82 



THE AMERICAN MUSEUM JOUHXAL 



Sante Fe and St. Augustine of Spanish 

 foundation. The tribe numbers six- 

 teen hmidred souls or as many as it 

 could muster after it had gathered itself 

 together after the first disastrous shock 

 of Spanish contact. The houses are 

 still l)uilt in the prehistoric way of stone 

 masonry, mortared and plastered with 

 clay, and rise densely clustered, terraced 

 one above the other to a height of four 

 or five stories. 



The life too of the Zuhi, runs in the 

 current of long ago. They have bor- 

 rowed from the American his shirt and 

 his overalls, and have learned to like his 

 coffee and sugar, his bacon and wheat 

 flour. Sheep and donkeys they ob- 

 tained long since from the Spaniard, 

 and many today can boast of owning 

 horses and wagons. But inwardly and 

 in all his relations with other Indians, 

 the Zuiii is still purely aboriginal. He 

 does not know whether toda;)' is Sunday 

 or Wednesday, whether it is January or 

 July; or what the American names of 

 the store-keeper, missionary and govern- 

 ment agent are. He knows these people 

 by nicknames which he or some friend 

 has given them, and he reckons time by 

 the number of days to the next cere- 

 monial dance ordained l)y his priests. 

 He supports himself as his forefathers 

 of the immemorial long ago did, through 

 raising corn by hand culture in sandy 

 patches where it would seem that the 

 grain woukl not even sprout. In the 

 middle of the plaza around which his 

 town is built stands a decaying, roofless 

 and gutted Catholic church, which his 

 forefathers built of adobe under the 

 direction of Spanish missionaries; but 

 two centuries of Christian regime ha\'e 

 not influenced the inward spirit of the 

 Zufii. He knew that soldiers stood back 

 of the priest and therefore he obeyed 

 him, yet he hardened his heart against 

 him; and no sooner did Spanish and 



Mexican authority relax than the Indian 

 quietly shook off the hateful yoke of im- 

 posed religion, and re\-erted openl\- to the 

 ancient native ceremonials which he and 

 his fathers had kept alive l)y secret prac- 

 tices in hidden imderground rooms within 

 fiftv vards of the walls of the mission. 



Paiuled dance tablets with sun, star and cloud sym- 

 bols. There is never a month at Zufii and at some 

 seasons never a week without a public ceremonial 

 dance, and every day brings some religious ritual 



