Miscellaneous Papers. 241 



DANCES OF THE JEMEZ PUEBLO INDIANS. 



By Albert B. Reagan. Mora, Wash. 



''f^HE Jemez pueblo Indians are a semicivilized tribe residing 

 -*- in the northwestern part of New Mexico, about sixty miles 

 southwest of Santa Fe and fifty miles north of Albuquerque. 

 They, like their pueblo neighbors, differ in many characteristics 

 from the nomadic tribes, devoting their attention principally to the 

 cultivation of the soil and the raising of stock. They live in 

 houses built of stone or sun-dried brick. 



They have a division of labor, the women doing the house 

 work, the men the work in the fields. 



Their civilization dates back to a period anterior to the arrival 

 of the Spaniards; and, owing to their isolation and manner of liv- 

 ing, they still retain their ancient language, customs, superstitions, 

 and religion, though all of them talk the Mexican language and are 

 adherents of the holy Roman Catholic church. 



These Indians are religious in the extreme; every move, every 

 voluntary act, even the smoking of a cigarette, is performed with 

 some religious end in view. They are worshipers of nature, and 

 they endow each object with its counterpart spirit. The sun, moon, 

 stars, clouds, lightning, rainbow and snake are their chief objects 

 of worship. Symbols of these objects of worship are painted on their 

 dancing regalia and in their dwellings, secret apartments, and re- 

 ligious halls. In front of these symbols they pray and sprinkle 

 corn-pc^llen or meal, usually morning, noon, and evening, they be- 

 lieving that the symbols have the power to carry the prayers of 

 the children of men to the deities they represent. 



Halls are built by these people for the purpose of worship, and 

 many of their dwellings have secret religious (dark) rooms in 

 them ; besides, many of the houses have blind closets. In the lat- 

 ter the things of a religious character, which the Jemez does not 

 desire the public to see, are stored away and sealed up till needed 

 again in religious worship. In the dark room are the altars, the 

 idols, and many symbolic drawings and paintings. In this room 

 also, lying beneath the sacred symbols, are bunches of the downy 

 eagle feathers, so sacred to the aborigines of the region. Among 

 these bunches of feathers, bowls of sacred dust — corn pollen and 

 meal — are setting. In this room the "family worship" is carried 

 on, and in it the oldest woman of the family sprinkles the sacred 

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