84 



THE AMEBIC AX MVHEUM JOURNAL 



, '4'' * I, 



remarkable peo- 

 ple have long at- 

 tracted extraor- 

 dinary attention 

 from anthropolo- 

 gists and students 

 of the aboriginal. 

 Frank Hamilton 

 Cushing, whose 

 genius in cer- 

 tain directions 

 has never been 

 equaled among 

 any of his col- 

 leagues, took up 

 his residence at 

 Zuni nearly forty 

 years ago, and 

 became in every 

 sense a full mem- 

 ber of the tribe, 

 looked on as 

 such by the Zuni 

 themselves. He 

 took part in their 

 war expeditions 

 against the hated 

 Apache and Na- 

 vaho raiders; be- 

 came a member 

 of one of the six 

 sacred Kivas, and 

 was initiated into 

 the religious soci- 

 ety of the priests 

 of the bow. A 

 host of other 

 students have fol- 

 lowed in his foot- 

 steps and the list 

 of anthro])ologists 



Wand swallowed by 

 a iiu'dicine juggler of a 

 religious society. The 

 lower smooth portion of 

 the sliek is thrusi down 

 the throat for a length 

 of foiirte.-ii Iruhes 



who have visited Zuni includes most of 

 the eminent names in America, such as 

 Powell, McGee, and ]VIrs. Stevenson, to 

 mention only some of those no longer 

 li^•ing, as well as Tylor and other famous 

 foreigners. 



With all this study accomplished, one 

 has howe\'er to be at Zuni only a few 

 days before being aware that our knowl- 

 edge of the life of the people is very in- 

 complete; in fact that in many respects 

 the ground has scarcely been scratched. 

 Mrs. Stevenson for instance has pub- 

 lished a quarto volume four inches thick 

 on the ceremonies and religious system 

 of the Zuni, yet any tourist in a week 

 can see rituals enacted with full pomp 

 to which she barely alludes. It is not 

 that the studies that have been made 

 are in their natiu-e superficial. In fact 

 many of the published accounts are in- 

 tensive in their detail. It is the Zuni 

 life or culture that for all its aboriginal- 

 ity, is so intricatel\' complex that no 

 volume however thick could hold all that 

 is to be said about any one of its several 

 phases. No one knows exactly, but 

 there must be nearly two hundred gods 

 and mythological characters that are 

 impersonated by distinctively masked 

 and costumed dancers. There is not a 

 month, and at certain seasons not a 

 week, without a public dance in the 

 town, and at no time a day without some 

 sort of religious ritual. 



The family life of the Zuni is lived 

 precisely as if no white man had yet set 

 foot on American soil. The people are 

 tlivided into sixteen clans each named 

 after an animal or plant. Descent in 

 these clans is not from the father as we 

 inherit our names and as titles and royal 

 succession descend in Eiu'ope, but from 

 the mother. A Zuni is of his mother's 

 clan but he recognizes his relationship to 

 his father's people by calling himself 

 the child ( f his father's clan. 



