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SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. 63 



selves. Their doctrines taught that : The gods who bring good are 

 exacting, and man must comply with the demands of his gods in 

 order that the godly blessings may be bestowed upon him. He must 

 not only perform the religious duties assigned him, but observe proper 

 intelligence in the performance of these rites. " In the far past 

 Ava^'nyu, the great plumed serpent, whose home is in the depths of 

 the lake of the departed, determined to take a journey over the upper 

 plane so that he could look below and observe the people of this world. 



Fio. 71. — Circular kiva at PucIjIo of Nambe, New Mexico. 

 Photograph by Vroman. 



Upon viewing a certain village on the summit of a mesa not many 

 miles from the present pueblo of San Ildefonso on the Rio Grande, 

 he discovered that though the people were devout, their rituals were 

 all wrong and as a punishment for their ignorance he converted them 

 into si'de (small bird), Mexican pajarito, and had them fly away. 

 Since that time the deserted village has been called Si'de ge, small 

 bird place. These ruins are known to the outside world as the 

 Pajarito ruins. 



Religion and ritual kept pace with the development of man. The 

 peoples more remote from the long-continued influence of Roman 



