336 ZUNI CREATION MYTHS. Ieth.ans. 13 



tion into what they supposed was the Ka'ka, or one of the general sa- 

 cred societies of these other people. No wonder, then, that when about 

 to be baptized they insisted on giving their own sacred names of the Ka'- 

 ka, if only as a surety of their full recognition under them in this new 

 Ka'ka, no less than under the new names they were about to receive. 



It is also true that the Zuuis do not again burn the dead and cast 

 their ashes into the river, nor bury the bodies of the clan elders, or the 

 priests of the tribal septuarchy, in their own houses, as they did ere 

 the time of Coronado, or " under the ladders," as their funereal rituals 

 continue nevertheless to say they do. They bury all, now, in the little 

 strip of consecrated ground out in front of the church ; ground already 

 so overfilled with the bones of past generations that never a new grave 

 is made that does not encroach on other graves. Bones lie scattered 

 all about there, rubbish accumulates, the wooden cross in the center of 

 the place is frequently broken, and the mud walls inclosing it are 

 sometimes allowed to fall to the ground. Yet in vain I urged them if 

 only for sanitary reasons to abandon burying their dead there, and 

 inter them in the sand hills to the south of the pueblo. "Alas ! we 

 could not," they said. "This was the ground of the church which was 

 the house of our fathers wherein they were bui'ied, they and their chil- 

 dren, 'under the descending ladders.' How, if we bury our dead in 

 lone places, may they be numbered with our 'fathers and children 

 of the descending ladders'?'" 



But far from indicating any lingering desire for " Christian burial," 

 this is a striking example of the real, though not apparent, persistence 

 of their original mortuary customs. For they still ceremonially and 

 ritualistically " burn " their ordinary dead, as did their forefathers 

 when first compelled to bury in the churchyard, by burning some of 

 their hair and personal effects with the customary clan offerings of 

 food and property, and casting the ashes of all into the river; and it 

 matters not where these, who virtuall,y exist no more, but are, in their 

 eyes, consiimed and given to the waters, are buried, save that they be 

 placed with the priestly dead of today, as the " children " or ordinary 

 dead were placed with the priestly dead in the days of the " Misa 

 k'yakwe " or " Mission-house people." So, too, the priests of today, or 

 the tribal fathers, are still painted with the black of silence over their 

 mouths and the yellow and green of light and life over their eyes and 

 nostrils, as are the gods, and are ritualistically buried " under the lad- 

 ders," that is, in their own houses, when actually buried in the church- 

 yard. Thus, when the gods are invoked, these, as being demigods, 

 still priests of the beloved, are also invoked, first, as " Fathers and chil- 

 dren of the descending ladder," then as souls in the clouds and winds 

 and waters, " Makers of the ways of life." So the whole burial ground 

 of the church is, in the estimation of the Zuui, a fetich whereby 

 to invoke the souls of the ancestors, the potency of which would be 

 destroyed if disturbed; hence the place is neither cared for nor 



