ZUNI KATCINAS: AN ANALYTICAL STUDY 



By Ruth L. Bunzel 



PART I. AN ANALYSIS OF THE KATCINA CULT 

 AT ZUNI 



INTRODUCTION 



The Katcina cult is one of the sLx major cults of Zufii, and might 

 indeed be called the dominant Zufii cult. It includes many of the 

 most beautiful and spectacidar ceremonies, and the ceremonies which 

 attract the most popular attention. Furthermore, it is the one cult 

 which personally reaches all people, since all males belong to it and 

 are required to participate in its ceremonies. Moreover, at the 

 present time it is an ascendant cult. At a time when the societies 

 are declining in membership, and the priesthoods experience diffi- 

 culties in filling their ranks, when ceremonies lapse because no one 

 competent to perform them survives, the Katcina Society is extend- 

 ing its activities. More katcina dances are held each year than in 

 Mrs. Stevenson's time, and the dances last longer. It is true that 

 some of the older dances are no longer performed, but on the other 

 hand for each dance that lapses two new ones are introduced. It is 

 the most vital, the most spectacular, and the most pervasive of Zufii 

 cults; whatever foreign elements it may at one time or another have 

 incorporated, its ideology and form are aboriginal and characteristic, 

 and for the average Zufii it is the focal point of religious, social, and 

 aesthetic experience.' 



THE NATURE OF KATCINAS 



The Katcina cult is built upon the worship, principally through 

 impersonation, of a group of supematurals called in Zufii tenninology 

 koko. The myth of their origin is given on page 604.^ The koko 

 live in a lake, Hatin Eaiakwi (whispering spring), west of Zufii, near 

 St. Johns, Ariz. In the bottom of this lake they have a village 

 (Koluwalawa, katcina village) reached by ladders through the lake. 

 Here they spend their time singing and dancing, and occasionally 

 they come to Zufii to dance for their "daylight" fathers. They live 



• A brief discussion of the katcina cult and its position in Zufii life is given on pp. 516 to 525. 

 > Compare the English version by Gushing (Outlines of Zufii Creation Myths, p. 403 S.) and Steven- 

 son (Zufii Indians, pp. 32-34). 



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