BOURKE. ] USES OF KUNQUE. 509 
Subsequently Pedro went on to describe in detail a phallic dance and 
ceremony, in which there was a sort of divination. The young maiden 
who made the lucky guess was richly rewarded, while her less fortunate 
companions were presented with a handful of kunque, which they kept 
during the ensuing year. Thisdance is called “ Iy’aklu,” and is independ- 
ent of the great phallic dance occurring in the month of December. 
Pedro also stated that until very recently the Zuni were in the habit of 
celebrating a fire dance at Noche Buena (Christmas). There were four 
piles of wood gathered for the occasion, and upon each the medicine- 
men threw kunque in profusion. This dance, as Pedro described it, 
closely resembled one mentioned by Landa in his Cosas de Yucatan. 
High up on the vertical face of the precipice of Taaiyalana there is a 
phallic shrine of the Zuni to which I climbed with Mr. Frank Cushing. 
We found that the place had been visited by young brides who were 
desirous of becoming mothers. The offerings in every case included 
kunque. : 
In the account given in the National Tribune, Washington, District of 
Columbia, May 20, 1886, of the mode of life of the Zuni woman Wehwa 
while in the national capital, and while engaged in the kirmes, we read: 
She also strewed sacred corn meal along on her way to the theater to bring good 
luck to her andthe other dancers. * * * She has gone from her comfortable room 
to pray in the street at daylight every morning, whatever the weather has been. ~* 
* * Ai such times she strews corn meal all around her until the front-door steps 
and the sidewalk are much daubed with dough. But this is not the corn meal in 
common use in the United States, but is sacred meal ground in Zuni with sacred 
stones.' 
So long a time has elapsed since any of the Pueblos have been on the 
warpath that no man can describe their actual war customs except from 
the dramatic ceremonial of their dances or from the stories told him by 
the ‘old men.” The following trom an eyewitness will therefore be of 
interest: “Before the Pueblos reached the heights they were ordered to 
scale they halted on the way to receive from their chiefs some medicine 
from the medicine bags which each of them carried about his person. 
This they rubbed upon their heart, as they said, to make it big and 
brave, and they also rubbed it upon other parts of their bodies and 
upon their rifles for the same purpose.” ? 
The constant use of kunque by the different Pueblo tribes has been 
noticed from the first days of European contact. In the relation of 
Don Antonio de Espejo (1583) we are told that upon the approach of 
the Spaniards to the town of Zaguato, lying 28 leagues west of Zuni, 
“a great multitude of Indians came forth to meete them, and among the 
rest their Caciques, with so great demonstration of joy and gladnes, 
1 Kunque has added to the cornmeal the meal of two varieties of corn, blue and yellow, a small quantity 
of pulverized sea shells, and some sand, and when possible a fragment of the blue stone called “ chalchi- 
huitl.” In grinding the meal on the metates the squaws are stimulated by the medicine-men who 
Keep up a constant singing and drumming. 
2Simpson, Expedition to the Navajo Country, in Senate Doc. 64, 3lst Cong., Ist sess., 1849-'50, p. 95- 
