BtSSKM-l 



FAMILY ORGANIZATIOK 



187 



Tze-kinno, or Stonc-liDiusc people, descendants of the clifF-d welling 

 Sobavpiiiis, whom they ilrove out of ^Vra^^'pa Canon and forced to 

 flee to the Pimas for refusje about a century ago." " 



CERE.MDNV OI" riRIKICATION' 



As soon as a child l)cgaii to creep al)ou( it was taken ]>y the parents 

 some afternoon to the nH>dicine-man in order that the rite of purifica- 

 tion might he administered and the child's future he renderetl free 

 from harmful magic influences. Putting 

 a sacred pehhle and an owl feather into 

 a seashell containing water, the medi- 

 cine-man waved an eagle feather (fig. 100) 

 ahout, while the parents and the child 

 drank the water and ate some white ashes 

 or a Httle mud. Tliis simple ceremony 

 was suflicient to thwart the nnilice of all 

 evil demons; lightning would not strike 

 the child, and the possibility of accidents 

 of all kinds was thus j)recluded. As a 

 further precaution the mother must not 

 eat salt for four days thereafter. 



This appears at first glance to be a 

 modification of the Christian rite of bap- 

 tism. Further investigation seems to 

 show that it is similar to that and also to 

 a purely aboriginal ceremony that in the 

 opinion of the WTiter was practised before 

 the advent of the friars. The Pimas 

 declare that their "medicine-men got 

 it up themselves." Cushing found "tluit 

 the Zuni of to-day are as eager as were 

 their forefathers for baptism and for bap- 

 tismal names additional to tlieir own 

 But it must be remembered," iu> continues, "that baptism — the 

 purification of the heatl by .sj)rinkling or of the face by wasiiing with 

 medicine water — was a very old institution with tliis people even 

 before the Spaniards found them."'' He also ascribes the readiness of 

 various other tribes to receive baptism to the existence of their own 

 similar custom. This readiness is otherwi.se difficult to accoiuit 

 for, as the zeal, and, at times, lack of judgment, of the priests led 

 them to baptize as man}- of the Indians as the\- were able to con- 



FiG. liH). Eagli' fi'iitlUT aspurgills. 



u Capt. John G. Bourke. Journni of American Folk-Lore, IX, Hi. 



l> Cashing in Thirteenth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology, 335. 



