parson?) ritual 277 



Fetishes 



Each member of the medicine societies is possessed of a Corn 

 mother (kei'de, mother; or iema'paru), likewise the town chief. This 

 fetish is wrapped with cotton and dressed with beads '' and feathers, 

 among them two parrot (terikya) tail feathers which are obtained 

 from a sacerdotalist in San Domingo who keeps a live bird. Of the 

 composition of the Mother our informant professed to be ignorant, 

 insistmg that she was "just bom," born ready made. (See p. 367.) 

 But there is little doubt that the Mother is an ear of com, probably 

 of perfectly kerneled com (iekap, com, tip, or kaimu, kai, corn in 

 husk, mu, cover). Such ears when found at husking are kept in their 

 husk in the store room for planting. They are placed first in the 

 stack — i. e., they are under the stack — and they are placed with a 

 song. Curiously enough, kaimu are said not to be used as elsewhere 

 in naming ritual. ... At his death a man's Mother is given to his 

 widow to look after, if she is able to, and until she remarries. Then 

 it is taken from her, and "they send it back"; i. e., whence it came. 



The corn ear with a double tip is called twin (kuyude), but there 

 is no special use or treatment for it, whereas if there are several tips 

 to an ear they are broken off, because this land of ear (kike'wei maxo 

 tenede, our mother fingers greedy or monopolistic) "would send all 

 the rest of the corn out of the house." This from Juan Abeita, but 

 Lucinda said, drawing perhaps from her Keresan lore, that such an 

 ear (berupehim'ai, baby to have) is given to cattle to have a big 

 family, with the words, "I want you to have as many children as are 

 on the corn," perhaps five or six. There is a form of ear where the 

 cob is grainless in spots near the grain covered tip. WTioever planted 

 this ear, it is said, was hungry, and the ear is called kilve'wei ht^fiuu, 

 our mother hungry old woman. 



In this connection of corn fetishism I will give the beginning of the 

 song that has to be sung whenever anybody picks up the grains that 

 drop from the ear (xorlur, grain dropped) in harvesting. ^^ 

 natixorlur koam 



I am picking up dropped grains cleaning 



waiide natix^ nakua 



life I am finding health 



natinathq, 



I find 



There are animal fetishes (ke'chu), ^^ of whom mountain lion 

 (kymide) is the first, "the first helper." The others are bear (koide); 

 eagle (shiwile); badger (karnade); rattlesnake (charara're). These 



^ Maboro. Possibly this is the etymology for iema'paru, com, beads, or it may be ia, corn silk, mapo, 

 com with glumes. (See p. 274.) 



~ See p. 248. 



" Ze" or ker means a defensive, protective, town wall. Ke'chu also moans great mother (see p. 230), 

 and the usual Pueblo term for fetish is "mother." 



