TARsoNs] COMPARATIVE DISCUSSION 347 



Isletan Com groups and so identified the respective organizations. 

 In certain details his Isleta-Taos comparisons appear more just: at 

 Taos there are no corn fetishes, in Isleta terms, no keide or Mothers;* 

 no kachinaat Taos, just as there is none at Isleta— i. e., no kachina 

 masks belong in the organization of either town. (Of the relation 

 between the Isletan (Hwa) dancers and kachina proper this particular 

 informant was ever unaware.) 



And yet the ritual accompanying the three Hwa dances in the 

 Isletan calendar unmistakably connects the dances with the general 

 Pueblo kachina cult. I surmise that the supernatural Liwalc, who is 

 said to come from Zuiii mountain, is a borrowed Kok'okshi,'" and that 

 the Dark hwa is the Chakwena kachina of the Keres and of the West. 

 (It is tempting even to derive the term chakabede from chakwena.) 

 The duplication of clown personages in the hwa ceremonials — Grand- 

 fathers (te'en) and the k'yapio (compare, for term, the chapio of the 

 Tewa and, for role in emergence myth, the koyemshi of Zufii and 

 Laguna) — this duplication points to complex borrowing. (My 

 infornmnt stated that at Taos there were k'yapio, chifonetti; but no 

 Grandfathers, te'en). Again I surmise that some of the medicine 

 society ritual is borrowed from the Keres, notably the corn fetishes 

 or Mothers, and the bear impersonation. In ant curing ritual, which 

 is known to be borrowed from the Keres, sucking out is practiced; in 

 Isletan ritual proper it is unfamiliar. '^ 



Distinctive in Isleta ritual are the use of a certain medicine root 

 to give power and for clairvoyance during ritual for detection,'- and 

 of a bowl on the altar for the spittle of exorcism; the offering of pig- 

 ments to the sun; and the degree in which crystal gazing is practiced; 

 also the ritual complex of "drawing down" the cosmic supernaturals 



* The story he was told at Taos was that the medicine chief who once had them was killed by two Co- 

 manche. 



'• But Isletan tradition has it that the pinitu ceremonial came from Sandia over 50 years ago. " Perhaps 

 they (Sandians) got it from Zuni," commented Lucinda. Another Isletan deiued this Sandia provenience. 

 " We have had it always." 



" So much for interpueblo borrowing, but the possibilities of Mexican borrowing may not be overlooked, 

 in connection with the kachina cult and the moiety clowns, Grandfathers and k'yapio. I have discussed 

 this subject elsewhere (Parsons, 2iJ, but I would like to point out here, or rather reemphasize, that in uo 

 pueblo can the Spanish elements in Pueblo life be as well studied as in Isleta. Isleta (and Sandia) were 

 among the earliest of the pueblos to feel missionary influence which, except during the Hopi episode in their 

 history, has been continuous in these southern pueblos. This church control might partly account for the 

 resistance to the mask cult at Isleta, if my theory is correct that that cult was largely post-Spanish, starting 

 with Spanish clown masks such as are worn by the Grandfathers an<l then developing, in the western pueblos 

 (particularly Zuni) into the efflorescent, anti-church mask system of to-day. I am wondering how much 

 Spanish influence may be found in Isletan ritual songs and prayers. As for relations with Mexican tribes, 

 that subject, too, should be carefully studied, when we know more about the tribes of northern Mexico. 

 Meanwhile, it is tempting to i)oint out such resemblances among the Tarahuniare as appear in their sun, 

 moon, and star cult, their dancing and racing practices (kick-hall, races between married and unmarried, 

 etc.), their rites of fasting, continence, and confession, of notched stick playing, of aspersing and exorcising 

 with smoke and with ashes, their use of the antisunwise circuit and of the numerals three and five. 



12 See p. 449. Is the use of this root Navaho? Similar detective methods at Zuni were accounted Navaho. 

 (Parsons, 1.) .\n Isletan woman, a kind of unlicensed doctor, says that she has this root medicine from the 

 Navaho shaman to whom she is apprentice. She used it once and went into a trance. But it is too pow- 

 erful. She has not qualified to use it yet. A root to give power, particularly clairvoyance, is used by 

 Tewa doctors. 



