362 ZUNI CREATION MYTHS. 1eth.ann.13 



Utensil, or weapon, as animistic, as living. They conceive of this life of 

 things as they do of the lives of plants, of hibernating animals, or of 

 sleeping men, as a still sort of life generally, but as potent and aware, 

 nevertheless, and as capable of functioning, not only obdurately and 

 resistingly but also actively and powerfully in occult ways, either for 

 good or for evil. As every living thing they observe, every animal, 

 has form, and acts or functions according to its form — the feathered 

 and winged bird flying, because of its feathered form; the furry and 

 four-footed animal running and leaping, because of its four-footed form, 

 and the scaly and finny fish swimming, because also of its fins and 

 scales and form appropriate thereto — so these things made or born into 

 special forms of the hands of man also have life and function variously, 

 according to their various forms. 



As this idea of animals, and of things as in other sort animals, is 

 carrie<l out to the minutest particular, so that even the ditterences in 

 the claws of beasts, for example, are supposed to make the difierence 

 between their powers of foot (as between the hugging of the bear and 

 the clutching of the ]>anther), it follows that form in all its details is 

 considered of the utmost imi)ortauce to special kinds of articles made 

 and used, even of structures of any much used or permanent type. 

 Another phase of this curious but perfectly natural attributive of life and 

 form-personality to material things, is the belief that the forms of these 

 things not only give them j)ower, but also restrict their i^ower, so that 

 if properly made, that is, made and shaped strictly as other things of 

 their kind have been made and shaped, they will perform only such 

 safe uses as their prototypes have been found to serve in performing 

 before them. As the fish, with scales and tins only, can not fly as the 

 duck does, and as the duck can not swim under the water except so 

 far as his feathers, somewhat resembling scales, and his scaly, webbed 

 feet, somewhat resembling fins enable him to do so, thus also is it with 

 things. In this way may be explained better than in any other way, 

 I think, the excessive persistency of form- survival, including the survi- 

 val of details in conventional ornamentation in the art products of piimi- 

 tive peoples — the repetitions, for instance, in pottery, of the forms and 

 even the ornaments of the vessels, basketry, or what not, which pre- 

 ceded it in development and use and on which it was first modeled. 

 This tendency to persist iu the making of well-tried forms, whether of 

 utensil or domicile, is so great that some other than the reason usually 

 assigned, namely, that of mere accustomeduess, is necessary to account 

 for it, and the reason I have given is fully warranted by what I know 

 of the mood in which the ZuiSis still regard the things they make and 

 use, and which is so clearly manifest iu their names of such things. It 

 is a tendency so great, indeed, that neither change of environment and 

 other conditions, nor yet sub.stitutiou of uuused materials for those in 

 customary use for the making of things, will effect change in their forms 

 at once, even though in preserving older forms in this newer sort of mate- 



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