338 ISLETA, NEW MEXICO [eth. ann. 47 



three times and makes a throwing gesture in each direction. If he 

 knows the song of the hunt chief he will sing it. He cuts off the tip 

 of one of the deer's cars for the dead. Then he butchers the deer, 

 throwing a piece for Wffiide, and burying a small piece "so that the 

 ground wUl eat it." He takes out the guts, placing them on a rock, 

 giving them to the animals, "in his heart" calling the animals to 

 come and eat.'' After doing this, if the hunter leaves something 

 belonging to him, like a coat or a handkerchief, on the deer, he can 

 safely leave it overnight; the animals will not touch it; they will eat 

 the guts only. 



The hunter drinks blood from near the deer's heart, three times, to 

 make himself strong. To camp he takes the heart and Uver, which 

 he always cooks and eats first. . . . 



On his retimi home the hunter lays the deer's head toward the sun, 

 whether in the east or the west. Anyone coming into the house will 

 sprinkle pollen or meal on the deer and breathe in from his clasped 

 hands. Similarly anyone who had been met on the way home would 

 have passed his hands over the deer '^ and breathed in from his hands. 

 The hunter gives a piece of venison to the town chief and another to 

 the hunt cliief . To all his relatives he wUl give a little piece. "That 

 means you will have luck and get more deer." 



A hunter's wife should "stay stiU" while he is away. If the deer 

 run away, he knows that liis wife has a lover. I could learn of no 

 other taboos during the hunt on those at home. 



Except taboos in connection with a hunter of Laguna descent, I 

 incline to think that Lucinda's account of his ways is Keresan. 

 Before he went on a deer hunt, for one month he remained continent, 

 using the cedar purge every morning. He advised his wife, i. e., 

 Lucinda, to clean house four days after he had departed, to plaster 

 the walls, to keep herself very clean, not to scold the children, not 

 to quarrel with the neighbors or gad about among them. When 

 he returned he brought with liim grasses the deer liked to eat for her 

 to offer to the deer as it lay covered with a woman's manta with beads 

 around its neck. AU this in return for the buckskin she was to have. 

 A simple and convincing explanation, is it not, of the Laguna-Zuni 

 practice of covering the deer with a woman's blanket ? 



Again, according to Lucinda, there are taboos at Isleta on hunting 

 bear or eagles " or killing snakes. In Lucinda's simple paraphrase, 

 " We don't kill a snake or a bear or an eagle because it might be one 

 of us Indians." (See her tale of the little girl who became an eagle 

 (p. 407), and she once opined that the she bear "came from an Indian 



'' In a tale (p. 384) the hunter leaves a hind leg for the animals. With meat he also feeds the ants. 

 " See p. 282. 

 " But see p. 211. 



