PARsoxs] CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION 257 



The town chief keeps sacrosanct supplies which the ceremonial 

 groups'^ may draw upon, as the native grown tobacco," or flint-made 

 fire. His own sacrosanct property or paraphernalia consists of his 

 mother or corn fetish, buckskin moccasins (fig. 3), buckskin pouch 

 or naw'Lri,^* and hair feathers (lawashie').^^ The animals which he 

 "uses" in his ritual (see below) he may not kill. The same taboo is 

 laid upon kumpa, the hunt chief, the members of the medicine socie- 

 ties. It is not laid upon the chiefs of the Corn groups. Antonio 

 Montoya, the defunct town chief, is said to have been "very power- 

 ful." He could bring in a rabbit, and he could make wheat grow 

 imder yom* eyes, with his five songs which he had learned from a 

 Mexican captive among the Navaho. 



The town chief of Isleta appears to be thought of as the head of the 

 hierarchy more consistently than is the town chief in other pueblos. 

 "His iema'paru (Corn mother) is head of them all." In the folk tale 

 about the town cliief of Berkwitoe'*" is expressed the conviction of 

 how dependent upon their town chief is the welfare of all the people 



I I 



Figure 3. — Regalia of Town chief (hair feathers, moccasin, bandoleer, as drawn by 

 townsman) 



and of all the animals. So intimate is the relationship that the town 

 chief may not leave the town. In the aforesaid tale the sun feeds 

 the town chief marooned in the eagle nest. The races for the sun are 

 caUed the town chief's races. There appears to be a particular 

 relationsliip between the town chief and the sun. 



The land of the town chief is planted and harvested for hini by the 

 townsmen at the time set by the war chief. On these days the 

 women contribute food which the men workers, on their return from 

 the fields, eat in the house of the town chief. The town chief is 

 supposed not to chop wood or do any but ritual work. He maj^ not 

 kill anything, "not even an insect." ^' 



The two women referred to as mafornin, who feed the scalps in the 

 roundhouses "once a week" and work for the town chief in his cere- 



M See pp. 335, 337, 449. 



" Compare pp. 337, 361. See Parsons, 19: 110. 



^ Referring probably to his tobacco supply, w'iri meaning cigarette. 



" Compare pp. 33), 368. 



" Sec pp. 381, 384. 



« Compare pp. 364-365 and 286, 448. 



