476 INTRODUCTION TO ZUNI CEREMONIALISM (eth. ann. i^ 



until March, free of agricultural work, are given over to the great 

 ceremonies — ^the Ca'lako, the winter solstice ceremonies, society 

 initiations, the winter katcinas, and sometimes the general tribal 

 initiation. 



The 1,900 inhabitants hve, for the most part, in Zuiii proper and 

 its immediate vicinity. There are, however, three large farming 

 villages and one small one, which are occupied for varying periods 

 during the simimer months. Even those famiUes that make their 

 homes there permanently return to Zufii after harvest time for the 

 period of the great ceremonies in December and January. 



None of the farming villages have any civil or rehgious organiza- 

 tion of theii- own, nor are any rehgious ceremonies performed at any 

 of them, except when a dance set from one of the kivas is invited to 

 dance there during the summer. 



Despite modern expansion ^ the main village still remains a unit 

 whose physical compactness is reflected in an intricate and closely 

 knit social organization. 



There are households, kinship groups, clans, tribal and special 

 secret societies, and cult groups. A man must belong to several of 

 these groups, and the number to which he may potentially belong is 

 almost imliniited. There is no exclusive membership. He is born 

 into a certain household, and his kinship and clan affiliations are thus 

 fixed, imless altered by adoption. At puberty he is initiated into one 

 of the six dance groups that comprise the male tribal society. He 

 may, through sickness, be conscripted into one of the medicme socie- 

 ties; if he takes a scalp he must join the warriors society; and if 

 connected with a sacerdotal household he may be called upon to join 

 one of the priesthoods. 



These groups all have their joint activities and a great part of a 

 man's time is spent in participation in these activities. His economic 

 activities are all bound up with the household, a communal unit to 

 which he has certain obligations. His ordinaiy social contacts are all 

 predetermined by liis family and clan affiliations. Religious partici- 

 pation is confined to attendance at the ceremonies of those groups 

 with which he is identified. In fact, the only sphere in which he acts 

 as an individual rather than as a member of a group is that of sex. 

 A man's courtship and marriage are matters of individual choice. In 

 the bid for attention they suffer from being enthely divorced from 

 group activity. At Zuni no action that is entirely personal and 

 individual receives more than passing interest. Births, deaths, and 

 initiations figure largely in local gossip — marriages do not. It is 

 curious to note that among the culturally related Hopi, where a 

 marriage is the occasion for elaborate gift exchanges between the 



* Population movements in and out of the town are analyzed by Kroeber in his Zuiii Kin and Clan, 

 pp. 120, 198. 



