124 THE ZUNI IISTDIANS [eth. ann.23 



smoke and repeat te'lapnawe (tales) until midnight, when they hold an 

 interesting ceremonial not directly connected with the winter-solstice 

 festival, but relating to the calendar. The chairs are removed, the 

 floor is swept, and the part}^ take their seats on their wadded blankets or 

 on the ledge, forming a broken circle near the fireplace, in which ma}'" 

 be seen a large vessel, balanced on stones, containing a stew of meat and 

 homin}', and two large pumpkins roasting before the fire. The men 

 remove their moccasins. The shi'wanni of the Kia'nakwe (see page 

 36), who is the man of the house, forms the central figure and is raised 

 above the others by his wadded l)lanket being placed on a low box. 

 He faces east. A large Apache basket containing his te'likinawe, 

 offerings to the Council of the Gods, two small vases of the roots and 

 blossoms of te'na*sali (mythical medicine plant bearing blossoms of 

 the colors of the six regions), and several buckskin medicine bags, are 

 placed before him. Other baskets holding similar te'likinawe belong- 

 ing to the others of the group are handed him. He removes the 

 buckskin medicine bags from the larger basket, lays them on the floor 

 between himself and the basket, and transfers the groups of te'likinawe 

 from the smaller baskets to the larger one, arranging them artistically, 

 so that the feather ends radiate and the la'showawe attached to the 

 te'likinawe fringe the edge of the basket. 



The shi'wanni makes a cross of meal south of the basket and one in 

 the center of it, and deposits a stone cougar, 8 inches long, colored 

 3^ellow, the mouth, tail, and feet black, on the cross south of the basket. 

 Another basket is now handed to the shi'wanni, which he holds on his 

 lap, and to which he transfers the two packages of te'na*sali. He then 

 proceeds to empty the bags. Removing one fetish at a time, he exam- 

 ines each, and, if a pre}" animal, deposits it in the basket on his lap, 

 with the head to the east. There are as many as forty of these stone 

 fetishes, mostly prey animals, ranging from 1^ to 4 inches in length. 

 A few are concretions, sacred to the fields. As an evidence of the 

 extreme conventionality of these fetishes, the shi'wanni finds it neces- 

 sary, when handling some of the more ancient ones, to consult several 

 of his party as to what animals they might be. Each animal fetish 

 carries an arrow point on its back, held on with strings of precious 

 beads wrapped around the image. 



The man to the left of the shi'wanni also has sacks of fetishes. 

 Removing each fetish separatcl}^ from the sack, he holds it until it is 

 received b}^ the shi'wanni, who places it with the others. When all the 

 fetishes have been deposited, the shi'wanni again sprinkles a cross of 

 meal in the larger basket, and handles each package of the tena^sali 

 separately. Each fetish is deposited in the large basket with the same 

 care as when jt is placed in the smaller one. He sets the smaller 

 basket between the larger one and the largo fetish of the cougar, 

 being careful to so place the basket that the la'showawe in the larger 



