HOLMES ANNIVERSARY VOLUME 



If any doubt remains as to the readiness of the Zuhi language to 

 incorporate foreign names — of course in a pronounceable form — and 

 then to treat them freely as if they were native, such suspicion may be 

 dissipated by the first-position stem or prefix me-. This is 'American', 

 altered to mellikan, shortened habitually to mellik, and in composition 

 reduced to the first syllable. 



A number of foreign terms are used in Zuhi religion, and the other 

 Pueblos appear to be equally receptive to Zuhi influences. The evi- 

 dence along this line will be of the greatest importance in tracing the 

 origins and spread of the various elements of Pueblo religion, once the 

 several languages are well enough known to permit of trustworthy 

 analyses. For instance, a Zuhi ceremony with a name that is meaning- 

 less in Zuhi but bears an appropriate significance in Tewa, can with 

 certainty have its inception attributed to the latter people. Thus the 

 much greater prominence of the Sha'lako ritual at Zuni than among 

 the Hopi, as well as traditional statements by the Hopi, make it 

 highly probable that this ceremony came from the Zuhi; if etymology 

 could corroborate this likelihood, it would thereby give surety. De- 

 terminate study of intertribal terms like Kachina, Shumaikoli, Ye- 

 bichai (a Navaho word, used also by the Zuhi), SayyatVia (Zuhi: 

 'blue horn', found also at Sia), Hehea, Chakwena, Natashku, Humis or 

 Hemishikwe (i.e., "Jemez"), and, in mythology, Poshaiyanki, Shipapu 

 or Shipapolima, Matsailema or Maasewe, Uyuyewi or Uyuuyewe, 

 Kupishtaya, must therefore prove exceedingly fruitful. 



It is clear from the few instances here cited that specific and in- 

 controvertible evidence on the interconnections of all the Pueblos is 

 available as soon as their languages are properly drawn upon. It may 

 be only a coincidence, but it may also be of the greatest significance, 

 that the Zuhi and Keres words for "clan", annota and hanutch, and the 

 Zuhi and Hopi terms for "ceremonial chamber", kiwwitsi-nna and 

 kiva, are similar. Only philological study can decide. That the Pueblo 

 civilization was substantially the same in every town, has always 

 been assumed; it begins to be evident that a great part of it has been 

 borrowed back and forth in the most outright and traceable manner. 

 The history of the cults and institutions of any one of these peoples 

 therefore simply cannot be understood without a knowledge of the 

 customs of the others: the problem is in its very nature a comparative 

 one. And ethnology can make only halting or erroneous advances 

 toward the solution as long as it remains aloof from thorough ac- 

 quaintance with the Pueblo tongues. 



A number of the names of gods personated in Zuhi dances are 

 analyzable. These prove mostly to be descriptions of the masks worn, 



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