278 ISLETA, NEW MEXICO [eth. ann. 47 



ke'chu are to be found, together with stone arrow points, under any 

 tree that was struck by lightning seven or more years before. 



Stone arrow points or blades (koshi, ko'anshi'e), thunder knives, 

 are also coughed up by the deer which the hunt chief draws in with 

 his ceremonial. The hunt chief takes the point from the deer's 

 mouth. ^^ Points, most particularly white arrow points, are used 

 considerably in ritual. One occupies an important place on the altar, 

 and an arrow point may be carried for personal protection or power '^ 

 by any one — by a racer in his mouth, for example. When a certain 

 Isletan, now an old man, once raced as a youth at Taos, he ran with 

 an arrow point in his mouth. (And he beat the Ute he was put up 

 against. "Heavy betting on that race.") Lucinda had an anecdote 

 of how her two little girl neighbors, frightened at being left alone in 

 their house, came into her house late one night. Each little girl 

 carried an arrow point in her hand. And Lucinda remembered that 

 a spear point was stuck in the rafters of her grandfather's house. 

 Around a new grave a mark may be made with a point to keep away 

 witches or, perhaps, to keep the dead in place, just as in ceremonial 

 a circle is drawn aroimd a live rabbit or deer "to tie him." In exor- 

 cising the dead a point is passed over the door and walls of Ms house. 

 Again in exorcising against witchcraft a cross may be made on the 

 door with a point, and a witch's bundle is cut open with a point. 

 The "witch" who is caught and brought into the ceremonial chamber 

 is himself killed with a stone knife. 



In the solstice ceremonies figures a stone called weryu tainin, 

 representing all the animals, tame and wild; there are still other 

 stones (kffinim) which represent animals and birds. Eveiy medicine 

 man has two or three which he keeps in the bag containing his corn 

 ear fetish,'^ and sets out on his altar. These kipnini ask for power 

 from the animals whose shapes they resemble. They are natural, 

 not carved. Some, the people brought up with them; some have 

 been found in the mountains. 



Other stones, oblong with rounded top, resembling a moimtain, 

 are called shunai. Each is named for a particular mountain, as, for 

 example, tutur'mai,'* San Mateo Mountain. They represent the 

 mountain homes of the animals or kfenim.^' They are a few inches 

 high.« (Fig. 16.) 



An anthropomorphic fetish stone, representing a legendary hunter, is 

 said to be in the keeping of the Town Fathers. (See pp. 373-374.) 

 The hunt chief is possessed of an irregularly shaped stone, "shaped 



35 That medicine stones are found in the stomach of "medicine deer" is a Taos belief. 



" See pp. 452 and 302. Compare Parsons 8 : 121, n. 2. 



3^ Whatever sacrosanct things are bundled up are referred to collectively jis hoa. 



38 Also tuturmap^ai. 



38 Also, presumably, as such stones do on Hopi altars, the abodes of the chiefs of the directions. 



" Compare Parsons, 12, Figure 19. 



