394 THE ZUNI INDIANS [eth. ann. 23 



The following stories of witchcraft were told b}^ a prominent mem- 

 ber of the Badger clan: 



I spent some days with the missionary's wife. She gave me a good bed to sleep 

 in and blankets to keep me warm. vShe was very kind to me, and 1 was happy in 

 her house, but after a time I grew very ill and had to return to my mother's home. 

 A shaman « was sent for and, through the power of the Beast Gods, he was enabled 

 to discover the cause of my illness by placing pinches of sacred meal upon me, which 

 opened to him the windows of my body. He discovered the disease and declared 

 that I had been bewitched, and commanded the material which had been thrust 

 into my body to come forth. He said he saw within me bits of the blankets I had 

 slept between during my stay in the missionary's house, and l)its of yarn and calico 

 which the missionary's wife had given me. All this he commanded to come up 

 through my mouth. The material ejected by me was so putrid that my mother and 

 I could not distinguish the bits of l:)lanket, yarn, and calico, but they w-ere apparent 

 to the all-powerful eye of the shaman. I do not know, but I think it was the old 

 one-eyed woman who bewitched me. She was jealous of the good times I had at 

 the mission. 



At one time I had a very bad throat, which was much swollen and very painful. 

 The theurgist came and soon discovered the cause of my suffering. A witch had 

 shot a stone into my throat. The theurgist had to repeat many prayers to the Beast 

 Gods before power was given him to extract the stone. He had to place his hands 

 hard upon my throat and call with great power; but, obedient to his command, the 

 foreign matter finally appeared. It was, he averred, a large, ugly stone, and he 

 immediately cast it into the fire, as unfit for my mother and me to see. 



A certain wizard painted his body red, and the scalp knot was painted in white on 

 his breasts and knees. He placed wreathes of yucca around his wrists and ankles, 

 and then entered the whirlwind, which is the friend of witches, headforemost. He 

 traveled to the great river of the west and returned to Zuiii in one day. He went to 

 the great river to steal the plume offerings deposited by the rain priests near Zuiii 

 and carried by the butterflies attached to the plume sticks to the great river. [The 

 spirit of the butterfly is supposed to carry the spirit of the plume offering.] 



The whirlwind becoming weary dropped the wizard a short distance from Zufii, 

 and as he fell, a youth passing by exclaimed: "Aha, where have you been? jNIan, 

 you are a sorcerer or you would not be traveling in the whirlwind." And the youth 

 followed the wizard to the village and told his story, and it was discovered that the 

 man was a wizard and had stolen the plume offerings of the rain jiriests. This 

 wizard belonged to the Dogwood clan. He was tried by the Bow priesthood and 

 was convicted and hung by the arms. No food was given him, and at the end of 

 one night and a day he died. '^ 



A wizard attached crow and owl plumes to his head that he might have the eyes 

 of the crow to see quickly the approach of man and the eyes of the owl to travel l)y 

 night. He flapped his arms and left Zufii after the people were asleep. He visited 

 the Apaches and told them to come in four days and destroy the Zunis. At daylight 

 a Zuni man was on his way to gather wood; hearing a cry like an owl, yet human, 

 he looked about him and found a man wliom he recognized as a Zuni. "Aha!" 

 said he, "Why have you those plumes upon your head? Aha, you are a sorcerer." 

 "Do not betray me," said the sorcerer, "and I will give you many blankets and all 

 my precious beads, and in four days, when the Apaches come, as 1 have told them 

 to do, 1 will go out and have them kill me." "No," was the reply, "I do not wish 



n See p. 567. 



&Accu.sed witches are hanged by suspending them by the elbows, whicli are brought back as far as 

 possible, from a beam of the old chureli built several centuries ago by the Spaniards. If death does 

 not occur at the time desired by the Bow priesthood, the unfortunate is strucii on the head with a 

 war club and so relieved ol prolonged suffering. 



