PARSONS] COMPAEATIVE DISCUSSION 345 



also patron spirits called ka-pe ^ kabede, from whom the society 

 chiefs get their power, and who are represented by the k'apyo.^ 

 These with their horns made the exit at the emergence. Therefore 

 the k'apyo to-day wear horns. 



COMPARATIVE DISCUSSION 



The Isletan ceremonial organization is in several respects charac- 

 teristically Pueblo; but it presents certain marked distinctions or 

 anomalies, notably in its Corn group organization which is a cere- 

 monial rather than a clanship organization, for it is not concerned 

 with marriage as is the Pueblo clan and it is concerned with ritual 

 and ceremonial to a degree comparable only with the Hopi system 

 and yet so differently as not to be truly comparable with that exog- 

 amous and ubiquitous clanship organization. (But whence did Isletans 

 derive the principle of matrilineal descent for their Corn groups? At 

 first, thought I, from the Keres. Then when I heard the tale of how 

 the Eagle people got their name which is so startlingly in the Hopi 

 pattern I began to think of the possibilities in that far-gone visit to 

 the Hopi country, a visit lasting long enough for intermarriage and 

 to introduce the principle of descent, but not long enough to estab- 

 lish the principle of exogamy."* Speculation !) Again in the compre- 

 hensiveness or inclusiveness of the Isletan moiety system there is 

 considerable distinction from other Pueblo organization, excepting per- 

 haps that of the Tewa where, too, everybody belongs in one moiety 

 or the other. But the Isletan principle of moiety membership differs 

 from the Tewan in that the latter is based on paternal descent and 

 the former on parental option, with a prevailing practice of alter- 

 nating the moiety membership of offspring. The moiety principle 

 finds expression among the Keresans in their double kiva system, 

 but it is far less penetrating in the general ceremonial life than at 

 Isleta. At Jeniez there is a cross between the Keresan moiety 

 system and the Tewan or Isletan. In the west the moiety is barely 

 recognizable. 



The association at Isleta between the moieties and war in so far 

 as the scalps are kept in the moiety kivas is of particular interest. 

 There are suggestions elsewhere that the moiety or clown groups have 

 had sometime warrior functions. At Laguna the kurena chcani was 

 painted like the war god and was associated with the war kachina, 

 Chakwena, and with the war dance, as were the kashare who worked 

 on the scalps.' In Keresan and in Zuiii myth the clowns are the 



' The word means name making, but in this connection the etymology is doubtful, opines informant. 

 ' See p. 3m. 



' Even modem Isletan visitors to the western pueblos do not learn of the principle of exogamy among 

 their Zuili or Hopi hosts. 

 > Parsons, 8: 113, 123, 124. See, too. Parsons, 11: 188-187. 



6066°— 32-^23 



