90 SUMMER CEREMONIALS 



ject in relation to the desirability or rather the necessity 

 of placing on record all the data which can be gathered in 

 relation to the religious customs of our Indians. The 

 wholesale destruction of aboriginal religions by the early 

 settlers has very much limited the amount of knowledge 

 which we have of the characteristics of Indian ceremonies. 

 In the case of our New England aborigines we have very 

 meagre data bearing on this point. While fragments of 

 their mythology can with great difficulty be gathered from 

 the folk-tales of the survivors, and from the exparte accounts 

 which have come down to us from the writings of the col- 

 onists, who had no sympathy with "Devil worship," we 

 have but little information of the nature and meaning of 

 their religious ceremonials, or their forms of religious wor- 

 ship. With the growth of an intelligent interest in the study 

 in a comparative way of the evolution of religion, it be- 

 comes desirable to have something more than can be gleaned 

 from these sources. The best thing for us now to do is 

 to endeavor to preserve what is left before that too is 

 swept away into oblivion. 



The inhabitants of a few of the pueblos of New Mexico 

 and Arizona still preserve in a comparatively pure condi- 

 tion the religious observances and ceremonials of their an- 

 cestors. 1 The encroachments of the whites, and the inevit- 

 able changes which follow in the customs of the Indians, 

 render it imperative that as many observations of these as 

 possible be collected at once. Changes in ceremonials in- 

 evitably follow contact with the whites, so that it is highly 

 probable that in no short time the religious observances 

 at present practised will be modified or lost, and little 



VThat the Zunians were formerly much more numerous is indicated by several 

 facts. The large number of ruins of great size claimed by this race as belonging 

 to their ancestors points that way, and the many folk-tales of persons dwelling in 

 pneblos now in ruins look the same way. 



