KROEBER—Zimi RELIGION 



and not designations of the attributes or functions of the deities. Thus 

 ceremonial predominates over the conceptual or imaginative element 

 of religion in this as in so many other cases. Thus, besides SayyaWia: 

 Sayya-tashsha ('long-horn') ; Yammu-hakto, 'carry yammu on the 

 head'; Mulluk-takkya, 'butterfly-frog'; as in Mrs Stevenson's plates 

 16, 54. 55. 72- 



The relation of the Zuni to their kokko, and of the Pueblos in 

 general to the kachinas, is a peculiar one, that has never been well 

 formulated because apparently not accurately understood. The Zuni 

 believe that their dead, at least so far as they are kotikkyilli, join the 

 kokko at Kotluwallawa. They also pray for rain to the dead as well 

 as to these gods. The kokko themselves are nothing but Zunis, in a 

 sense. l As the ancient people crossed the river, the mothers dropped 

 their pinching and biting children, who turned into tadpoles, frogs, 

 turtles, and other aquatic animals, descended to the 'god town' in the 

 sacred lake, and there at once became the kokko, with Pautiwa and 

 Kyaklu at their head. The Zufii also state that formerly the kokko 

 visited the living people in person; but as they returned, "took Zuni 

 girls with them." The masked human dancers were therefore sub- 

 stituted. 



The terms "ancients" and "ancestor worship" thus have consid- 

 erable justification as applied to the kachina gods and the kachina 

 cult. At the same time, these English words express but a small part 

 of the native implications, and connote much that is foreign to the 

 Pueblo mind. It is not only the "ancients" but the dead of all time, 

 including those of the last year, that join the kokko and are kokko; 

 and a phrase like "ancestor worship" can only be employed with the 

 strictest caution against any suggestion of East Asiatic ideas. It 

 is the dead as a generality that are prayed to by the tribe, rather 

 than the individual "departed" (as the Zuni call them) by their sur- 

 vivors or descendants. If there are two systems of beliefs and feelings 

 about the ancestral dead that in some respects are as far asunder as 

 the poles, it is those of the Chinese and the Pueblo Indians. Connec- 

 tions are much clearer with Mexico, ill-organized as our knowledge of 

 native religion in that country is. We are only at the threshold of an 

 understanding of the thoughts and emotions that to a Zuni cluster 

 about his gods and his dead. 



University of California 



1 Stevenson, p. 33. 

 [277] 



