BOBBINS, HAREINGTON 

 FKEIKE-JIARUECO 



'] ETHISIOBOTANY OF THE TEWA INDIANS 81 



of irrigation. But the Tewa of Santa Clara have a strong- tradition of 

 an earlier state of things: 



In old times, when the people lived on the hills, they had no ditches; the corn 

 grew with water purely from the heavens. When it was very dry, the women 

 watered it from their jars.^ Then the people began to plant in the arroyos where 

 the water ran, and so, little by little, as best they could, they thought of irrigating. 



The Pueblo Indians have myths which profess to account for the 

 variously colored strains of corn. A Zufii myth^ ascribes the origin of 

 the seven kinds (^"ellow, blue, red, white, streaked, black, all-colored) 

 to the selection by their ancestors of large and beautifully colored 

 grass seeds, ceremoniall}^ planted with feathered wands of the desired 

 colors, and fertilized by the ritual union of the youth Ytipotuluha 

 with the Seven Corn-maidens. The following myth, obtained from a 

 Tewa of Santa Clara, was obtained from Miss C D. True: 



Long ago the people lived principally on meat; forest fires destroyed the game 

 and the people were starving. They went up to Puje ^ and danced for many weeks 

 before the caciques could obtain a dream. At last the caciques dreamed; in accord- 

 ance with their dreams they made a small hole, placed in it pebbles of six colors 

 corresponding to the world-regiony, and covered the opening with a stone. The 

 people danced again for several weeks; then the caciques looked into the hole and 

 saw six corn-plants sprouting in it. From this first planting came the six colored 

 varieties of corn. 



The Tewa of New Mexico distinguish seven principal varieties of 

 corn, named in the following order: 



1. ICy, tsQijwxHy, ' blue corn' {k'y,, corn; tsqywse^ blue), associated 

 with the North, personified by K'lLtsilna^a^Hiu^ ' Blue Corn Maiden. 



2. R\i fsejiHu, 'yellow corn' {Fu, corn; fse, yellow), associated 

 with the West, personified by iry,tsejPa'Hiu, 'Yellow Corn Maiden.' 



3. ICy, fiijj, 'red corn' {Fy^ corn; p^, red), associated with the 

 South, personified by ICyp\')iH''a'^ny, 'Red Corn Maiden.' 



4:. ICytsxijj, 'white corn' (^'t*, corn; fsse^ white), associated with 

 the East, personified by R'yrsa^rnc'd'^'nu^ 'White Corn Maiden.' 



5. ICy tsse.ij[/eiy, 'man}^- colored corn' {l''y, corn; tsxtjge^ many 

 colored), associated with the Above, personified by ICytsseij(/c{P^) 

 \i''^ny, 'Many-colored Corn Maiden.' 



6. ICy p'^'niu, 'black corn' {k'y, corn; j/ejj, black), associated with 

 the Below, personified by ICyj/e'fidP^'a'Hiy, 'Black Corn Maiden.' 



7. Kyp'inini^ 'dwarf corn,' personified by KypHnini'a'^'ny,, 

 'Dwarf Corn Maiden.' 



It will be noticed that the first six of these varieties are associated with 

 the cardinal colors and the world-regions, and it seems probable that the 



•Of. M. C. Stevenson, Tlie Zuiii Indians, p. 353. Zuni women carry water in jars to their vegetable 

 gardens. 



2Cushing, Zuni Creation Myths, TJiirtecnth Rrp. Bur. Amer. Ethn., pp. 392-398. 



3 See Harrington, The Ethnogeography of the Tewa Indians, Twenty-ninth Rep. Bur. Amer. Ethn. 

 p. 236. 



