstructed to passage.
The dwelling rooms or house cells themselves were made as nearly
rectangular as was practicable, for only partitions divided them;
but of necessity such as were placed far back toward or against the
encircling and naturally curved rock walls, or the rear masonry walls,
built in conformity to their curvature in all the deeper caves, had
small triangular or keystone-shape spaces between their partitions.
These, being too small for occupancy even by children, were used as
storerooms for grain and other household supplies. When the cave in
which a village was built happened to be very deep, the living rooms
could not be carried too far back, as neither light nor sufficient
air could reach them there; hence here, chiefly against the rear wall
or the cave back itself, were built other storerooms more or less
trapezoidal in shape, according to the degree of curvature in the rock
face against which they were built, or, as said before, of the rear
wall itself, which in the deeper caves often reached from floor to roof
and ran parallel to the natural semicircular back of the cavern.
Against the rearward face of such back walls when present (that is,
between them and the rear of the cave itself), behind the village
proper, if space further permitted, small rooms, ordinarily of one
story, or pens, sometimes roofless, were built for the housing of the
flocks of turkeys which the cliff dwellers kept. Beyond these poultry
houses was still kept, in the deeper village caves, a space, dark and
filled with loose soil and rubbish, in which certain of the dead,
mostly men, were buried; while other dead were interred beneath the
floors of the lowermost rooms, when the soil or sand filled in to level
up the sloping rock bottom of the shelter was sufficiently deep to
receive them.
A noteworthy peculiarity of the doorways in the upper stories leading
toward the rearward storerooms already described was that they were
often made T-shape; that is, very narrow at the bottom and abruptly
widened at the top. This was done in order to avoid the necessity of
making these openings for entrance and egress too large proportionally
to the small size of the rooms. Thus, neither were the walls weakened
nor were the inmates needlessly exposed to cold; for fuel, even of the
lightest kind, was gathered with risk and transported thither with
great difficulty, and the use of it was therefore limited to cookery,
and yet a person bearing a back load of corn, or other provender might,
by stepping first one foot, then the other, through the narrow lower
portion of such a doorway, then stooping with his blanket or basket
load, pass through without inconvenience or the necessity of unloading.
Nearly all of these features--so suited to, and some of them evidently
so unavoidable with, a people building eyrie-like abodes high up on
limited sloping ledges in pockets of the cliffs--were, although they
were totally unnecessary to the dwellers in the half-round or double
half-round towns of the plains, where space was practically unlimited
and topographic and other conditions wholly different, nevertheless
characteristic of these also.
Not only were the external walls of these old villages of the plains
semicircular, as though built in conformity with the curved rock walls
of the hollows in the cliffs, but they were continuous. That is, in
all the rounded town ruins, except those which seem to have been
reconstructed in more recent times, the outer walls were built first as
great semicircular inclosures, hollow artificial cliffs, so to say, and
afterward the house walls were built up against them inside, not into
them, as they would have been had these outer and the inner walls been
built up together. Moreover, not only were the ground plans of these
towns of the plains semicircular, as though built in conformity with
the curved rock walls of hollows in the cliffs in ancestral fashion,
but the storerooms were also still tucked away in the little flaring
spaces next to these now outer and surrounding walls, instead of being
placed near the more convenient entrances fronting the courts. The
huts or sheds for the turkeys, too, were placed not in the inclosures
of the courts, but against and outside of these external walls of the
villages; and while many of the dead were buried, as in the cliff
houses, under the floors of the lowermost rooms, others of them, almost
always men, and notably victims of war or accident, were still buried
out beyond even the turkey huts. So both the turkey huts and some of
the graves of these round villages retained the same positions relative
to one another and to the "rearward" of the dwellings that had very
naturally been given them in the cliff villages; for in these, being
behind the houses and in the rear of the caves, they occupied the most
protected areas; while in the round villages, being behind the houses,
they were thrown quite outside of the villages, hence occupied the most
exposed positions, which latter fact would appear inexplicable save by
considering it as a survival of cliff-town usage.
The kivas, or assembly rooms of the round villages, were placed
generally in front of the houses facing the courts, as of old they had
been built in the mouths of the caverns, also in front of the houses
facing the canyons. Moreover, they were, although no longer in the
way, wholly or in part subterranean, that is, sunk to the level of the
court or plaza, as in the cliff towns they had been built (except where
crowding rendered it necessary to make them two-storied, as in some
cases) up the front slopes only to the height of the general cave floor
or of the lowermost house foundations.
Finally, there were no doorways in the lower stories of the rounded
villages, the roofs of which were reached by ladders; but in the upper
stories there were passages, some of which, although here no longer so
needfully small, were still economically fashioned as of old--wide at
the top, narrow at the base, like the T-shape granary avenues of the
cliff ruins.
The closeness of correspondence of all these features in the round
ruins to those in the cliff ruins (features which in the round ruins
appear less in place than in at least the older cliff ruins) would seem
to justify my conclusion, earlier stated, that the round towns were
simply outgrowths of the cliff villages, transplanted, as it were, into
the plains; for all of these features, as they occur in the old cliff
ruins, can, with but a single exception (that of the circular form of
the kivas or assembly chambers, which, as will presently be shown, were
survivals of a yet older phase of building), be accounted for as having
originated from necessity, whereas in the round ruins they could not
have originated even as possible expedients, since they were unsuitable
save by having become customary through long usage.
I have reasserted this fact because the theory that all cliff dwellings
were but outlying places of refuge or the hunting and farming stations
of larger pueblos in their neighborhood, strongly fortified by position
in order that the small parties occupying them now and then for
longer or shorter seasons might find safe retreat in them, has been
advanced quite successfully. As this theory is not unlikely to gain a
considerable hearing, it is necessary to demonstrate even more fully
the fact that at least the round towns did not give their structural
characteristics to such of the northern cliff ruins as resembled them
in plan, and that therefore the latter are to be regarded as actual
cliff-dweller remains. In the southern portions of New Mexico and
Arizona, as on the upper Salado and in canyons of the Sierra Madre,
still farther south, all the cliff dwellings and villages were built
without reference to the curved forms of the caverns in which they
occurred.[2] That is, they rigidly retained the rectangular pueblo form
of arrangement characteristic of the larger ruins in the valleys and
plains around them. Hence for this and for other reasons they may be
regarded as pueblos transferred to the cliffs, such outposts of the
larger pueblos of the plains as it is claimed all cliff dwellings were.
So, also, as hitherto intimated, many of the later cliff dwellings,
even of the north, have rectangular pueblo additions below them in
the canyons or above them on the mesas, and some of the village
ruins in the cave shelters themselves are almost faithful miniature
reproductions in general plan of the large pueblos of the plains near
at hand; but in the one case the pueblo additions above and below were
comparatively modern, and indicate either that the cliff dwellings they
are adjacent to continued to be occupied down to the time of later
true pueblo building, or that they were reoccupied from comparatively
modern pueblos and that all additions made were constructed according
to customary later forms of building. In the other case, that of the
rectangular structures in semicircular cave shelters, either a return
to cliff dwelling from pueblo dwelling is indicated, or, as with the
southern cliff villages, these also were outposts of comparatively
modern kinds of pueblos occurring in the neighborhood. Such, for
example, was the case with many of the cliff dwellings of the Tsegi or
Canyon de Chelly, some of which continued to be occupied long after the
more easterly towns of the San Juan were abandoned, and others of which
were reoccupied, probably by Tusayan Indians, in comparatively recent
time.
[2] See Bandelier, Final Report of Investigations among the
Indians of the Southwestern United States, etc., Part II,
pp. 425-428.
The occurrence of sepulchers in or near almost all the San Juan cliff
ruins would alone indicate that they were central and permanent homes
of the people who built and occupied them. The surviving Pueblo
Indians, so far as I am aware, never bury in or near their outlying
towns. Invariably the dead are taken to the central pueblo home of the
tribe for sepulture, as there only may they become tribal fetiches in
the manner I have heretofore indicated, and be properly renounced by
the clans of kin at their place of birth and rearing. If, then, all
the cliff towns were merely outlying strongholds, no interments of the
original inhabitants would be found in them save those of children
perchance born and reared in them. In fact, this is precisely the case
with some of the towns in question, those above described as manifestly
settlements from later true pueblos.
Another feature of the older cliff dwellings is still more significant
in this connection--the presence of the kiva; for the kiva or sacred
assembly room was never, for mythic and sociologic reasons, built
in temporary or outlying settlements. The mere council chamber was
sometimes present in these, but the true kiva never, so long as they
remained resorts of more central pueblo towns, for each kiva of such a
town located a division of the tribe as pertaining to one or another of
the quarters or mythic divisions. Hence, as might be expected, in the
more southerly cliff dwellings belonging to more recent pueblos no kiva
is ever found.
The evidence furnished by the kivas is significant in other ways,
for in connection with the above theory the claim has also been
advanced that the cliff villages were occupied for only brief periods
at best; that they do not, as assumed by me, represent a phase--so
much as an incident--in the development of a people. Aside from the
linguistic, sociologic, and other evidence I have to offer later on
that of not only these kivas, but also of certain other features
of the ruins themselves, is decidedly indicative of both long and
continuous occupancy; and an examination of this evidence helps to
an understanding of the culture growth of the early cliff dwellers
as being not that of Pueblos at first, but that of Pueblo ancestry,
Pueblos developing.
Occurring in the midst of the greater groups of northern cliff
dwellings, no less than somewhat more scatteringly and widely
distributed to at least as far south as the middle of Arizona, are
remains of cave dwellings of an older type. They are usually lower down
in the cliffs, although they once occurred also in the larger and more
accessible of the caverns now occupied by later cliff-house remains,
underneath or amid which remains they may still in places be traced.
These rude and very ancient cave dwellings mark the beginnings of the
cliff occupancy. In all essentials they correspond to the modern cave
dwellings of the Sierra Madre in Sonora, Mexico, so admirably described
by my friend, Dr. Carl Lumholtz, as built and still lived in by the
Tarahumári and Tepehuani Indians, who survive either in the state of
these first cliff dwellers of the north, or, as is more probable, have
naturally and independently resorted to a similar mode of life through
stress of similar circumstances.
Like the Tarahumári, these ancient people of the north at first
resorted to the caves during only portions of the year--during the
inclement season after each harvest, as well as in times of great
danger. At other times, and during the hunting, planting, and
seed-gathering seasons particularly, they dwelt, as do the Tarahumári,
in rancherias, the distinctive remains of which lie scattered near and
far on the plateaus and plains or in the wide valleys. But the caves
were their central abodes, and the rancherias, frequently shifted, were
simply outlying stations such as are the farming hamlets of the modern
pueblos.
The earliest of these dwellings in the caves were at first simple huts
disposed separately along the rear walls of these recesses in the
cliffs. They usually had foundation walls, approximately circular in
plan, of dry-laid stones, upon which rested upper converging courses of
cross-laid logs and sticks, hexagonal and pen-like covers surmounted,
as were the rancherias of the open plains, by more or less high-pitched
roofs of thatch--here in the shelters added rather for protection from
cold than from storms of rain and snow.
But in course of time, as the people dwelling, when needful, in
these secure retreats increased in numbers, and available caves
became filled, the huts, especially in the more suitable shelters,
were crowded together in each, until no longer built separately, but
in irregularly continuous rows or groups at the rear, each divided
from others by simple, generally straight, partitions, as are the
dwelling divisions of the Tarahumári today. But unlike the latter,
these hut-like rooms of the northern cave-dwellers were still rounded
outwardly, that is, each hut (where not contiguous to or set in the
midst of others, as was the case with those along the front), retained
its circular form. The partitions and foundation walls were still
built low, and still surmounted by converging cross-laid upper courses
of logs or saplings and roofs of thatch. As with the Tarahumári, so
with these earliest cliff dwellers of the north; their granaries
were far more perfectly constructed than their own abiding places.
To adequately protect their store or provision from seed-devouring
animals, no less than from the elements, it became necessary to place
it in dry crannies or pockets of the cliffs near at hand, preferably in
recesses as far back in their caves as possible, and also to seal it up
in these natural receptacles. At first (as may be seen in connection
with the caves of Las Tusas, Arizona, containing some of the oldest and
rudest separate hut remains I have yet examined) the mouths of these
receptacles were walled up with dry-laid stones, carefully chinked,
and plastered inside with mud, precisely as were the granary pockets
of the Havasupai Indians seen by me in 1881. Later, while still the
houses continued to be mere low-walled and partitioned sheds or huts
of dry masonry, these granaries came to be quite well constructed, of
mud-laid walls, and were enlarged, as stores increased with increase
of settlement and tillage, until they had to be built outward from the
niches like good sized, slightly tapering bins, protruding somewhat
from the cave walls, and finally forming, as do the granaries of the
Tarahumári today, miniature prototypes of the perfected single cliff
house of a far later day.
In times of great danger small children were not infrequently bestowed
for safe-keeping in the larger of these little granary rooms in the
deepest recesses at the rear of the earliest cave villages, as the
finding of their remains without burial token in such situation has
attested; and thus the folk tales which modern Pueblos tell of children
left in the granary rooms and surviving the destruction or flight
of their elders by subsisting on the scant store remaining therein
(later to emerge--so the stories run--as great warrior-magicians and
deliver their captive elders), are not wholly without foundation in
the actual past of their ancestry. It was thus that these first cliff
dwellers learned to build walls of stone with mud mortar, and thus, as
their numbers increased (through immunity from destruction which, ever
better, these cliff holds afforded), the women, who from the beginning
had built and owned the granaries, learned also to build contiguously
to them, in the depths of the caverns, other granary-like cells
somewhat larger, not as places of abode, at first, but as retreats for
themselves and their children.
It is not needful to trace farther the development of the cliff village
proper into a home for the women and children, which first led to the
tucking of storerooms far back in the midst of the houses; nor is it
necessary to seek outside of such simple beginnings the causes which
first led to the construction of the kivas, always by the men for
themselves, and nearly always out in front of the house cells, which
led to the retention for ages of the circular form in these kivas and
to the survival in them for a long time (as chambers of council and
mystery, where the souls of the ancients of men communed in these
houses of old with the souls of their children's grandchildren) of
the cross-laid upper courses of logs and even the roofings of thatch.
Indeed, it is only in some way like this, as survival through slow
evolution of archaic structures for worship, that the persistence
of all these strange features--the retention for use of the men,
the position in front of the houses, the converging hexagonal log
wall caps, the unplastered roofing of thatch--until long after the
building of houses for everyday use by the women, with walls continuous
from floor to ceiling, with flat and mud-plastered roofs and smooth
finishing inside and out, manifest themselves.
Of equal significance with this persistency of survival in the kiva,
as to both structural type and function, of the earliest cave-dwelling
hut-rooms through successively higher stages in the development of
cliff architecture, is the trace of its growth ever outward; for in
nearly or quite all of the largest cliff ruins, while as a rule the
kivas occur, as stated, along the fronts of the houses--that is,
farthest out toward the mouths of the caverns--some are found quite far
back in the midst of the houses. But in every instance of this kind
which I have examined these kivas farthest back within the cell cluster
proper are not only the oldest, but in other ways plainly mark the
line of the original boundary or frontage of the entire village. And
in some of the largest of these ruins this frontage line has thus been
extended; that is, the houses have grown outward around and past the
kivas first built in front of them, and then, to accommodate increased
assemblies, successively built in front of them and in greater numbers,
not once or twice, but in some cases as many as three, four, and in one
instance five times.
All this makes it plain, I think, that the cave and cliff dweller mode
of life was a phase, not an incident merely, in the development of a
people, and that this same people in general occupied these same caves
continuously or successively for generations--how long it is needless
here to ask, but long enough to work up adaptively, and hence by very
slow degrees, each one of the little natural hints they received from
the circumstances and necessities of their situation in the caves
and cliffs into structural and other contrivances, so ingenious and
suitable and so far-fetched, apparently, so long used, too, as to give
rise to permanent usages, customs, and sociologic institutions, that
it has been well-nigh impossible to trace them to such original simple
beginnings as have been pointed out in the case of a few of them.
The art remains of both the earliest cave dwellers and of the cliff
dwellers exhibit a like continuity of adaptive development; for even
where uses of implements, etc., changed with changing conditions, they
still show survivals of their original, diverse uses, thus revealing
the antecedent condition to which they were adapted.
Moreover, this line of development was, as with the structural features
already reviewed, unbroken from first to last--from cave to cliff, and
from cliff to round-town conditions of life; for the art remains of
the round ruins, of which I recovered large numbers when conducting
the excavations of the Hemenway expedition in ruins east of Zuñi, are
with scarcely an exception identical, in type at least, with those of
the cliff ruins, although they are more highly developed, especially
the potteries, as naturally they came to be under the less restricted,
more favorable conditions of life in the open plains. Everything, in
fact, to be learned of the round-ruin people points quite unmistakably
to their descent in a twofold sense from the cliff-dwelling people;
and it remains necessary, therefore, only to account for their change
of habitat and to set forth their supposed relationship finally to the
modern Zuñi pueblos.
In earlier writings, especially in a "Study of Pueblo Pottery,"[3]
where the linguistic evidence of the derivation of the Zuñis from
cliff-dwelling peoples is to some extent discussed, I have suggested
that the prime cause of the abandonment of the cliffs by their ancestry
was most probably increase of population to beyond the limits of
available building area, and consequent overcrowding in the cliffs; but
later researches have convinced me that, although this was no doubt
a potent factor in the case and ultimately, in connection with the
obvious advantages of life in more accessible dwelling places, led by
slow degrees, as the numbers and strength of the cliff villages made it
possible, to the building of contiguous pueblos both above their cliffs
on the mesas and below them in the valleys, still it was by no means
the only or the first cause of removal from these secure strongholds.
Nor is it to be inferred from the evidence at hand that the cliff
dwellers were ever driven forth from their almost inaccessible towns,
either by stress of warfare or by lack of the means of subsistence, as
has been so often supposed. On the contrary, it is certain that long
after the earliest descents into the plains had been ventured, the
cliffs continued to be occupied, at first and for a very long period as
the permanent homes of remnant tribes, and later as winter resorts and
places of refuge in times of danger for these latter tribes, as well
as, perhaps, for their kinsfolk of the plains.
[3] Fourth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology, 1882-83.
It is by this supposition only that the comparatively modern form
of the square and terraced pueblos built contiguously to the latest
abandoned of the cliff towns may be explained. For when the cliff
dwellers had become numerous enough to be able to maintain themselves
to some extent out on the open plains, it has been seen that they did
not consider their villages safe and convenient or quite right unless
builded strictly, in both general form and the relative arrangement of
parts, as had been for many generations their towns in the cliffs--did
not, it is reasonable to suppose, know at once how to build villages of
any other form. Thus we may confidently regard these round towns as the
earliest built by the cliff dwellers after they first left the cliffs.
The direction in which these cavoid or cliff-form or rounded village
ruins may be farthest and most abundantly traced, is, as has been said
before, to the southward into and through the land of Zuñi as far as
the cliffless valleys bordering the Rito Quemado region in southerly
central New Mexico, wherein lies the inexhaustible Lake of Salt, which
the early Spanish chronicles mention as the possession and source of
supply of the "salt in kernels" of the Zuñi-Cibolans.
Not only did a trail (used for such long ages that I have found it
brokenly traceable for hundreds of miles) lead down from the cliff-town
country to this broad valley of the Lake of Salt, but also there have
been found in nearly all the cliff dwellings of the Mancos and San Juan
section, whence this trail descends, salt in the characteristic kernels
and colors found in this same source of the Zuñi supply.
This salt, as occurring in the cliff ruins, is commonly discovered
wrapped in receptacles of corn husk, neatly tied into a trough-like
form or pouch by bands of corn-leaf or yucca fiber. These pouches are
precisely like the "wraps of the ancients," or packs of corn husk in
which the sacred salt is ceremoniously brought home in advance of the
cargoes of common salt by the Zuñi priests on each occasion of their
annual, and especially of their greater quadrennial, pilgrimages (in
June, after the planting) to the Lake of Salt. And it is not difficult
to believe that both the packs and the pilgrimages--which latter offer
many suggestive features not to be considered here--are survivals of
the time when the remoter cliff-dwelling ancestry of the Zuñi Corn
tribes ventured once in a period of years to go forth, in parties large
enough for mutual protection, to the far-off source of their supply of
salt.
Except this view be taken it is difficult to conceive why the "time
after planting" should have become so established by the Zuñis (who are
but two days' foot-journey from the lake, and visit its neighborhood at
other periods of the year on hunting and other excursions) as the only
period for the taking of the salt--to take which, indeed, by them or
others at any other season, is held to be dire sacrilege.
But to the cliff dwellers and their first descendants of the farther
north this period "after the planting" was the only available one of
the year; for the journey along their trail of salt must have consumed
many days, and been so fraught with danger as to have drawn away a
goodly portion of the warrior population who could ill be spared at a
later time in the season when the ripening and garnering of the harvest
drew back upon the cliff-towns people the bands of predatory savages
who annually pillaged their outlying fields, and in terror of whom they
for so long a time clung to their refuge in the cliffs.
Additional considerations lead further to the inference not only that
the Zuñis inherit their pilgrimages for the salt and the commemorative
and other ceremonials which have developed around them directly from
the cliff-dweller branch of their ancestry, but also that these latter
were led down from the cliffs to build and dwell in their round towns
along the trail of salt chiefly, if not wholly, by the desire to at
once shorten and render less dangerous their communal expeditions to
the Lake of Salt and to secure more exclusive possession thereof.
These two objects were rendered equally and the more desirable by the
circumstance, strongly indicated by both the salt remains themselves
and by usages surviving among the present Zuñis, that in course of time
an extensive trade in salt of this particular variety grew up between
the cliff dwellers and more northern and western tribes. When found by
the Spaniards the Zuñi-Cibolans were still carrying on an extensive
trade in this salt, which for practical as well as assumed mythic
reasons they permitted no others to gather, and which they guarded so
jealously that their wars with the Keresan and other tribes to the
south-southeastward of their country were caused--as many of their
later wars with the Navajo have been caused--by slight encroachments on
the exclusive right to the products of the lake to which the Zuñis laid
claim.
The salt of this lake is superior to any other found in the southwest,
not excepting that of the Manzano salinas, east of the Rio Grande,
which nevertheless was as strenuously fought for and guarded by the
Tanoan tribes settled around these salinas, and had in like manner,
indeed, drawn their ancestry down from earlier cavate homes in the
northern mountains. Hence it was preferred (as it still is by both
Indian and white population of New Mexico and Arizona) to all other
kinds, and commanded such price that in the earlier cliff-packs I have
found it adulterated with other kinds from the nearer salt marshes
which occur in southern Utah and southwestern Colorado. That the
adulteration of the lake salt with the slightly alkaline and bitter
salt of the neighboring marshes was thus practiced with a view to
eking out the trade supply is conclusively shown, I think, by the
presence in the same cliff homes from which the adulterated specimens
were obtained, of abundant specimens of the unadulterated salt, and
this as conclusively shows not only that the cliff dwellers traded in
this salt, as do their modern Zuñi representatives, but also that it
was then, as now, more highly valued than other kinds of salt in the
southwest.
The influence on the movements of whole tribes of people which it is
here assumed such a source of favorite salt supply as this exerted
over the early cliff dwellers, does not stand alone in the history of
American tribes. It already has been intimated that the Tanoans so
far prized their comparatively inferior source of salt supply in the
salinas of the Manzano as to have been induced to settle there and
surround them with a veritable cordon of their pueblos.
Another and far more significant instance, that of the Cerro de Sal
in Peru may be mentioned, for in that country not only was salt of
various kinds to be found in many valleys and throughout nearly all
the deserts of the Medano region extending from northern Ecuador to
southern Chili, but the sea also lay near at hand along the entire
western border of this vast stretch of country; yet from remote parts
of South America trails lead, some from the Amazon and from Argentina,
more than a thousand miles away, some from nearer points and from all
local directions to this famous "Cerro de Sal." The salt from this
locality was, like that of the Lake of Salt, so highly prized that it
drew aboriginal populations about it in even pre-Incan days, and was a
source of supply, as well as, it is affirmed, of abundant tribute to
those dominant Pueblos of South America, the Incas of later days.[4]
[4] A parallel world example of the influence of salt
sources on the movements of primitive peoples may be found
in the fact that all the great historic trade routes
across Asia were first established along salt trails of
prehistoric times.
That the Lake of Salt, as a coveted source, actually did influence the
earlier descents of the cliff dwellers, and did lead to the building
and occupancy by them of the long line of ruins I have described,
rests, finally, on linguistic no less than on such comparative evidence
as has already been indicated. In turn, this leads to consideration of
the larger and at present more pertinent evidence that these dwellers
in the round towns were in part ancestors of the Zuñis, and that thus,
as assumed at the outset, the Zuñis are of composite, at least dual,
origin, and that their last, still existing, phase of culture is of
dual derivation.
The archaic and sacred name for the south in Zuñi is _Álahoïnkwin
táhna_, but the name more commonly employed--always in familiar or
descriptive discourse--is _Mák‘yaiakwin táhna_ (that is, the "direction
of the salt-containing water or lake," from _ma_, salt; _k‘yaía_,
water, or lake-containing or bearing; _kwin_, place of, and _táhna_,
point or direction of). That this name should have displaced the
older form in familiar usage is significant of the great importance
attached to their source of salt by the early Zuñis; yet but natural,
for the older form, _Álahoïnkwin táhna_, signifies "in the direction
of the home (or source) of the coral shells," from _álaho_, glowing
red shell-stuff; _ïnkwïn_, abiding place of, or containing place of,
and _táhna_. This source of the _álahowe_ or coral red shells (which
are derived from several species of subtropical mollusks, and were so
highly prized by the southwestern tribes that the Indians of the lower
Colorado traded in them as assiduously as did those of the cliffs and
round towns in salt) has been for generations the Gulf of California
and the lower coast to beyond Guaymas.
It is not improbable, then, that this archaic and now exclusively
ritualistic expression for the southward or the south is a surviving
paraphrase of the name for south (or of the source in the south of the
red shells), formerly known to the western branch of the Zuñi ancestry,
and once familiarly used by them to designate also, perhaps, the
direction of the source of their chief treasure (these coral red shells
of aboriginal commerce), as in the Gulf of California, which was then
south of them, but is now due west-southwestward from them.
What renders this supposition still more probable, and also strengthens
the theory of the dual origin of many parallelisms in Zuñi culture,
observances, and phraseology, is not so much the fact that this name
for red shells and the archaic Zuñi name for red paint, _áhona_,
resemble in sound and meaning the Yuman _ahowata_, _ahauti_, etc., for
red paint, nor yet the fact that such resemblance extends to many
archaic and other terms, for example of relationship in the Zuñi as
compared especially with corresponding terms in the Yavapai Tulkepaiya
and other dialects of the Yuman. In fact, all the terms in Zuñi for the
four quarters are twofold and different, according as used familiarly
or ritualistically. That for west, for instance, is in the archaic and
ritualistic form, _K’yálishiïnkwïn táhna_, and signifies "direction
of the home, or source of mists and waters, or the sea;" which, when
the Zuñi abode in the farther southwest near the Pacific, was the
appropriate name for west. But the familiar name for west in modern
Zuñi is _Súnhakwïn táhna_, the "direction of the place of evening,"
which is today equally appropriate for their plateau-encircled home of
the far inland.
"North," in the archaic form, is now nearly lost; yet in some of the
more mystic rituals it occurs as both _Wímaiyawan táhna_ (_Wíkutaiya_
is "north" in the Yuma), "direction of the oak mountains," and
_Yä´lawaunankwin táhna_, literally "direction of the place of the
mountain ranges," which from the lower Colorado and southern Arizona
are toward the north, but from northern Zuñi are not so conspicuous as
in the other direction, as, for instance, toward the southwest. On the
other hand, if we consider the familiar phrase for north, _Pïsh´lankwïn
táhna_, "direction of the wind-swept plains," or of the "plains of the
mightiest winds," to have been inherited from the aboriginal round-town
Zuñis, then it was natural enough for them to have named the north as
they did; for to the north of their earlier homes in the cliffs and
beyond lay the measureless plains where roamed the strong Bison God of
Winds, whence came his fierce northern breath and bellowings in the
roar of storms in winter.
The east, in common language, signifies "direction of the coming of
day;" but in the ritual speech signifies "direction of the plains of
daylight"--a literal description of the great Yuma desert as seen at
day-break from the Colorado region, but scarcely applicable to the
country eastward from Zuñi, which is rugged and broken until the Llanos
Estacados of Texas are reached.
The diverse meaning of terms in Zuñi architecture is no less
significant of the diverse conditions and opposite directions of
derivation of the Zuñi ancestry. If the aboriginal branch of the Zuñi
were derived from the dwellers in the northern cliff towns, as has
been assumed, then we would expect to find surviving in the names of
such structural features of their pueblos as resulted from life in the
cliffs linguistic evidence, as in the structures themselves material
evidence, of the fact. Of this, as will presently be shown, there is an
abundance.
If the intrusive branch of the Zuñi ancestry were, as has also been
assumed, of extreme southwestern origin, then we should expect to find
linguistic evidence of a similar nature, say, as to the structural
modifications of the cliff-dweller and round-town architecture which
their arrival at and ultimate position in these towns might lead us to
expect to find, and which in fact is to be abundantly traced in later
Zuñi ruins, like those of the historic Seven Cities of Cibola.
The conditions of life and peculiarities of building, etc., in the
caves and cliffs, then in the round towns, have been commented on at
some length in previous pages, and sufficiently described to render
intelligible a presentation of this linguistic and additional evidence
in regard to derivation from that direction; but it remains for me
to sketch, as well as I can in brief, the more significant of such
characteristics of the primitive Yuman house and village life as seem
to bear on the additional linguistic and other evidence of derivation
also from the opposite or Rio Colorado direction, for both clews should
be presented side by side, if only for the sake of contrast.
These ancient people of the Colorado region, Yuman or other, had, as
their remains show (not in their earliest period, nor yet in a later
stage of their development, when a diverging branch of them--"Our
lost others"[5]--had attained to a high state of culture in southern
Arizona and northern Mexico, but at the time of their migration in
part Zuñiward), houses of quite a different type from those of the
north. They were mainly rancherias, that is, more or less scattered
over the mesas and plains. They were but rarely round, commonly
parallelogrammic, and either single or connected in straight L-shape
or double L-shape rows. The foundations were of rough stones, designed
probably to hold more firmly in place the cane-wattled, mud-plastered
stockades which formed the sides and ends as well as (in the house
rows) the partitions. They owed their rectangular shapes not to
crowding, but to development from an original log-built house type--in
the open (like the rancheria house type of the Tarahumári), to which
may also be traced their generally greater length than width. They
were single storied, with rather flat or slightly sloping roofs,
although the high pitched roof of thatch was not wholly unknown, for
it was still employed on elevated granaries; but sometimes (this was
especially the case with single houses) the stockade posts were carried
up above this roof on three sides, and overlaid with saplings on which,
in turn, a bower of brush or cane or grass was constructed to protect
from the sun rather than from rain. Thus a sort of rude and partial
second story was formed, which was reached from below by means of a
notched step-log made of a forked or branching tree-trunk, the forks
being placed against the edge of the roof proper to keep the log (the
butt of which rested on the ground) from turning when being ascended.[6]
[5] See pages 403, 405-406.
[6] See Mindeleff, Architecture of Tusayan and Cibola,
Eighth Ann. Rep. Bur. Ethnology, p. 157.
Of these single houses the "bowers" described in the following myth of
the creation of corn (see page 391), and typically surviving still to
a great extent in the cornfield or farm huts of modern Zuñi, may be
taken as fair examples; and of the villages or hut-row structures of
these ancient plains and valley people, an excellent example may be
found in the long-houses of the Mohave and other Yumans of the valley
of Colorado river. Both these hut-row houses and the single-room houses
were generally surrounded by low walls of loose stone, stone and mud,
stockade and mud, or of mud alone; and as often as not one side or the
front of a hut within such a wall inclosure was left entirely open.
Thus the outer wall was intended in part as a slight protection from
the wind, and probably also to guard from flooding during the sudden
showers which sometimes descend in torrents over Arizona plains. They
may also have been designed to some extent for protection from the
enemy; for these people were far more valiant fighters than their
ultimate brethren of the north, and depended for protection less on
security of position than on their own prowess. Only during times
of unusual danger did they retire to fortified lava buttes (or,
when near them, to deep but more or less open crevices in some of
the more extensive lava fields), where their hut foundations may be
found huddled together within huge inclosures of natural lava blocks,
dry laid and irregular, but some of them skillfully planned and
astonishingly vast; but in these strongholds they never tarried long
enough to be influenced in their building habits sufficiently to change
the styles of their hamlets in the plains, for until we reach the point
in eastern Arizona where they joined the "elder nations" no change in
ground plan of these houses is to be traced in their remains.
* * * * *
It is necessary to add a few details as to costume, usages, and the
institutions of these semisettled yet ever shifting people.
They wore but scant clothing besides their robes and
blankets--breech-clouts and kilts, short for the men, long for the
women, and made of shredded bark and rushes or fiber; sandals, also
of fiber; necklaces of shell beads, and pendent carved shell gorgets.
The hair was bobbed to the level of the eyebrows in front, but left
long and hanging at the back, gathered into a bunch or switch with a
colored cord by the men, into which cord, or into a fillet of plaited
fiber, gorgeous long tail feathers of the macaw, roadrunner, or
eagle were thrust and worn upright. To the crown of the head of the
warriors was fastened a huge bunch of stripped or slitted feathers of
the owl or eagle, called, no doubt, then as now by its Yuman name,
_musema_; for it is still known, though used in different fashion, as
the _múmtsemak‘ya_ or _múmpalok‘ye_ by the Zuñi Priests of the Bow.
The warriors also carried targets or shields of yucca or cotton cord,
closely netted across a strong, round hoop-frame and covered with a
coarser and larger net, which was only a modification of the carrying
net (like those still in use by the Papago, Pima, and other Indians
of southern Arizona), and was turned to account as such, indeed, on
hunting and war expeditions.
Their hand weapons were huge stone knives and war clubs shaped
like potato-mashers, which were called, it would seem, _iítekati_
(their Yuman name) for, although changed in the Zuñi of today, still
strikingly survives in familiar speech as the expression _ítehk‘ya_
or _ítehk‘yäti_, to knock down finally or fatally, and in ceremonial
allusion (rather than name) to the old-fashioned and sacred war clubs
(which are of identical form) as _ítehk‘yatáwe_, or knocking-down
billets, otherwise called face-smashers or pulpers.
They sometimes buried the dead--chiefly their medicine men and women,
or shamans; but all others were burned (with them personal effects and
gifts of kin) and their ashes deposited in pots, etc., at the heads of
arroyas, or thrown into streams. They held as fetiches of regenerative
as well as protective power certain concretionary stones, some of the
larger of which were family heirlooms and kept as household gods,
others as tribal relics and amulets, like the canopas and huacas of
ancient Peru. These nodules were so knobbed, corrugated, and contorted
that they were described when seen elsewhere by the early Spanish
writers as bezoars, but they were really derived from the sources of
arroyas, or mountain torrents, in the beds of which they are sometimes
found, and being thus always water-worn were regarded as the seed of
the waters, the source of life itself. Hence they were ceremoniously
worshiped and associated with all or nearly all the native dances or
dramaturgies, of which dances they were doubtless called by their old
time possessors "the ancients," or "stone ancients," a name and in some
measure a connection still surviving and extended to other meanings
with reference to similar fetich stones among the Zuñis of today.
From a study of the remains of these primitive Arizonian ancestors of
the Zuñis in the light of present-day Zuñi archaisms, and especially
of the creation myths themselves, it would be possible to present a
much fuller sketch of them. But that which has already been outlined
is sufficiently full, I trust, to prove evidential that the following
Zuñi expressions and characteristics were as often derived from this
southwestern branch as from the cliff dweller or aboriginal branch of
the Zuñi ancestry:
The Zuñi name of an outer village wall is _hék‘yapane_, which
signifies, it would seem, "cliff-face wall;" for it is derived,
apparently, from _héăne_, an extended wall; and _ák‘yapane_, the face
of a wide cliff. Thus it is probably developed from the name which at
first was descriptive of the encircling rear wall of a cave village,
afterward naturally continued to be applied to the rear but encircling
or outside wall of a round town, and hence now designates even a
straight outer wall of a village, whether of the front or the rear of
the houses.
The name for the outer wall of a house, however, is _héine_, or
_héline_, which signifies a mud or adobe inclosure; from _héliwe_, mud
(or mud-and-ash) mortar, and _úline_, an inclosure. Since in usage this
refers to the outer wall of a house or other simple structure, but not
to that of a town or assemblage of houses, its origin may with equal
propriety be attributed to the mud-plastered corral or adobe sides or
inclosures of such rancherias as I have already described.[7]
[7] In my "Study of Pueblo Pottery," etc. (Fourth Annual
Report of the Bureau of Ethnology, 1882-83), I have said
that "The archaic name for a building or walled structure
is _héshota_, a contraction of the now obsolete term
_héshotapone_; from _hésho_, gum, or resin-like; _shótaie_,
leaned or placed together convergingly; _tápoane_, a roof
(covering) of wood, or a roof (covering) supported by wood."
I regret to say that the etymology of this word as thus
rendered was not quite correct, and therefore its meaning
as interpreted in the passage which immediately followed
was also mistaken. It is quite true that _hésho_ signifies
gum or resin, etc. (referring, as I then supposed, to
_áhesho_, or gum rock, a name for lava; used constructively
in the oldest round huts of the basaltic regions); but the
root _he_ enters into many other compounds, such as not
only wax, gum, pitch, metal (as being rock-pitch, that
is, melted from rocks), etc., but also mud, clay-paste,
mud-mortar, and finally adobe, as being dried mud mortar;
hence walls made either with or of adobe, etc. Had I been,
at the time of this first writing, as familiar with the
language as I now am I should not have connected as a
single root _he_ and _sho_, making _hésho_ (gum or pitch)
of it. For, as elsewhere stated in the same essay, _shówe_
signifies canes, (_shóole_, a cane or reed), and it now
appears that the syllable thus derived formed a root by
itself. But I had not then learned that the greater number
of the ruins of southern Arizona, especially of the plains,
consisted of gabion-like walls, that is, of walls made by
packing stiff earth or rubble mortar or cement between
double or parallel cane-wattled stockades, and then heavily
plastering this exterior or casing (as was the case in the
main walls of the celebrated Casa Grande and the temple
mound of Los Muertos); or else, in less massive ruins of
lesser walls the cores or supports of which consisted of
close-set posts lathed with reeds or canes, the mud or
cement being built up either side of these cores, or, in
case of the thinnest walls, such as partitions, merely
plastered to either face.
I can not doubt that even the grandest and most highly
developed of these ruins--the Casas Grandes themselves,
which look today as if constructed wholly of massive
masonry--no less than the simplest plastered stockade
walls, were developed from such beginnings as the mere
mud-plastered cane and stockade screens of the ancient
rancheria builders. Thus, I am constrained to render
the primary meaning of _héshotapoane_ as approximately
"mud-plastered cane and stick structure;" from _heliwe_,
mud mortar; _shówe_, canes or reeds; _táwe_, wood, or
_tátawe_, wood-posts; _póa_, to place (leaningly or
closely) over against; and _ne_, (any) thing made. From
this, the generic term _héshota_, for walled structure
(especially ruined wall-structures), would very naturally
have been derived, and this might or might not have given
rise to the use of the prefix _he_, as occurring in all
names for _mortar-laid_ walls.
Again, the names in Zuñi, first, for a room of a single-story
structure, and, second, for an inner room on the ground floor of
such or of a terraced structure, are (1) _télitona_, "room or space
equally inclosed," that is, by four equal or nearly equal walls;
and (2) _téluline_, "room or space within (other rooms or) an
inclosure." Both of these terms, although descriptive, may, from
their specific use, be attributed to single-story rancheria origin,
I think, for in the cliff villages there was no ground-floor room.
The name for a lowermost room in the cliff villages still seemingly
survives in the Zuñi name for a cellar, which is _ápaline_, from
_a_, rock, and _páloiye_, buried in or excavated within; while the
cliff name for an upper room or top-story room, _óshtenu‘hlane_, from
_óshten_, a cave-shelter or cave roof, and _ú‘hlane_, inclosed by,
or built within the hollow or embrace of, also still survives. Yet
other examples of diversely derived house-names in this composite
phraseology might be added, but one more must suffice. The Zuñi
name for a ladder is _‘hlétsilone_, apparently from _‘hléwe_, slats
(_‘hléma_, slat), and _tsilulona_, hair, fiber, or osier, entwined
or twisted in. This primary meaning of the name would indicate that
before the ladder of poles and slats was used, rope ladders were
commonly in vogue, and if so, would point unmistakably to the cliffs
as the place of its origin; for many of the cliff dwellings can not
now be reached save by means of ropes or rope ladders. Yet, although
the name for a stairway (or steps even of stone or adobe) might
naturally, one would suppose, have been derived from that of a ladder
(if ladders were used before stairs, or vice versa if the reverse was
the case), nevertheless it has a totally independent etymology, for
it is _íyechiwe_, from _íkŏiyächi_, forked log or crotch-log, and
_yéhchiwe_, walking or footing-notched; that is, notched step-log or
crotch. And this it would seem points as unmistakably to such use of
forked and notched step logs or crotch-logs as I have attributed to
the rancheria builders, as does the "rope-and-slat" ladder-name to
the use of the very different climbing device I have attributed to
the cliff dwellers.
It is probable that when the round-town builders had peopled the
trail of salt as far from the northward as to the region of Zuñi and
beyond, the absence of very deep canyons, containing rock-sheltered
nooks sufficiently large and numerous to enable them to find adequate
accommodation for cliff villages, gradually led them to abandon all
resort to the cliffs for protection--made them at last no longer cliff
dwellers, even temporarily, but true Pueblos, or town dwellers of the
valleys and plains.
But other influences than those of merely natural or physical
environment were required to change their mode of building, and
correspondingly, to some extent, their institutions and modes of
life from those of round-town builders to those of square-town
builders, such as in greater part they were at the time of the
Spanish discoveries. In the myths themselves may be found a
clew as to what these influences were in that which is told of
the coming together of the "People of the Midmost" and these
"Dwellers-in-the-towns-builded-round." For there is evidence in
abundance also of other kind, and not a little of it of striking force
and interest, that this coming together was itself the chief cause
of the changes referred to. It has been seen that the western branch
of the Zuñi ancestry (who were these "People of the Midmost") were
almost from the beginning dwellers in square structures; that their
village clusters, even when several of their dwelling places happened
to be built together, were, as shown by their remains wherever found,
built precisely on the plans of single-house structures--that is, they
were simple extensions, mostly rectilinear, of these single houses
themselves.
Now peoples like those of the round towns, no less than primitive
peoples generally, conceive of everything made, whether structure,
utensil, or weapon, as animistic, as living. They conceive of this life
of things as they do of the lives of plants, of hibernating animals, or
of sleeping men, as a still sort of life generally, but as potent and
aware, nevertheless, and as capable of functioning, not only obdurately
and resistingly but also actively and powerfully in occult ways, either
for good or for evil. As every living thing they observe, every animal,
has form, and acts or functions according to its form--the feathered
and winged bird flying, because of its feathered form; the furry and
four-footed animal running and leaping, because of its four-footed
form, and the scaly and finny fish swimming, because also of its fins
and scales and form appropriate thereto--so these things made or born
into special forms of the hands of man also have life and function
variously, according to their various forms.
As this idea of animals, and of things as in other sort animals, is
carried out to the minutest particular, so that even the differences in
the claws of beasts, for example, are supposed to make the difference
between their powers of foot (as between the hugging of the bear and
the clutching of the panther), it follows that form in all its details
is considered of the utmost importance to special kinds of articles
made and used, even of structures of any much used or permanent type.
Another phase of this curious but perfectly natural attributive of
life and form-personality to material things, is the belief that the
forms of these things not only give them power, but also restrict their
power, so that if properly made, that is, made and shaped strictly as
other things of their kind have been made and shaped, they will perform
only such safe uses as their prototypes have been found to serve in
performing before them. As the fish, with scales and fins only, can
not fly as the duck does, and as the duck can not swim under the water
except so far as his feathers, somewhat resembling scales, and his
scaly, webbed feet, somewhat resembling fins enable him to do so, thus
also is it with things. In this way may be explained better than in
any other way, I think, the excessive persistency of form-survival,
including the survival of details in conventional ornamentation in the
art products of primitive peoples--the repetitions, for instance, in
pottery, of the forms and even the ornaments of the vessels, basketry,
or what not, which preceded it in development and use and on which it
was first modeled. This tendency to persist in the making of well-tried
forms, whether of utensil or domicile, is so great that some other
than the reason usually assigned, namely, that of mere accustomedness,
is necessary to account for it, and the reason I have given is fully
warranted by what I know of the mood in which the Zuñis still regard
the things they make and use, and which is so clearly manifest in their
names of such things. It is a tendency so great, indeed, that neither
change of environment and other conditions, nor yet substitution of
unused materials for those in customary use for the making of things,
will effect change in their forms at once, even though in preserving
older forms in this newer sort of material the greatest amount of
inconvenience be encountered. There is, indeed, but one influence
potent enough to effect change from one established form to another,
and that is acculturation; and even this works but slowly and only
after long and familiar intercourse or after actual commingling of one
people with a diversely developed people has taught them the safety and
efficiency of unfamiliar forms in uses familiarly associated with their
own accustomed but different forms. Sooner or later such acculturation
invariably effects radical change in the forms of things used by one
or the other of the peoples thus commingling, or by both; though in
the latter case the change is usually unequal. In the case here under
consideration there is to be found throughout the nearer Zuñi country
ruins of the actual transitional type of pueblo thus formed by the
union of the two ancestral branches of the Zuñis, the round town with
its cliff-like outer wall merging into the square, terraced town with
its broken and angular or straight outer walls; and in these composite
towns earliest appears, too, the house wall built into (not merely
against) the outer walls of the curved portions no less than into the
outer walls of the squared or straight portions.
The composite round and square pueblo ruin is not, however, confined to
this transitional type or to its comparatively restricted area wherever
occurring, but is found here and there as far northward, for instance,
as the neighborhood of older cliff ruins. But in such cases it seems
to have been developed, as heretofore hinted, in the comparatively
recent rebuilding of old rounded towns by square-house builders. Quite
in correspondence with all this is the history of the development,
from the round form into the square, of the kivas of the later Zuñi
towns; that is, like the towns themselves, the round kivas of the
earlier round towns became, first in part and then nearly squared in
the composite round and square towns, and finally altogether squared in
the square towns. This was brought about by a twofold cause. When the
cliff dwellers became inhabitants of the plains, not only their towns,
but also the kivas were enlarged. To such an extent, indeed, were the
latter enlarged that it became difficult to roof them over in the old
fashion of completing the upper courses of the walls with cross-laid
logs, and of roofing the narrowed apex of this coping with combined
rafter and stick structures; hence in many cases, although the round
kiva was rigidly adhered to, it was not unfrequently inclosed within a
square wall in order that, as had come to be the case in the ordinary
living rooms, rafters parallel to one another and of equal length might
be thrown across the top, thus making a flat roof essentially like the
flat terrace roofs of the ordinary house structure.
It is not improbable that the first suggestion of inclosing the round
kiva in a square-walled structure and of covering the latter with
a flat roof arose quite naturally long before the cliff dwellers
descended into the plains. It has been seen that frequently, in the
larger and longest occupied cliff-towns, the straight-walled houses
grew outward wholly around the kivas; and when this occurred the round
kiva was thus not only surrounded by a square inclosure--formed by the
walls of the nearest houses,--but also it became necessary to cover
this inclosing space with a flat roof, in order to render continuous
the house terrace in which it was constructed. Still, the practice
never became general or intentional in the earlier cliff-towns;
probably, indeed, it became so in the now ruined round towns only
by slow degrees. Yet it needed after this (in a measure) makeshift
beginning only such influence of continued intercourse between the
square-house building people and these round-town building people to
lead finally to the practical abandonment by the latter of the inner
round structure surviving from their old-fashioned kivas, and to make
them, like the modern Zuñi kiva, square rather than round.
An evidence that this was virtually the history of the change from the
round kiva building to the square kiva building, and that this change
was wrought thus gradually as though by long-continued intercourse,
is found in the fact that to this day all the ceremonials performed
in the great square kivas of Zuñi would be more appropriate in round
structures. For example, processions of the performers in the midwinter
night ceremonials in these kivas, on descending the ladders, proceed
to their places around the sides of the kivas in circles, as though
following a circular wall. The ceremonials of concerted invocation in
the cult societies when they meet in these kivas are also performed in
circles, and the singers for dances or other dramaturgic performances,
although arranged in one end or in the corner of the kiva, continue to
form themselves in perfect circles; the drum in the middle, the singers
sitting around and facing it as though gathered within a smaller
circular room inclosed in the square room. Thus it may be inferred,
first, from the fact that in the structural details of the scuttles
or hatchways by which these modern kivas are entered the cross-logged
structure of the inner roof of the earliest cliff kivas survive, and
from the additional fact above stated that the ceremonials of these
kivas are circular in form, that the square kiva is a lineal descendant
of the round one; and second, that even after the round kiva was
inclosed in the square room, so to say, in order that its roof might be
made as were the roofs of the women's houses, or continuous therewith,
it long retained the round kiva within, and hence the ceremonials
necessarily performed circularly within this round inner structure
became so associated with the outer structure as well, that after the
abandonment entirely, through the influences I have above suggested, of
these round inner structures, they continued thus to be performed.
As further evidence of the continuity of this development from the
earliest to the latest forms, certain painted marks on the walls of
the cliff kivas tell not only of their derivation in turn from a yet
earlier form, but also and again of the derivation from them of the
latest forms. In the ancient ruins of the scattered round houses,
which, it is presumed, mark the sites of buildings belonging to the
earlier cliff ancestry folk on the northern desert borders, there are
discovered the remains of certain unusually large huts, the walls of
which appear to have been strengthened at four equidistant points
by firmly planted upright logs. It is probable that, alike in this
distribution and in the number of these logs, they corresponded almost
strictly to the poles of, first, the medicine tent, and, second, the
medicine earth lodge. When, in a later period of their development,
these builders of the round huts in the north came to be, as has
heretofore been described, dwellers in the kivas of the caves, their
larger, presumably ceremonial structures, while reared without the
strengthening posts referred to, nevertheless contained, as appropriate
parts, the marks of them on the walls corresponding thereto. At any
rate, in the still later kivas of the cliffs three parallel marks,
extending from the tops of the walls to the floors, are found painted
on the four sides of the kivas. Finally, in the modern square kiva of
Zuñi there are still placed, ceremonially, once every fourth year, on
the four sides of the lintels or hatchways, three parallel marks, and
these marks are called by the Zuñi in their rituals the holders-up of
the doorways and roofs. Many additional points in connection not only
with the structural details of, but also in the ceremonials performed
within, these modern kivas, may be found, survivals all pointing, as do
those above mentioned, to the unbroken development of the kiva, from
the earth medicine lodge to the finished square structure of the modern
Zuñi and Tusayan Indians.
It likewise has been seen that through very natural causes a strict
division between the dwellings of the women and children and of
the adult male population of the cliff villages grew up. From the
relatively great numbers of the kivas found in the courts of the round
towns, it may be inferred that this division was still kept up after
the cliff dwellers became inhabitants of the plains and builders of
such round towns; for when first the Spaniards encountered the Zuñi
dwellers in the Seven Cities of Cibola they found that, at least
ceremonially, this division of the men's quarters from those of the
women was still persisted in, but there is evidence that even thus
early it was not so strictly held to on other occasions. Then, as now,
the men became permanent guests, at least, in the houses of their
wives, and it is probable that the cause which broke down this previous
strict division of the sexes was the union of the western or rancheria
building branch of the Zuñi ancestry with the cliff and round-town
building branch.
In nothing is the dual origin of the Zuñis so strongly suggested as
in the twofold nature of their burial customs at the time when first
they were encountered by the Spaniards; for according to some of the
early writers they cremated the dead with all of their belongings, yet
according to others they buried them in the courts, houses, or near
the walls of their villages. It has already been stated that the cliff
dwellers buried their dead in the houses and to the rear of their
cavern villages, and that, following them in this, the dwellers in the
round towns buried their dead also in the houses and to the rear--that
is, just outside of their villages. It remains to be stated that nearly
all of the Yuman tribes, and some even of the Piman tribes, of the
lower Colorado region disposed of their dead chiefly by cremation.
Investigation of the square-house remains which lie scattered over the
southwestern and central portions of Arizona would seem to indicate
that the western branch of the Zuñi ancestry continued this practice of
cremating the greater number of their dead. If this be true, the custom
on the one hand of cremating the dead, which was observed by Castañeda
at Mátsaki, one of the principal of the Seven Cities of Cibola, and the
practice of burying the dead observed by others of the earliest Spanish
explorers, are easily accounted for as being survivals of the differing
customs of the two peoples composing the Zuñi tribe at that time. As
has been mentioned in the first part of this introductory, both of
these very different customs continued ceremonially to be performed,
even after disposal of the dead solely by burial under the influence of
the Franciscan fathers came to be an established custom.
In the Kâ´kâ, or the mythic drama dance organization of the Zuñis,
there is equal evidence of dual origin, for while in the main the
_kâ´kâ_ of the Zuñis corresponds to the _katzina_ of the Rio Grande
Pueblo tribes and to the _kachina_ of the Tusayan Indians, yet it
possesses certain distinct and apparently extraneous features. The
most notable of these is found in that curious organization of
priest-clowns, the Kâ´yimäshi, the myth of the origin of which is
so fully given in the following outlines (see page 401). It will be
seen that in this myth these Kâ´yimäshi are described as having heads
covered with welts or knobs, that they are referred to not only as
"husbands of the sacred dance" or the "_kâ´kâ_" (from _kâ´kâ_ and
_yémäshi_, as in _óyemäshi_, husband or married to) and as the Old
Ones or _Á‘hläshiwe_.
Throughout the Rio Colorado region, and associated with all the
remaining ruins of the rancheria builders in central and even eastern
Arizona as well, are found certain concretions or other nodular and
usually very rough stones, which today, among some of the Yuman
tribes, are used as fetiches connected both with water worship and
household worship. Among the sacred objects said to have been brought
by the Zuñi ancestry from the places of creation are a number of such
fetich-stones, and in all the ruins of the later Zuñi towns such
fetich-stones are also found, especially before rude altars in the
plazas and around ancient, lonely shrines on the mesas and in the
mountains. These fetich-stones are today referred to as _á‘hläshiwe_,
or stone ancients, from _a_, a stone, _‘hlä´shi_, aged one, and _we_,
a plural suffix. The resemblance of this name to the _Á‘hläshiwe_ as
a name of the Kâ´yemäshi strongly suggests that the nodular shape
and knobbed mask-heads of these priest-clowns are but dramatic
personifications of these "stone ancients," and if one examine such
stones, especially when used in connection with the worship and
invocation of torrents, freshets, and swift-running streams (when, like
the masks in question, they are covered with clay), the resemblance
between the fetich-stones and the masks is so striking that one is
inclined to believe that both the characters and their names were
derived from this single source. From the fact that this peculiar
institution of the clown-priest organization, associated with or, as
the Zuñis say, literally married to the Cachina, or Kâ´kâ proper, was
at one time peculiarly Zuñi, as is averred by themselves and avowed
by all the other Pueblos, it would seem that it was distinctively an
institution of the western branch of their ancestry, since also, as the
myths declare, these Old Ones were born on the sacred mountains of the
Kâ´kâ, on the banks of the Colorado Chiquito in Arizona. Finally, this
is typical of many, if not all, features which distinguish the Zuñi
Kâ´kâ from the corresponding organizations of other Pueblo tribes.
OUTLINE OF ZUÑI MYTHO-SOCIOLOGIC ORGANIZATION.
A complete outline of the mytho-sociologic organization of the
Zuñi tribe can not in this connection be undertaken. A sufficient
characterization of this probably not unique combination of the
sociologic and mythologic institutions of a tribe should, however, be
given to make plain certain allusions in the following outlines which
it is feared would otherwise be incomprehensible.
The Zuñi of today number scarcely 1,700 and, as is well known, they
inhabit only a single large pueblo--single in more senses than one,
for it is not a village of separate houses, but a village of six
or seven separate parts in which the houses are mere apartments or
divisions, so to say. This pueblo, however, is divided, not always
clearly to the eye, but very clearly in the estimation of the people
themselves, into seven parts, corresponding, not perhaps in arrangement
topographically, but in sequence, to their subdivisions of the "worlds"
or world-quarters of this world. Thus, one division of the town is
supposed to be related to the north and to be centered in its kiva
or estufa, which may or may not be, however, in its center; another
division represents the west, another the south, another the east, yet
another the upper world and another the lower world, while a final
division represents the middle or mother and synthetic combination of
them all in this world.
By reference to the early Spanish history of the pueblo it may be seen
that when discovered, the Áshiwi or Zuñis were living in seven quite
widely separated towns, the celebrated Seven Cities of Cibola, and
that this theoretic subdivision of the only one of these towns now
remaining is in some measure a survival of the original subdivision
of the tribe into seven subtribes inhabiting as many separate towns.
It is evident that in both cases, however, the arrangement was, and
is, if we may call it such, a mythic organization; hence my use of the
term the mytho-sociologic organization of the tribe. At any rate, this
is the key to their sociology as well as to their mythic conceptions
of space and the universe. In common with all other Indian tribes of
North America thus far studied, the Zuñis are divided into clans, or
artificial kinship groups, with inheritance in the female line. Of
these clans there are, or until recently there were, nineteen, and
these in turn, with the exception of one, are grouped in threes to
correspond to the mythic subdivision I have above alluded to. These
clans are also, as are those of all other Indians, totemic; that is,
they bear the names and are supposed to have intimate relationship with
various animals, plants, and objects or elements. Named by their totems
they are as follows:
Kâ´lokta-kwe, Crane or Pelican people; Póyi-kwe (nearly extinct),
Grouse or Sagecock people; Tá‘hluptsi-kwe (nearly extinct), Yellow-wood
or Evergreen-oak people; Ain̄´shi-kwe, Bear people; Súski-kwe, Coyote
people; Aíyaho-kwe, Red-top plant or Spring-herb people; Ána-kwe,
Tobacco people; Tâ´a-kwe, Maize-plant people; Tónashi-kwe, Badger
people; Shóhoita-kwe, Deer people; Máawi-kwe (extinct), Antelope
people; Tóna-kwe, Turkey people; Yä´tok‘ya-kwe, Sun people; Ápoya-kwe
(extinct), Sky people; K‘yä´k‘yäli-kwe, Eagle people; Ták‘ya-kwe, Toad
or Frog people; K‘yána-kwe (extinct), Water people; Chítola-kwe (nearly
extinct), Rattlesnake people; Píchi-kwe, Parrot-Macaw people.
Of these clans the first group of three appertains to the north, the
second to the west, the third to the south, the fourth to the east,
the fifth to the upper or zenith, and the sixth to the lower or
nadir region; while the single clan of the Macaw is characterized as
"midmost," or of the middle, and also as the all-containing or mother
clan of the entire tribe, for in it the seed of the priesthood of the
houses is supposed to be preserved. The Zuñi explanation of this very
remarkable, yet when understood and comprehended, very simple and
natural grouping of the clans or totems is exceedingly interesting,
and also significant whether it throw light on the origin, or at
least native meaning, of totemic systems in general, as would at
first seem to be the case, or whether, as is more probably the case
in this instance, it indicates a native classification, so to say, or
reclassification of clans which existed before the culture had been
elaborated to its present point. Briefly, the clans of the north--that
is, those of the Crane, the Grouse, and Evergreen-oak--are grouped
together and are held to be related to the north because of their
peculiar fitness for the region whence comes the cold and wherein the
season of winter itself is supposed to be created, for the crane each
autumn appears in the van of winter, the grouse does not flee from the
approach of winter but puts on his coat of white and traverses the
forests of the snow-clad mountains as freely as other birds traverse
summer fields and woodlands, caring not for the cold, and the evergreen
oak grows as green and is as sturdy in winter as other trees are in
spring or summer; hence these are totems and in a sense god-beings
of the north and of winter, and the clanspeople named after them
and considered as, mythically at least, their breath-children, are
therefore grouped together and related to the north and winter as are
their totems. And as the bear, whose coat is grizzly like the evening
twilight or black like the darkness of night, and the gray coyote, who
prowls amidst the sagebrush at evening and goes forth and cries in
the night-time, and the spring herb or the red-top plant, which blooms
earliest of all flowers in spring when first the moisture-laden winds
from the west begin to blow--these and the people named after them are
as appropriately grouped in the west. The badger, who digs his hole on
the sunny sides of hills and in winter appears only when the sun shines
warm above them, who excavates among the roots of the juniper and the
cedar from which fire is kindled with the fire drill; the wild tobacco,
which grows only where fires have burned, and the corn which anciently
came from the south and is still supposed to get its birth from the
southland, and its warmth--these are grouped in the south. The turkey,
which wakes with the dawn and helps to awaken the dawn by his cries;
the antelope and the deer, who traverse far mesas and valleys in the
twilight of the dawn--these and their children are therefore grouped in
the east. And it is not difficult to understand why the sun, the sky
(or turkis), and the eagle appertain to the upper world; nor why the
toad, the water, and the rattlesnake appertain to the lower world.
By this arrangement of the world into great quarters, or rather as
the Zuñis conceive it, into several worlds corresponding to the four
quarters and the zenith and the nadir, and by this grouping of the
towns, or later of the wards (so to call them) in the town, according
to such mythical division of the world, and finally the grouping
of the totems in turn within the divisions thus made, not only the
ceremonial life of the people, but all their governmental arrangements
as well, are completely systemized. Something akin to written statutes
results from this and similar related arrangements, for each region
is given its appropriate color and number, according to its relation
to one of the regions I have named or to others of those regions.
Thus the north is designated as yellow with the Zuñis, because the
light at morning and evening in winter time is yellow, as also is the
auroral light. The west is known as the blue world, not only because
of the blue or gray twilight at evening, but also because westward
from Zuñiland lies the blue Pacific. The south is designated as red,
it being the region of summer and of fire, which is red; and for an
obvious reason the east is designated white (like dawn light); while
the upper region is many-colored, like the sunlight on the clouds, and
the lower region black, like the caves and deep springs of the world.
Finally, the midmost, so often mentioned in the following outline, is
colored of all these colors, because, being representative of this
(which is the central world and of which in turn Zuñi is the very
middle or navel), it contains all the other quarters or regions, or
is at least divisible into them. Again, each region--at least each of
the four cardinal regions, namely, north, west, south, and east--is
the home or center of a special element, as well as of one of the
four seasons each element produces. Thus the north is the place of
wind, breath, or air, the west of water, the south of fire, and the
east of earth or the seeds of earth; correspondingly, the north is
of course the place of winter or its origin, the west of spring, the
south of summer, and the east of autumn. This is all because from the
north and in winter blow the fiercest, the greatest winds or breaths,
as these people esteem them; from the west early in spring come the
moistened breaths of the waters in early rains; from the south comes
the greatest heat that with dryness is followed by summer, and from
the east blow the winds that bring the frosts that in turn mature the
seeds and perfect the year in autumn. By means of this arrangement no
ceremonial is ever performed and no council ever held in which there
is the least doubt as to the position which a member of a given clan
shall occupy in it, for according to the season in which the ceremonial
is held, or according to the reason for which a council is convened,
one or another of the clan groups of one or another of the regions will
take precedence for the time; the natural sequence being, however,
first the north, second the west, third the south, fourth the east,
fifth the upper, and sixth the lower; but first, as well as last, the
middle. But this, to the Zuñi, normal sequence of the regions and clan
groups, etc., has been determined by the apparent sequence of the
phenomena of the seasons, and of their relations to one another; for
the masterful, all conquering element, the first necessity of life
itself, and to all activity, is the wind, the breath, and its cold, the
latter overmastering, in winter all the other elements as well as all
other existences save those especially adapted to it or potent in it,
like those of the totems and gods and their children of the north. But
in spring, when with the first appearance of the bear and the first
supposed growls of his spirit masters in the thunders and winds of that
time their breaths begin to bring water from the ocean world, then the
strength of the winter is broken, and the snows thereby melted away,
and the earth is revivified with drink, in order that with the warmth
of summer from the south things may grow and be cherished toward their
old age or maturity and perfection, and finally toward their death or
sleeping in winter by the frost-laden breaths of autumn and the east.
Believing, as the Zuñis do, in this arrangement of the universe and
this distribution of the elements and beings chiefly concerned in them,
and finally in the relationship of their clans and the members thereof
to these elementary beings, it is but natural that they should have
societies or secret orders or cult institutions composed of the elders
or leading members of each group of their clans as above classified.
The seriation of these secret and occult medicine societies, or,
better, perhaps, societies of magic, is one of the greatest consequence
and interest. Yet it can but be touched upon here. In strict accordance
with succession of the four seasons and their elements, and with their
supposed relationship to these, are classified the four fundamental
activities of primitive life, namely, as relating to the north and its
masterfulness and destructiveness in cold, is war and destruction;
relating to the west is war cure and hunting; to the south, husbandry
and medicine; to the east, magic and religion; while the above, the
below, and the middle relate in one way or another to all these
divisions. As a consequence the societies of cold or winter are found
to be grouped, not rigidly, but at least theoretically, in the northern
clans, and they are, respectively: ’Hléwe-kwe, Ice-wand people or band;
Áchia-kwe, Knife people or band; Kâ´shi-kwe, Cactus people or band;
for the west: Pí‘hla-kwe, Priesthood of the Bow or Bow people or band
(Ápi‘hlan Shiwani, Priests of the Bow); Sániyak‘ya-kwe, Priesthood
of the Hunt or Coyote people or band; for the south: Máke‘hlána-kwe,
Great fire (ember) people or band; Máketsána-kwe, Little fire (ember)
people or band; of the east: Shíwana-kwe, Priests of the Priesthood
people or band; Úhuhu-kwe, Cottonwood-down people or band; Shúme-kwe,
or Kâ´kâ‘hlána-kwe, Bird-monster people or band, otherwise known as
the Great Dance-drama people or band; for the upper region: Néwe-kwe,
Galaxy people or band or the All-consumer or Scavenger people or
band (or life preservers); and for the lower regions: Chítola-kwe,
Rattlesnake people or band, generators (or life makers). Finally, as
produced from all the clans and as representative alike of all the
clans and through a tribal septuarchy of all the regions and divisions
in the midmost, and finally as representative of all the cult societies
above mentioned is the Kâ´kâ or Ákâkâ-kwe or Mythic Dance drama people
or organization. It may be seen of these mytho-sociologic organizations
that they are a system within a system, and that it contains also
systems within systems, all founded on this classification according
to the six-fold division of things, and in turn the six-fold division
of each of these divisions of things. To such an extent, indeed, is
carried this tendency to classify according to the number of the six
regions with its seventh synthesis of them all (the latter sometimes
apparent, sometimes nonappearing) that not only are the subdivisions of
the societies also again subdivided according to this arrangement, but
each clan is subdivided both according to such a six-fold arrangement
and according to the subsidiary relations of the six parts of its
totem. The tribal division made up of the clans of the north takes
precedence ceremonially, occupying the position of elder brother or
the oldest ancestor, as the case might be. The west is the younger
brother of this; and in turn, the south of the west, the east of the
south, the upper of the east, the under of them all, while the middle
division is supposed to be a representative being, the heart or navel
of all the brothers of the regions first and last, as well as elder
and younger. In each clan is to be found a set of names called the
names of childhood. These names are more of titles than of cognomens.
They are determined upon by sociologic and divinistic modes, and are
bestowed in childhood as the "verity names" or titles of the children
to whom given. But this body of names relating to any one totem--for
instance, to one of the beast totems--will not be the name of the
totem beast itself, but will be names both of the totem in its various
conditions and of various parts of the totem, or of its functions, or
of its attributes, actual or mythical. Now these parts or functions, or
attributes of the parts or functions, are subdivided also in a six-fold
manner, so that the name relating to one member of the totem--for
example, like the right arm or leg of the animal thereof--would
correspond to the north, and would be the first in honor in a clan
(not itself of the northern group); then the name relating to another
member--say to the left leg or arm and its powers, etc.--would pertain
to the west and would be second in honor; and another member--say the
right foot--to the south and would be third in honor; and of another
member--say the left foot--to the east and would be fourth in honor;
to another--say the head--to the upper regions and would be fifth in
honor; and another--say the tail--to the lower region and would be
sixth in honor; while the heart or the navel and center of the being
would be first as well as last in honor. The studies of Major Powell
among the Maskoki and other tribes have made it very clear that kinship
terms, so called, among other Indian tribes (and the rule will apply no
less or perhaps even more strictly to the Zuñis) are rather devices for
determining relative rank or authority as signified by relative age,
as elder or younger of the person addressed or spoken of by the term
of relationship. So that it is quite impossible for a Zuñi speaking
to another to say simply brother; it is always necessary to say elder
brother or younger brother, by which the speaker himself affirms
his relative age or rank; also it is customary for one clansman to
address another clansman by the same kinship name of brother-elder or
brother-younger, uncle or nephew, etc.; but according as the clan of
the one addressed ranks higher or lower than the clan of the one using
the term of address, the word-symbol for elder or younger relationship
must be used.
With such a system of arrangement as all this may be seen to be,
with such a facile device for symbolizing the arrangement (not only
according to number of the regions and their subdivisions in their
relative succession and the succession of their elements and seasons,
but also in colors attributed to them, etc.), and, finally, with
such an arrangement of names correspondingly classified and of terms
of relationship significant of rank rather than of consanguinal
connection, mistake in the order of a ceremonial, a procession or a
council is simply impossible, and the people employing such devices
may be said to have written and to be writing their statutes and laws
in all their daily relationships and utterances. Finally, with much
to add, I must be content with simply stating that the high degree of
systemization which has been attained by the Zuñis in thus grouping
their clans severally and serially about a midmost group, we may see
the influence of the coming together of two diverse peoples acting
upon each other favorably to the development of both in the application
of such conceptions to the conduct of tribal affairs. It would seem
that the conception of the midmost, or that group within all these
groups which seems to be made up of parts of them all, is inherent in
such a system of world division and tribal subdivision corresponding
thereto; but it may also well be that this conception of the middle
was made more prominent with the Zuñis than with any other of our
southwestern peoples through the influence of the earthquakes, which
obviously caused their ancestors from the west again and again to
change their places of abode, thus emphasizing the notion of getting
nearer to or upon the lap or navel of the earth mother, where all these
terrific and destructive movements, it was thought, would naturally
cease.
Be this as it may, this notion of the "middle" and its relation to the
rest has become the central fact indeed of Zuñi organization. It has
given rise to the septuarchy I have so often alluded to; to the office
of the mortally immortal K‘yäk´lu, keeper of the rituals of creation,
from which so much sanction for these fathers of the people is drawn;
to the consequent fixing in a series like a string of sacred epics, a
sort of inchoate Bible, of these myths of creation and migration; and
finally, through all this accumulated influence, it has served to give
solidarity to the Zuñi tribe at the time of its division into separate
tribes, making the outlying pueblos they inhabited subsidiary to the
central one, and in the native acceptation of the matter, mere parts of
it.
GENERAL EXPLANATIONS RELATIVE TO THE TEXT.
As the space originally apportioned to this merely preliminary essay
on the Myths of Creation has already been greatly exceeded, the
consideration even in outline of the cultural characteristics of the
Zuñis, which would do much to further illumine the meaning of the
myths, must be left to the second paper of the series. This will
constitute a key or appendix to the present paper, and will contain
such glossaries and detailed explanations as will render, it is hoped,
all obscure passages clear, and will at the same time give my authority
for framing and translating the myths as I have.
Chiefly, however, it will in turn introduce a third paper on the sacred
dances or creation dramas of the Kâ´kâ, which originally the myths
themselves (as the source of the songs, rituals, and forms of these
dramas) were designed to introduce. Lastly, the whole series are but
preliminary to a very extensive work on the subject which I contemplate
producing so soon as health and opportunity for further researches
among the Zuñis will permit.
As inclusive of the dramaturgies or dances, and nearly all other
ceremonials of the Zuñis, this subject of their creation myths is
almost inexhaustible. I, at least, can not hope to complete it, and I
have therefore chosen to treat it in its relation especially to their
so-called dances, particularly to those of the Kâ´kâ.
With other primitive peoples as with the Zuñis, there seems to be no
bent of their minds so strong or pervasive of and influential upon
their lives as the dramaturgic tendency. That tendency to suppose that
even the phenomena of nature can be controlled and made to act more or
less by men, if symbolically they do first what they wish the elements
to do, according to the ways in which, as taught by their mystic lore,
they suppose these things were done or made to be done by the ancestral
gods of creation time. And this may be seen in a searching analysis not
only of the incidents and symbolisms in folk-tales as well as myths
of such primitive peoples, but also in a study of the moods in which
they do the ordinary things of life; as in believing that because a
stone often struck wears away faster than when first struck it is
therefore helpful in overcoming its obduracy to strike it--work it--by
a preliminary dramatic and ritualistic striking, whereupon it will work
as though already actually worked over, and will be less liable to
breakage, etc.
All this and much more to the same effect will be illustrated in the
papers which I have mentioned as designed to follow the present one.
There remain still a few points in this preliminary paper which must be
commented upon--points regarding my own hand in the work chiefly. I use
very freely such terms as "religious," "sacred," "priest," and "god,"
not because they always express exactly the native meaning, but for the
reason that they do so more approximately than any other terms I could
select. The fearful and mysterious, the magical and occult, all these
and many other elements are usually included in the primitive man's
religion, and hence terms like "sacred" must be given a less restricted
value than they have in our speech or culture.
Again, while the Zuñi word _shíwani_, "priest," literally signifies
guardian and possessor, as well as maker or keeper of the flesh, or
seed of life of the Zuñis, it must not be supposed to represent a
medicine-man, shaman, or sorcerer--for all of which there are specific
differentiated terms in the Zuñi tongue. Those who bear that title are
also divided into four classes, but among all these the functions of
possessing a shrine, being ritualists, performing before the altars,
and leading as well as ordering all organized sacerdotal ceremonials,
is common. Therefore the simple term "priest," in the Pagan rather than
in the Christian sense, is the best and truest that can be found.
Frequently I have occasion to reproduce portions of songs or rituals,
or, again, words of the Uánami or "Beloved Gods." In the originals
these are almost always in faultless blank verse meter, and are often
even grandly poetic. I do not hesitate either to reproduce as nearly as
possible their form, or to tax to the uttermost my power of expression
in rendering the meanings of them where I quote, clear and effective
and in intelligible English. Yet in doing this I do not have to depart
very far from "scientific" accuracy, even in the linguistic sense.
Finally, I have entitled the originative division of this paper
"Outlines of Zuñi Creation Myths," because, in the first place, this
is but a preliminary rendering of these, and, properly speaking, they
are a series of explanation-myths. Now, while such myths are generally
disconnected, often, indeed, somewhat contradictory episode-legends
with primitive peoples, they are, with the Zuñis, already become
serial, and it is in their serial or epic form (but merely in outline)
that I here give them. Although each is called a talk, and is held
specifically by a particular organization or social division, yet all
are called "the speech." This comes about in Zuñi by the presence in
the tribal organization, as already explained, of a class of men and
priests there called the "Midmost," or the "All," because hereditary in
a single clan (the Macaw), yet representative sacerdotally of all the
clans and all the priesthoods, which they out-rank as "Masters of the
House of Houses."
With them all these various myths are held in brief and repeated in
set form and one sequence as are placed the beads of a rosary or on a
string, each entire, yet all making a connected strand. Here, then, we
see the rudiment or embryo of a sacred epic such as that of the K‘yäk´lu
or "Speaker of all times whensoever."
As finally published, this paper will contain the most ample
explanation of all these points and many others, and will not ask, as
it does today, catholic judgment and charitable interpretation.
The so-called dances of the Zuñis, and presumably those of all similar
primitive peoples, are essentially religio-sociologic in character and
always at least dramatic, or, more properly speaking, dramaturgic. It
follows that to endeavor to describe and treat at all adequately of any
one such ceremonial becomes a matter of exceeding difficulty, for it
should involve a far more perfect scheme of the sociologic organization
as well as at least a general survey of the mythology and religious
institutions of the tribe to which it relates, such as I here present,
as well as an absolutely searching description of all details in both
the preparation for and the performance of such ceremonial.
For example, the celebrated Kâ´kâ or mythic drama-dance organization
of the Zuñis, and for that matter all other of their ceremonials,
are, any one of them, made up in personnel from specific clans. Thus
formed, they are organized, and the actors and their parts divided
in accordance with the groupings of these clans in relation to the
symbolic regions of the world, or in this case literally septs.
Finally, the paraphernalia and costumings, no less than the actions,
songs, and rituals, are as distinctly founded on and related to the
legend or legends dramatized.
At this point it seems desirable that the sense in which the terms
"drama," "dramatic," and "dramaturgic" are employed in relation to
these ceremonials be explained. This may best be done, perhaps, by
contrasting the drama of primitive peoples, as I conceive it, with that
of civilized peoples. While the latter is essentially spectacular, the
former has for its chief motive the absolute and faithful reproduction
of creative episodes--one may almost say, indeed, the revivification of
the ancient.
That this is attempted and is regarded as possible by primitive man
is not to be wondered at when we consider his peculiar modes of
conception. I have said of the Zuñis that theirs is a science of
appearances and a philosophy of analogies. The primitive man, no less
than the child, is the most comprehensive of observers, because his
looking at and into things is not self-conscious, but instinctive and
undirected, therefore comprehensive and searching. Unacquainted as he
is with rational explanations of the things he sees, he is given, as
has been the race throughout all time, to symbolic interpretation and
mystic expression thereof, as even today are those who deal with the
domain of the purely speculative. It follows that his organizations
are symbolic; that his actions within these organizations are also
symbolic. Consequently, as a child at play on the floor finds sticks
all-sufficient for the personages of his play-drama, chairs for his
houses, and lines of the floor for the rivers that none but his
eyes can see, so does the primitive man regard the mute, but to him
personified, appliances of his dance and the actions thereof, other
than they seem to us.
I can perhaps make my meaning more clear by analyzing such a conception
common to the Zuñi mind. The Zuñi has observed that the corn plant
is jointed; that its leaves spring from these joints not regularly,
but spirally; that stripped of the leaves the stalk is found to be
indented, not regularly at opposite sides, but also spirally; that
the matured plant is characterized, as no other plant is, by two
sets of seeds, the ears of corn springing out from it two-thirds
down and the tassels of seeds, sometimes earlets, at the top; also
that these tassels resemble the seed-spikes of the spring-grass or
pigeon-grass; that the leaves themselves while like broad blades of
grass are fluted like plumes, and that amongst the ears of corn ever
and anon are found bunches of soot; and, finally, that the colors of
the corn are as the colors of the world--seven in number. Later on it
may be seen to what extent he has legendized these characteristics,
thus accounting for them, and to what extent, also, he has dramatized
this, his natural philosophy of the corn and its origin. Nothing in
this world or universe having occurred by accident--so it seems to the
Zuñi mind,--but everything having been started by a personal agency or
supernal, he immediately begins to see in these characteristics of the
corn plant the traces of the actions of the peoples in his myths of
the olden time. Lo! men lived on grass seeds at first, but, as related
in the course of the legends which follow, there came a time when, by
the potencies of the gods and the magic of his own priests or shamans,
man modified the food of first men into the food of men's children.
It needed only a youth and a maiden, continent and pure, to grasp at
opposite sides and successively the blades of grass planted with plumes
of supplication, and walking or dancing around them, holding them
firmly to draw them upward until they had rapidly grown to the tallness
of themselves, then to embrace them together. Behold! the grasses were
jointed where grasped four times or six according to their tallness;
yea, and marked with the thumb-marks of those who grasped them; twisted
by their grasp while circling around them and leaved with plume-like
blades and tasseled with grass-like spikes at the tops. More wonderful
than all, where their persons had touched the plants at their middles,
behold! new seed of human origin and productive of continued life had
sprung forth in semblance of their parentage and draped with the very
pile of their generation. For lo! that when the world was new all
things in it were _k‘yaíuna_, or formative, as now is the child in the
mother's womb or the clay by the thoughts of the potter. That the seed
of seeds thus made be not lost it needed that Paíyatuma, the God of
Dew and the Dawn, freshen these new-made plants with his breath; that
Ténatsali, the God of Time and the Seasons, mature them instantly with
his touch and breath; that Kwélele, the God of Heat, ripen them with
the touch of his Fire-brother's torch and confirm to them the warmth
of a life of their own. Nevertheless, with the coming of each season,
the creation is ever repeated, for the philosophy of ecclesiasticism is
far older than ecclesiastics or their writings, and since man aided in
the creation of the corn, so must he now ever aid in each new creation
of the seed of seeds. Whence the drama of the origin of corn is not
merely reenacted, but is revived and reproduced in all its many details
with scrupulous fidelity each summer as the new seed is ripening.
And now I may add intelligibly that the drama of primitive man is
performed in an equally dramaturgic spirit, whether seen, as in its
merely culminating or final enactment, or unseen and often secret, as
in its long-continued preparations. In this a given piece of it may be
likened to a piece of Oriental carving or of Japanese joinery, in which
the parts not to be seen are as scrupulously finished as are the parts
seen, the which is likewise characteristic of our theme, for it is due
to the like dramaturgic spirit which dominates even the works, no less
than the ceremonials, of all primitive and semiprimitive peoples.
So also it seems to the Zuñi that no less essential is it that all the
long periods of creation up to the time when corn itself was created
from the grasses must be reproduced, even though hastily and by mere
signs, as are the forms through which a given species in animal life
has been evolved, rapidly repeated in each embryo.
The significance of such studies as these of a little tribe like the
Zuñis, and especially of such fuller studies as will, it is hoped,
follow in due course, is not restricted to their bearing on the tribe
itself. They bear on the history of man the world over. I have become
convinced that they thus bear on human history, especially on that of
human culture growth, very directly, too, for the Zuñis, say, with all
their strange, apparently local customs and institutions and the lore
thereof, are representative in a more than merely general way of a
phase of culture through which all desert peoples, in the Old World
as well as in the New, must sometime have passed. Thus my researches
among these Zuñis and my experimental researches upon myself, with my
own hands, under strictly primitive conditions, have together given
me insight and power to interpret their myths and old arts, as I
could never otherwise have hoped to do; and it has also enlarged my
understanding of the earliest conditions of man everywhere as nothing
else could have done.
The leisure for this long continued research has been due to the
generosity, scientific disinterestedness, and personal kindness of my
former chief, Professor Spencer F. Baird, and of my present revered
director, Major J. W. Powell, whose patience and helpfulness through
years of struggle, ill-health, and delay could not adequately be
repaid by even the complete carrying out of the series of works herein
projected and prefaced. To them and to Professor W. J. McGee, who has
aided and fostered this work in every possible way, I owe continual
gratitude.
MYTHS[8]
[8] As stated more fully in the introductory paragraphs,
notes giving the etymologies of native terms and explaining
and amplifying obscure or brief allusions and presenting
the special sense in which certain expressions and passages
are used will be given in the second part of this paper, to
appear in the future.
THE GENESIS OF THE WORLDS, OR THE BEGINNING OF NEWNESS.
Before the beginning of the new-making, Áwonawílona (the Maker and
Container of All, the All-father Father), solely had being. There was
nothing else whatsoever throughout the great space of the ages save
everywhere black darkness in it, and everywhere void desolation.
In the beginning of the new-made, Áwonawílona conceived within himself
and thought outward in space, whereby mists of increase, steams potent
of growth, were evolved and uplifted. Thus, by means of his innate
knowledge, the All-container made himself in person and form of the Sun
whom we hold to be our father and who thus came to exist and appear.
With his appearance came the brightening of the spaces with light, and
with the brightening of the spaces the great mist-clouds were thickened
together and fell, whereby was evolved water in water; yea, and the
world-holding sea.
With his substance of flesh (_yépnane_) outdrawn from the surface
of his person, the Sun-father formed the seed-stuff of twain
worlds, impregnating therewith the great waters, and lo! in the
heat of his light these waters of the sea grew green and scums
(_k’yanashótsiyallawe_) rose upon them, waxing wide and weighty
until, behold! they became Áwitelin Tsíta, the "Four-fold Containing
Mother-earth," and Ápoyan Tä´chu, the "All-covering Father-sky."
THE GENESIS OF MEN AND THE CREATURES.
From the lying together of these twain upon the great world-waters, so
vitalizing, terrestrial life was conceived; whence began all beings
of earth, men and the creatures, in the Four-fold womb of the World
(Áwiten Téhu‘hlnakwi).
Thereupon the Earth-mother repulsed the Sky-father, growing big and
sinking deep into the embrace of the waters below, thus separating from
the Sky-father in the embrace of the waters above. As a woman forebodes
evil for her first-born ere born, even so did the Earth-mother
forebode, long withholding from birth her myriad progeny and meantime
seeking counsel with the Sky-father. "How," said they to one another,
"shall our children, when brought forth, know one place from another,
even by the white light of the Sun-father?"
Now like all the surpassing beings (_píkwaiyin áhâi_) the Earth-mother
and the Sky-father were _‘hlímna_ (changeable), even as smoke in the
wind; transmutable at thought, manifesting themselves in any form at
will, like as dancers may by mask-making.
Thus, as a man and woman, spake they, one to the other. "Behold!" said
the Earth-mother as a great terraced bowl appeared at hand and within
it water, "this is as upon me the homes of my tiny children shall be.
On the rim of each world-country they wander in, terraced mountains
shall stand, making in one region many, whereby country shall be known
from country, and within each, place from place. Behold, again!" said
she as she spat on the water and rapidly smote and stirred it with
her fingers. Foam formed, gathering about the terraced rim, mounting
higher and higher. "Yea," said she, "and from my bosom they shall draw
nourishment, for in such as this shall they find the substance of life
whence we were ourselves sustained, for see!" Then with her warm breath
she blew across the terraces; white flecks of the foam broke away, and,
floating over above the water, were shattered by the cold breath of
the Sky-father attending, and forthwith shed downward abundantly fine
mist and spray! "Even so, shall white clouds float up from the great
waters at the borders of the world, and clustering about the mountain
terraces of the horizons be borne aloft and abroad by the breaths of
the surpassing of soul-beings, and of the children, and shall hardened
and broken be by thy cold, shedding downward, in rain-spray, the water
of life, even into the hollow places of my lap! For therein chiefly
shall nestle our children mankind and creature-kind, for warmth in thy
coldness."
Lo! even the trees on high mountains near the clouds and the Sky-father
crouch low toward the Earth-mother for warmth and protection! Warm is
the Earth-mother, cold the Sky-father, even as woman is the warm, man
the cold being!
"Even so!" said the Sky-father; "Yet not alone shalt _thou_ helpful be
unto our children, for behold!" and he spread his hand abroad with the
palm downward and into all the wrinkles and crevices thereof he set
the semblance of shining yellow corn-grains; in the dark of the early
world-dawn they gleamed like sparks of fire, and moved as his hand was
moved over the bowl, shining up from and also moving in the depths of
the water therein. "See!" said he, pointing to the seven grains clasped
by his thumb and four fingers, "by such shall our children be guided;
for behold, when the Sun-father is not nigh, and thy terraces are as
the dark itself (being all hidden therein), then shall our children be
guided by lights--like to these lights of all the six regions turning
round the midmost one--as in and around the midmost place, where these
our children shall abide, lie all the other regions of space! Yea! and
even as these grains gleam up from the water, so shall seed-grains
like to them, yet numberless, spring up from thy bosom when touched
by my waters, to nourish our children." Thus and in other ways many
devised they for their offspring.
THE GESTATION OF MEN AND THE CREATURES.
Anon in the nethermost of the four cave-wombs of the world, the seed
of men and the creatures took form and increased; even as within eggs
in warm places worms speedily appear, which growing, presently burst
their shells and become as may happen, birds, tadpoles or serpents, so
did men and all creatures grow manifoldly and multiply in many kinds.
Thus the lowermost womb or cave-world, which was Ánosin téhuli (the
womb of sooty depth or of growth-generation, because it was the place
of first formation and black as a chimney at night time, foul too, as
the internals of the belly), thus did it become overfilled with being.
Everywhere were unfinished creatures, crawling like reptiles one over
another in filth and black darkness, crowding thickly together and
treading each other, one spitting on another or doing other indecency,
insomuch that loud became their murmurings and lamentations, until many
among them sought to escape, growing wiser and more manlike.
THE FORTHCOMING FROM EARTH OF THE FOREMOST OF MEN.
Then came among men and the beings, it is said, the wisest of wise
men and the foremost, the all-sacred master, Póshaiyaŋk‘ya, he who
appeared in the waters below, even as did the Sun-father in the wastes
above, and who arose from the nethermost sea, and pitying men still,
won upward, gaining by virtue of his (innate) wisdom-knowledge issuance
from that first world-womb through ways so dark and narrow that those
who, seeing somewhat, crowded after, could not follow, so eager were
they and so mightily did they strive with one another! Alone, then, he
fared upward from one womb (cave) to another out into the great breadth
of daylight. There, the earth lay, like a vast island in the midst of
the great waters, wet and unstable. And alone fared he forth dayward,
seeking the Sun-father and supplicating him to deliver mankind and the
creatures there below.
THE BIRTH FROM THE SEA OF THE TWAIN DELIVERERS OF MEN.
Then did the Sun-father take counsel within himself, and casting
his glance downward espied, on the great waters, a Foam-cap near to
the Earth-mother. With his beam he impregnated and with his heat
incubated the Foam-cap, whereupon she gave birth to Úanam Achi Píahkoa,
the Beloved Twain who descended; first, Úanam Éhkona, the Beloved
Preceder, then Úanam Yáluna, the Beloved Follower, Twin brothers of
Light, yet Elder and Younger, the Right and the Left, like to question
and answer in deciding and doing. To them the Sun-father imparted,
still retaining, control-thought and his own knowledge-wisdom, even
as to the offspring of wise parents their knowingness is imparted and
as to his right hand and his left hand a skillful man gives craft
freely surrendering not his knowledge. He gave them, of himself and
their mother the Foam-cap, the great cloud-bow, and for arrows the
thunderbolts of the four quarters (twain to either), and for buckler
the fog-making shield, which (spun of the floating clouds and spray
and woven, as of cotton we spin and weave) supports as on wind, yet
hides (as a shadow hides) its bearer, defending also. And of men and
all creatures he gave them the fathership and dominion, also as a man
gives over the control of his work to the management of his hands.
Well instructed of the Sun-father, they lifted the Sky-father with
their great cloud-bow into the vault of the high zenith, that the
earth might become warm and thus fitter for their children, men and
the creatures. Then along the trail of the sun-seeking Póshaiyaŋk‘ya,
they sped backward swiftly on their floating fog-shield, westward to
the Mountain of Generation. With their magic knives of the thunderbolt
they spread open the uncleft depths of the mountain, and still on their
cloud-shield--even as a spider in her web descendeth--so descended they
unerringly, into the dark of the under-world. There they abode with men
and the creatures, attending them, coming to know them, and becoming
known of them as masters and fathers, thus seeking the ways for leading
them forth.
THE BIRTH AND DELIVERY OF MEN AND THE CREATURES.
Now there were growing things in the depths, like grasses and crawling
vines. So now the Beloved Twain breathed on the stems of these grasses
(growing tall, as grass is wont to do toward the light, under the
opening they had cleft and whereby they had descended), causing them
to increase vastly and rapidly by grasping and walking round and round
them, twisting them upward until lo! they reach forth even into the
light. And where successively they grasped the stems ridges were formed
and thumb-marks whence sprang branching leaf-stems. Therewith the two
formed a great ladder whereon men and the creatures might ascend to
the second cave-floor, and thus not be violently ejected in after-time
by the throes of the Earth-mother, and thereby be made demoniac and
deformed.
Up this ladder, into the second cave-world, men and the beings crowded,
following closely the Two Little but Mighty Ones. Yet many fell back
and, lost in the darkness, peopled the under-world, whence they were
delivered in after-time amid terrible earth shakings, becoming the
monsters and fearfully strange beings of olden time. Lo! in this
second womb it was dark as is the night of a stormy season, but
larger of space and higher than had been the first, because it was
nearer the navel of the Earth-mother, hence named K’ólin tehuli (the
Umbilical-womb, or the Place of Gestation). Here again men and the
beings increased and the clamor of their complainings grew loud and
beseeching. Again the Two, augmenting the growth of the great ladder,
guided them upward, this time not all at once, but in successive
bands to become in time the fathers of the six kinds of men (the
yellow, the tawny gray, the red, the white, the mingled, and the black
races), and with them the gods and creatures of them all. Yet this
time also, as before, multitudes were lost or left behind. The third
great cave-world, whereunto men and the creatures had now ascended,
being larger than the second and higher, was lighter, like a valley in
starlight, and named Áwisho tehuli--the Vaginal-womb, or the Place of
Sex-generation or Gestation. For here the various peoples and beings
began to multiply apart in kind one from another; and as the nations
and tribes of men and the creatures thus waxed numerous as before,
here, too, it became overfilled. As before, generations of nations now
were led out successively (yet many lost, also as hitherto) into the
next and last world-cave, Tépahaian tehuli, the Ultimate-uncoverable,
or the Womb of Parturition.
Here it was light like the dawning, and men began to perceive and to
learn variously according to their natures, wherefore the Twain taught
them to seek first of all our Sun-father, who would, they said, reveal
to them wisdom and knowledge of the ways of life--wherein also they
were instructing them as we do little children. Yet like the other
cave-worlds, this too became, after long time, filled with progeny;
and finally, at periods, the Two led forth the nations of men and the
kinds of being, into this great upper world, which is called Ték’ohaian
úlahnane, or the World of Disseminated Light and Knowledge or Seeing.
THE CONDITION OF MEN WHEN FIRST INTO THE WORLD OF DAYLIGHT BORN.
Eight years made the span of four days and four nights when the world
was new. It was while yet such days and nights continued that men
were led forth, first in the night, that it might be well. For even
when they saw the great star (_móyächun ‘hlána_), which since then is
spoken of as the lying star (_mókwanosona_), they thought it the Sun
himself, so burned it their eyeballs! Men and the creatures were nearer
alike then than now: black were our fathers the late born of creation,
like the caves from which they came forth; cold and scaly their skins
like those of mud-creatures; goggled their eyes like those of an owl;
membranous their ears like those of cave-bats; webbed their feet like
those of walkers in wet and soft places; and according as they were
elder or younger, they had tails, longer or shorter. They crouched
when they walked, often indeed, crawling along the ground like toads,
lizards and newts; like infants who still fear to walk straight, they
crouched, as before-time they had in their cave-worlds, that they might
not stumble and fall, or come to hurt in the uncertain light thereof.
And when the morning star rose they blinked excessively as they beheld
its brightness and cried out with many mouth-motionings that surely
now the Father was coming; but it was only the elder of the Bright
Ones, gone before with elder nations and with his shield of flame,
heralding from afar (as we herald with wet shell scales or crystals)
the approach of the Sun-father! And when, low down in the east the
Sun-father himself appeared, what though shrouded in the midst of the
great world waters, they were so blinded and heated by his light and
glory that they cried out to one another in anguish and fell down
wallowing and covering their eyes with their bare hands and arms. Yet
ever anew they looked afresh to the light and anew struggled toward the
sun as moths and other night creatures seek the light of a camp fire;
yea, and what though burned, seek ever anew that light!
Thus ere long they became used to the light, and to this high world
they had entered. Wherefore, when they arose and no longer walked
bended, lo! it was then that they first looked full upon one another
and in horror of their filthier parts, strove to hide these, even from
one another, with girdles of bark and rushes; and when by thus walking
only upon their hinder feet the same became bruised and sore, they
sought to protect them with plaited soles (sandals) of yucca fiber.
THE ORIGIN OF PRIESTS AND OF KNOWLEDGE.
It was thus, by much devising of ways, that men began to grow knowing
in many things, and were instructed by what they saw, and so became
wiser and better able to receive the words and gifts of their fathers
and elder brothers, the gods, Twain and others, and priests. For
already masters-to-be were amongst them. Even in the dark of the
under-worlds such had come to be; as had, indeed, the various kinds
of creatures-to-be, so these. And according to their natures they had
found and cherished things, and had been granted gifts by the gods; but
as yet they knew not the meaning of their own powers and possessions,
even as children know not the meanings and right uses of the precious
or needful things given them; nay nor yet the functions of their very
parts! Now in the light of the Sun-father, persons became known from
persons, and these things from other things; and thus the people came
to know their many fathers among men, to know them by themselves or by
the possessions they had.
Now the first and most perfect of all these fathers among men after
Póshaiyaŋk‘ya was Yanáuluha, who brought up from the under-world
water of the inner ocean, and seeds of life-production and growing
things; in gourds he brought these up, and also things containing the
"of-doing-powers."
THE ORIGIN OF THE RAVEN AND THE MACAW, TOTEMS OF WINTER AND SUMMER.
He who was named Yanáuluha carried ever in his hand a staff which now
in the daylight appeared plumed and covered with feathers of beautiful
colors--yellow, blue-green, and red, white, black, and varied. Attached
to it were shells and other potent contents of the under-world. When
the people saw all these things and the beautiful baton, and heard the
song-like tinkle of the sacred shells, they stretched forth their hands
like little children and cried out, asking many questions.
Yanáuluha, and other priests (_shiwanáteuna_) having been made wise by
teaching of the masters of life (god-beings) with self-magic-knowing
(_yam tsépan ánikwanan_), replied: "It is a staff of extension,
wherewith to test the hearts and understandings of children." Then he
balanced it in his hand and struck with it a hard place and blew upon
it. Amid the plumes appeared four round things, seeds of moving beings,
mere eggs were they, two blue like the sky or turkis; two dun-red like
the flesh of the Earth-mother.
Again the people cried out with wonder and ecstasy, and again asked
they questions, many.
"These be," said he who was named Yanáuluha, "the seed of living
things; both the cherishers and annoyancers, of summer time; choose
ye without greed which ye will have for to follow! For from one twain
shall issue beings of beautiful plumage, colored like the verdure
and fruitage of summer; and whither they fly and ye follow, shall be
everlastingly manifest summer, and without toil, the pain whereof ye
ken not, fields full fertile of food shall flourish there. And from the
other twain shall issue beings evil, uncolored, black, piebald with
white; and whither these two shall fly and ye follow, shall strive
winter with summer; fields furnished only by labor such as ye wot not
of shall ye find there, and contended for between their offspring and
yours shall be the food-fruits thereof."
"The blue! the blue!" cried the people, and those who were most hasty
and strongest strove for the blue eggs, leaving the other eggs for
those who had waited. "See," said they as they carried them with much
gentleness and laid them, as one would the new-born, in soft sand on
the sunny side of a cliff, watching them day by day, "precious of color
are these; surely then, of precious things they must be the seed!"
And "Yea verily!" said they when the eggs cracked and worms issued,
presently becoming birds with open eyes and with pinfeathers under
their skins, "Verily we chose with understanding, for see! yellow
and blue, red and green are their dresses, even seen through their
skins!" So they fed the pair freely of the food that men favor--thus
alas! cherishing their appetites for food of all kinds! But when their
feathers appeared they were _black_ with white bandings; for ravens
were they! And they flew away mocking our fathers and croaking coarse
laughs!
And the other eggs held by those who had waited and by their father
Yanáuluha, became gorgeous macaws and were wafted by him with a toss
of his wand to the far southward summer-land. As father, yet child of
the macaw, he chose as the symbol and name of himself and as father of
these his more deliberate children--those who had waited--the macaw and
the kindred of the macaw, the Múla-kwe; whilst those who had chosen the
ravens became the Raven-people, or the Kâ´kâ-kwe.
Thus first was our nation divided into the People of Winter and the
People of Summer. Of the Winter those who chose the raven, who were
many and strong; and of the Summer those who cherished the macaw, who
were fewer and less lusty, yet of prudent understanding because more
deliberate. Hence, Yanáuluha their father, being wise, saw readily
the light and ways of the Sun-father, and being made partaker of his
breath, thus became among men as the Sun-father is among the little
moons of the sky; and speaker to and of the Sun-father himself, keeper
and dispenser of precious things and commandments, Pékwi Shíwani
Éhkona (and Earliest Priest of the Sun). He and his sisters became
also the seed of all priests who pertain to the Midmost clan-line of
the priest-fathers of the people themselves "masters of the house of
houses." By him also, and his seed, were established and made good the
priests-keepers of things.
THE ORIGIN AND NAMING OF TOTEM-CLANS AND CREATURE KINDS, AND THE
DIVISION AND NAMING OF SPACES AND THINGS.
The Twain Beloved and priest fathers gathered in council for the naming
and selection of man-groups and creature-kinds (_tánawe_), spaces, and
things. Thus determined they that the creatures and things of summer
and the southern space pertained to the Southern people, or Children of
the Producing Earth-mother; and those of winter and northern space, to
the Winter people, or Children of the Forcing or Quickening Sky-father.
Of the Children of Summer, some loved and understood most the Sun,
hence became the fathers of the Sun people (Yä´tok’ya-kwe). Some
loved more the water, and became the Toad people (Ták‘ya-kwe), Turtle
people (Étâa-kwe), or Frog people (Ták‘yaiuna-kwe), who so much love
the water. Others, again loved the seeds of earth and became the
People of Seed (Tâatém‘hlanah-kwe), such as those of the First-growing
grass (Pétâa-kwe, now Aíyaho-kwe), and of the Tobacco (Ána-kwe). Yet
still others loved the warmth and became the Fire or Badger people
(Tónashi-kwe). According, then, to their natures and inclinations or
their gifts from below or of the Masters of Life, they chose or were
chosen for their totems.
Thus, too, it was with the People of Winter or the North. They chose,
or were chosen and named, according to their resemblances or aptitudes;
some as the Bear people (Aíŋshi-kwe), Coyote people (Súski-kwe), or
Deer people (Shóhoita-kwe); others as the Crane people (Kâ´lokta-kwe),
Turkey people (Tóna-kwe) or Grouse people (Póyi-kwe). In this wise it
came to pass that the Áshiwe were divided of old in such wise as are
their children today, into _ánotiwe_ (clans or kinties) of brothers
and sisters who may not marry one another, but from one to another of
kin. Yea, and as the Earth-mother had increased and kept within herself
all beings, cherishing them apart from their father even after they
came forth, so were these our mothers and sisters made the keepers of
the kin-names and of the seed thereof, nor may the children of each be
cherished by any others of kin.
Now the Beloved Foremost Ones (Úan Éhkon Áteona) of these clans were
prepared by instruction of the gods and the fathers of the house of
houses and by being breathed of them (_púak‘yanapk‘ya_), whereby
they became _áshiwani_ or priests also, but only the priests of
possession, master keepers of sacred things and mysteries (_tíkitlapon
ámosi_), each according to his nature of kinship. It was thus that
the warmth-wanting (_ték‘yä‘hlna shema_) Badger-people were given
the great shell (_tsúlikéinan ‘hlana_), the heart or navel of which
is potent or sensitive of fire, as of the ea
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