OF THE BUREAU OF ETHNOLOGY. LI 
vestigator, wnose relations in respect to tne religious orders and 
ceremonies must be exclusively with the men, can become ac- 
quainted with the peculiar beliefs and rituals among the women. 
The work of Mrs. Stevenson, therefore, is complementary to 
that of Mr.Cushing, which has before been reported. Her ob- 
servation upon the public ceremonies and mythology as known 
to both sexes has also been independent of Mr. Cushing and 
made from a different point of view; therefore her contribution 
upon them has an especial value. 
Mrs. Stevenson has divided her voluminous notes respecting 
Zuni child life into two parts: one, the practical or domestic, 
embraces the habits, customs, games, and experiences of the 
children; the other, the religious instruction and observances 
connected with childhood. The last mentioned division is the 
subject of her paper in this volume. It is introduced by a 
brief notice of the mythology connected with the rites de- 
scribed and by an account of the topography and natural feat- 
ures to which references appear in the myths. 
The devotion of the Zuii to religious practices, in which their 
time, labor, and property are so deeply absorbed, has before 
been reported, but Mrs. Stevenson presents with conscientious 
accuracy many new details. Among these details the student 
of comparative mythology will notice several parallels with 
the practices of other lands and periods of history, and some 
of these will strike even those less erudite in comparative my- 
thology, who still are familiar with classical literature. One 
of these is the painful whipping of the young children on the 
occasion of an important rite, perhaps in its origin designed 
to secure its impression on their memory, as in some ancient 
European practices for the perpetuation of testimony. Another 
is the whipping by ceremonial ministrants of persons wholly 
unconnected with the immediate rites, and at the request of 
the latter, to obtain the realization of a wish, and more espe- 
cially for fertility, which was an important element in the Lu- 
percalia, perhaps the oldest of all the Roman rites. The vestal 
virgins of Roman and of other religions are suggested by the 
selection of maidens among the Zuii initiated into sacred 
