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THE ZUNI INDIANS: THEIR MYTHOLOGY, ESOTERIC 

 FRATERNITIES, AND CEREMONIES 



By Matilda Coxe Stevenson 



INTRODUCTION 



During the last twenty-five years the investigations of archeologists 

 and ethnologists in the United States have boon largely direeted to the 

 southwestern region, especiall}' to Arizona and New Mexico. This 

 region appears to have -been once quite denseh' populated, then deso- 

 lated by wars, and afterward held in precarious tenure by renuiants 

 of a dwindling race. The older ruins are found in the valle\'s, along 

 the water courses, where the prehistoric people probabl}^ dwelt in 

 peace and prosperity until, driven by a powerful foe from the homes 

 of their fathers, they were forced to take refuge in recesses and caves 

 in the canyon walls. These resorts are filled with the homes of the 

 cliff dwellers. Many of the houses are well preserved, but most of 

 the ruins of the valley are hardlj^ more than crumbling heai)s of 

 stones, while among these everjnvhere are scattered the lares and 

 penates of the ancients. 



It can not be determined how many generations of clitf dwellers 

 lived in these strange fastnesses; but that many of the stone structures 

 of the cliffs are hundreds of years old may not be (juostioned. Some 

 of these places have become inaccessible, owing to the wearing away 

 of the approaches by the elements that fashioned the recesses of the 

 canyon walls When the clouds of war grew less threatening, the 

 people ventured to leave their fortresses, the scenes of long trials and 

 many privations, and settled upon the mesas, or table-lands, which are 

 so prominent a feature in the scenery of New Mexico and Arizonn. 

 The elevation of these sites enabled them to detect the approaching 

 enemy; while in the valley below, along the streams that washed the 

 bases of the cliti's, they sowed and gathered their crops. But the 

 mesa top was far from the harvest field, and the women nuist have 

 grown weary carrying the water vases and canteens up the steep 

 acclivities of the rocky walls. In the course of time the u)esa dwellers 



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