BUNZELl INTRODUCTION 619 



English. These features, which are difficult enough of translation in 

 prose, are emphasized in the poetry. The long period is a characteristic 

 feature. The typical Zuni word order is subject, object, verb; 

 the verb always holding the final position. The usual method of 

 expressing temporal or causal subordination is by means of participial 

 or gerundive clauses, fully inflected, preceding the principal proposi- 

 tion. These participial clauses are impossible in English. In the 

 translation it has been necessary, therefore, to break up the original 

 sentences. Thereby an important and effective stylistic feature is 

 unavoidably lost. But the reader should think of the Zufii sentences 

 rolling on like the periods of a Ciceronian oration to their fuial close. 



Another difficulty of translation, which wiR be alluded to frequently 

 in the following pages, is the impossibility of translating the word 

 plays with which the texts aboimd. To quote one example: The root 

 lea- means, in its intransitive inflection, to wear or hold in the hand ; 

 in its transitive inflection, to clothe or to give into the hand. There 

 the sentence lilho' ?o' teUkinan a'lea'u means both, "I here hand you 

 these prayer sticks," or "I clothe you with these prayer sticks." 

 Folk tales and religious beliefs utihze this double entendre. It is 

 believed, for instance, that when people neglect to plant prayer 

 sticks to the gods then- clothing wears out. The passage where the 

 word cipololon'e is used with the double meaning of "smoke" and 

 "mist" is a strildng example. The supphant offers smoke of the 

 sacred cigai'ette to the rain makers. They are conceived as taking 

 the cigarette and smoking in turn. They "send forth then- smoky 

 breath," i. e., mist or fog. 



Word play is used with still greater subtlety in the description of 

 the prayer-stick offering. Many Zufii roots are neutral; i. e., can be 

 inflected to form both nouns and verbs.* ikwi- is to tie something 

 about something else; ilvwin-e, literally a tying about, is the usual 

 word for belt. To say, therefore, "I tie the cotton about it," is 

 precisely the same as to say "I belt him with a cotton belt." So the 

 whole image of the maldng of the prayer stick or the dressing of an 

 idol is built up linguistically. It is verj^ difficult to tell how much is 

 word play, how much metaphor, and how much is actual personifica- 

 tion. The Zufii fuids these ambiguities intriguing. 



This leads us to the third fonn of word play, the deliberate use of 

 ambiguity, both verbal and grammatical. There are passages where 

 subject and object are deliberately confounded, although there are 

 excellent means for avoiding such ambiguity. These sentences are 

 perfectly grammatical and can be correctly interpreted in two ways. 



' This is not, strictly speaking, trae in precisely these terms. Asa matter of fact these stems are probably 

 verbal, but a complete demonstration of their character would take us into linguistic subtleties beyond the 

 scope of this paper. 



