MORGAN.) SELF-SECLUSION FOR RELIGIOUS PURPOSES. 153 
and the Sun; but at the dances they pray to Montezuma and the Sun only. 
During an actual or threatened calamity the dances are called by the ca- 
cique. They have two Gods; the God of the Pueblos, and the God of the 
Christians. Montezuma is the God of the Pueblo.” 
This account of the Sun worship of the Taos Indians, in which is 
intermingled that of Montezuma, and the further account of the worship of 
Montezuma at the pueblos of Zia and Jemez, with the recognition of the 
worship of the Sun, Moon, and Stars, are both interesting and suggestive. 
It is probable that Sun worship is the older of the two, while that of Monte- 
zuma, as a later growth, remained concurrent with the other in all the New 
Mexican pueblos without superseding it. In this supernatural person, 
known to them as Montezuma, who was once among them in bodily human 
form, and who left them with a promise that he would return again at a 
future day, may be recognized the Hiawatha of Longfellow’s poem, the 
Ha-yo-went'-ha of the Iroquois. It is in each case a ramification of a wide- 
spread legend in the tribes of the American aborigines, of a personal human 
being, with supernatural powers, an instructor of the arts of life; an exam- 
ple of the highest virines, beneficent, wise, and immortal. 
“They have,” remarks Mr. Miller, ‘one curious custom which has 
always been observed in the pueblo. It is for some one (sometimes several 
simultaneously) to seclude themselves entirely from the outer world, 
abstaining absolutely from all personal communication with others, and 
devoting themselves solely to prayer for the pueblo and its inhabitants. 
This seclusion lasts eighteen months, during which they are furnished daily, 
by a confidential messenger, with a little food, just enough to preserve life, 
and during which time they may not even inquire about their wives or 
children or be told anything of them though the messenger may know that 
some of them are sick or have died The food the recluse is permitted to use 
is corn, beans, squashes, and buffalo and deer meat; that is, such food as was 
used before the coming of the Spaniards. This religious seclusion is in honor 
of the Sun. It is one of the rites of the ancient religion of the Pueblo, pre- 
served and practiced now. One of the old men I talked with said that he had 
himself the previous year emerged from this hermitage; three others were 
now in, they having retired to exile in February, 1877, and will emerge in 
August, 1878, then to learn the news of the previous year and a half.” 
