40 
MODES OF WORSHIP.—TRADITION OF A FLOOD. 
upcn rain. To obtain this blessing from the Great Spirit, it is necessary for us to perform the 
rites and observe the ceremonies of our ancestors. This spring has ever been held sacred to the 
rain god. No animal may drink of its waters. It must be annually cleansed with ancient vases, 
which, having been transmitted from generation to generation by the caciques, are then placed 
upon the walls, never to be removed. The frog, the tortoise, and the rattlesnake, represented 
upon them, are sacred to Montezuma, the patron of the place, who would consume by lightning 
any sacrilegious hand that should dare to take these relics away.” 
He also told a wonderful story of a sudden freshet that anciently swept over the country, 
des roying all men and beasts that did not fly from the valleys to mountain-tops. The Zunians 
that escaped built the town, which is now in ruins, upon a high mesa; and a yellowish horizontal 
vein, near the top of the stratified mount, marks the line of high water. 
The caciques are priests as Avell as governors, and Pedro Pino is the high priest and master 
of their peculiar ceremonies. His especial duty is to officiate before the water deities. He seeks 
upon the hill-side for twigs of certain trees, which he carefully cuts into sticks a few inches in 
length, and trims with feathers. Upon the top of each he binds, first, four turkey feathers ; then 
four eagles’ feathers; and finally, below, the same number of ducks’ feathers. Some sacred spot 
is then selected; and these sticks, united by threads like a snare, are planted in the ground. 
This is an invocation for rain. It is dedicated to Montezuma, or to the lesser divinities of water— 
frogs, turtles, and rattlesnakes. The Great Spirit, in consequence of these ceremonies, gives 
them rain in due season, enabling them to produce fine crops without irrigation. The people 
believe that their superior sanctity in the observance of these rites has caused them to be thus 
favored above the Spanish population. Although tolerating in their pueblo a church of the 
cross, and occasional visits of a Christian priest, they seem to have little regard for the Catholic 
religion. In secret they glory in loyalty to Montezuma. They endeavor to keep their Spanish 
neighbors ignorant of their ceremonies, but say that Americans are brothers of the children of 
Montezuma, and their friends; therefore they hide from them neither their sacred dances in 
the courts, nor the midnight meetings of caciques in the estufa. Beneath the apparent multi¬ 
plicity of gods, these Indians have a firm faith in the Deity, the unseen Spirit of Good. His 
name is above all things sacred, and, like Jehovah of the Jews, too holy to be spoken. Monte¬ 
zuma is His son and their king. The sun, moon, and stars are His works, worthy of their 
adoration. Rattlesnakes, frogs, turtles, and all animals living near water are sacred, from 
association with one of the most esteemed among the Creator’s blessings. 
Jose Maria, the war-chief, upon another occasion, after having confirmed the traditionary 
legends of Pedro Pino, repeated the story of the flood; stating that, in ancient time, the waves 
rolled in from the west, and water gushed from the earth. It was at midnight. Many fled to the 
top of the mesa and were saved; the rest perished in the sea of waters. Navajos, Apaches, and 
even wild beasts, except such as found safety upon mountain-tops, suffered the same fate. The 
Zunians, upon their lofty eminence, built a pueblo to await a subsidence of the waters. But as 
time passed, and waves still resounded from the sandstone cliffs which begirt their island of 
refuge, it was evident that the Great Spirit was angry. A sacrifice was devised to appease him. 
A son of the cacique and a beautiful virgin were the chosen offerings. Girded with sticks 
trimmed with feathers, they were let down from a cliff into the deep. The waters rolled back, 
leaving the young man and the maid statues of stone, which remain to this day. The people 
returned to the valley, deserting the city upon the hill until the arrival of the Spaniards; then 
again they climbed the heights, fortifying at every turn two steep approaches, the only points 
at which they were assailable. The town was rebuilt, and, by hurling stones upon their inva¬ 
ders, for a long time they retained their freedom. At length the enemy was victorious. The 
heights were scaled; and the Zunians say that in the solid rock may now be seen, as if it were 
in clay, the foot-print of the first white man that reached the summit. 
These various traditions regarding old Zuni created a desire to visit the ruins. Therefore, 
with infinite labor we ascended the nearly perpendicular walls of the mesa mountain upon which 
