70 REPORT OF THE SECRETARY. 



of their sacred dances. About three hundred fetiches were also ob 

 tained, representing nearly every animal and object held in high esteem 

 by the Zui5is, e. g., hunting charms, war and prey gods. A series of pho- 

 tographic views was also made of the sacred springs, wells, monuments, 

 picture-writings, and shrines of the Zunis, scattered over an area of 

 about 75 miles in all directions from Zuiii, and a collection of repre- 

 sentative specimens of their gods, idols, plume-sticks, and other relig- 

 ious objects was secured. These collections have already been received 

 at the National Museum, where they will be arranged, classified, and 

 described. Full notes, detailing the observations made in the field, as 

 well as a descrii)tive catalogue of the collections made, will appear in 

 a forthcoming report of the Bureau of Ethnology. 



Mr. Victor Mindeleff was, at the beginning of the year, in charge of 

 a party collecting pottery at Acoma, IST. Mex. He secured and shipped 

 about 1,000 specimens before returning to Washington, in the month 

 of February. He also made a close architectural survey of the village, 

 securing such plans and data as were necessary for the preparation of 

 a detailed model. In August he returned to New Mexico, visiting the 

 Chaco group of ruined pueblos in order to secure detailed plans, pho- 

 tographs, and other materials for the preparation of models, spending 

 about two months in that work. In October he made a survey and 

 measurements of the large Etowah mound near Cartersville, Ga., pre- 

 liminary to constructing a model to be added to the mound series of the 

 Bureau. 



General Field Studies. — In the beginning of 1884 Mr. Frank H. Gushing 

 undertook systematic explorations of the sacrificial grottoes and -votive 

 shrines of the Zuiiis in the main and tributary valleys of their pueblos. 

 In and upon the mesa of Taai ycel Ion ne or Thunder Mountain alone, 

 he found eight of these depositories, three of which proved to be entirely 

 prehistoric, the others partially so. On the head-lands, both north and 

 south of Zuui, he traced eleven additional shrines, and near both Pes- 

 cado and Nutria . found others, all rich in ancient remains. More im- 

 portant than any of these, however, were three caverns, or rock-shelters, 

 situated in two caiions, one some 9 miles east of Zuni, the other south- 

 east and nearer the pueblo by 3 miles. Two of these caves were of a 

 remote date as receptacles, one containing a burial cairn, the other an 

 extensive accumulation of well-preserved idols of war and rain-gods, 

 symbolic altar-tablets, sacred cigarettes, long and short prayer- wands, 

 and numerous samples of textile, cordage, and plume work. The lat- 

 ter deposit was the more important in that, beside being still used and 

 held sacred by the Zui5is — hence clearly referable to their ancestry — its 

 contents evidently connected it with the crater and cave-shrines discov- 

 ered by Mr. Gushing on the Upper Golorado Ghiquito in 1881, and de- 

 scribed in the report of his explorations for that year. As, however, ho 

 was forced to visit these i)laces either in company with Indian compan- 

 ions or by stealth, he had to leave his rich finds undisturbed. 



