White] THE PUEBLO OF SIA, NEW MEXICO 65 
collected, and the gifts, to the priest at this time. The priest comes 
with a truck to haul the gifts away. He is, however, at liberty to 
sell any of the gifts to anyone in Sia, thus exchanging property for 
money. 
ARE THE SIA CHRISTIANS? 
I would answer, ‘‘No, emphatically not, with possibly a few ex- 
ceptions.”’ As I have previously noted, the Pueblo Indians opposed 
Christianity with everything at their command prior to the Revolt 
of 1680. After the reconquest they were obliged to submit, at least 
outwardly. They have accepted Catholicism after a fashion; they 
will tell you that they are Catholics; and they have actually defended 
Catholicism against the encroachments of evangelical Protestantism, 
as we shall see shortly. But all this does not mean that they have 
given up their aboriginal religion and have become Christians. What 
they have done since the reconquest is: (1) gone underground with 
their pagan beliefs and ceremonies, and (2) assimilated some elements 
of Catholicism with the Indian religion. 
The Indians of the Rio Grande region, said Stevenson in 1890, 
are in fact as non-Catholic as before the Spanish conquest. ... [They] have 
preserved their religion ... holding their ceremonials in secret, practicing 
their occult powers to the present time, under the very eye of the church .... 
The Catholic priest marries the betrothed, but they have been previously united 
according to their ancestral rites. ‘The Romish priest holds mass that the dead 
may enter heaven, but prayers have already been offered that the soul may be 
received by Sus-sis-tin-na-ko (their creator) into the lower world. ... Though 
professedly Catholic, they wait only the departure of the priest to return to their 
secret ceremonials. [Stevenson, 1894, pp. 13-15.] 
Stevenson (1894, p. 77) observed a cross on the altar of the Snake 
society during its rain ceremonial. But, she says, 
the cross bears no symbol of Christianity to these Indians . . . [It] was given to 
a theurgist of the Snake Society in remote times by a priest of so good a heart 
that, though his religion was not theirs, his prayers traveled fast over the straight 
road to Kopistaia; and so their reverence for this priest . . . led them to con- 
vert the symbol of Christianity into an object of fetichistic worship. 
By holding their religious ceremonies in secret the Indians have 
sought to convince the Catholic clergy and other outsiders that they 
are no longer practiced. The seclusion and secrecy have by them- 
selves added sanctity and value to the Indian religion. Stevenson 
(1894, p. 13) was allowed to attend some of the secret ceremonials, 
and was impressed with the ‘“‘tenacity with which they cling to their 
ancient customs . . . [and] their cunning in maintaining perfect se- 
clusion.””? The Catholic clergy, on their part, know that some of the 
native religion is still practiced in secret, but, as one priest frankly 
told me, they make a point of not interfering or even exhibiting 
