NO. 8 



SMITHSONIAN EXI'LOKATIOXS, Kjl^ 



7Z 



STRANGK RIT]':S ()!■ TIIK TEWA INDIANS 

 Mrs. M. (.'. Stevenson continued her comparative study aniont;- llie 

 Tewa Indians of the Ivio ( Irande valley, in hehalf of the Uureau 

 of American luhnology. A close relationship was found to exist 

 amonij all the Puehlo Indians, especially in their essential heliefs, 

 resulting in a i^reat hrotherhood hetween them. Living in an arid 

 land the cry of their souls was and is — " rains to water the earth." 

 Primitive man sought to define the mysteries of Xature, to account 

 for its jthenomena : thus ])rinn'tive jjliilosophv was horn, and then re- 



Fir,. 70. — Plaza and kiva of the Sun people, San Ildefonso. X denotes the en- 

 trance ro the kiva. Photosraph by Mrs. Stevenson. 



ligion and ritualism crept in. The Puehlo Indian Ijegan at an earlv 

 period to create a pantheon of gods of his worship, gods to he a]:)- 

 ])ealed to for the good things of life, and angry gods to he propitiated, 

 and thus, long ago, a most complicated system of religion and rituals 

 developed among such peoples of the Southwest as had homes con- 

 structed of stone, clav, and plaster. 



riie more clever men of the past ages dififerentiated their gods into 

 two classes, anthropic, ]:)rincipally ancestral, and zooic. and these men 

 asstuncd to dominate the remainder of the ])eople by asserting their 

 direct communication with the gods. Through their power and influ- 

 ence with these gods they were next in importance to the gods them- 



