ccsHixR] DUAL ORIGIN OF THE ZUNIS. 355 



drew aboriginal populations about it in even prelut-au days, and was 

 a source of supply, as well as, it is aftirnied, of abundant tribute to those 

 dominant Pueblos of Soiitb America, tLe Incas of later days.' 



That the Lake of Salt, as a coveted source, actually did influence the 

 earlier descents of the cliff dwellers, and did lead to the buildiug aud 

 occupancy by them of the long line of ruins I have described, rests, 

 finally, on linguistic no less than on such comparative evidence as has 

 already been indicated. In turn, this leads to consideration of the 

 larger and at present more pertinent evidence that these dwellers in 

 the round towns were in part ancestors of the Zunis, and that thus, as 

 assumed at the outset, the ZuiTis are of composite, at least dual, origin, 

 and that their last, still existing, phase of culture is of dual derivation. 



The archaic and sacred name for the south in Zuui is Alahoinkii-in 

 tiUma, hwt the name more commonly employed — always in fanuliar or 

 descriptive discourse — is Mdk'yaiakicin tdhtta (that is, tlie ''direction 

 of the salt-containing- water or lake," from ma, salt; k^yai'a, water, or 

 lake-containing or bearing; /.?<•(», place of, and tdhiia, point or direc- 

 tion of). That this name should have displaced the older form in familiar 

 usage is significant of the great importance attached to their source of 

 salt by the early Zunis; yet but natural, for the older form, A laho'in- 

 kwin tdhna, signifies "in the direction of the home (or source) of the 

 coral shells," from dhiho, glowing red shell-stuff; hikirhi, abiding place 

 ol, or containing place of, aud tdhna. This source of tlie dlahoire or 

 coral red shells (which are derived from several species of subtropical 

 mollusks, and we e so highly prized by the southwestern tribes that the 

 Indians of the lower Colorado traded in them as assiduously as did 

 those of the cliffs and round towns in salt) has been for generations the 

 Gulf of California and the lower coast to beyond Guaymas. 



It is not improbable, then, that this archaic aud now exclusively rit- 

 ualistic expression for the southward or the south is a surviving para- 

 phrase of the name for south (or of the source in tlie south of the red 

 shells), formerly known to the western branch of the Zuni ancestry, and 

 once tamiliarly used by them to designate also, perhaps, the direction 

 of the source of their chief treasure (these coral red shells of aboriginal 

 commerce), as in the Gulf of California, which was then south of them, 

 but is now due west-southwestward from them. 



What renders this supposition still more probable, aud also strength- 

 ens the theory of the dual origin of many parallelisms in Zuni culture, 

 observances, and phraseology, is not so much the fact that this nam.e 

 for red shells and the archaic Zuni name for red paint, dhona, resem- 

 ble in sound and meaning the Yuman ahotcata, ahauti, etc., for red 

 paint, nor yet the fact that such resemblance extends to many archaic 

 and other terms, for example of relationship in the Zuiii as compared 



'A parallel world example of the influence of salt sources on the movements of 

 primitive peoples may be found in tlie fact that all tiie great historic trade routes 

 across Asia were first established along salt trails of prehistoric times. 



