Zuñi Fetiches | Page 3

natural objects which resemble animals
and the animals themselves; that he should even ultimately imitate
these animals for the sake of establishing such relationships, using such
accidental resemblances as his motives, and thus developing a
conventionality in all art connected with his worship. It follows that the
special requirements of his life or of the life of his ancestors should
influence him to select as his favored mediators or aids those animals
which seemed best fitted, through peculiar characteristics and powers,
to meet these requirements. This, too, we find to be the case, for,
preeminently a man of war and the chase, like all savages, the Zuñi has

chosen above all other animals those which supply him with food and
useful material, together with the animals which prey on them, giving
preference to the latter. Hence, while the name of the former class is
applied preferably as a general term to all animals and animal gods, as
previously explained, the name of the latter is used with equal
preference as a term for all fetiches (Wé-ma-we), whether of the prey
animals themselves or of other animals and beings. Of course it is
equally natural, since they are connected with man both in the scale of
being and in the power to supply his physical wants more nearly than
are the higher gods, that the animals or animal gods should greatly
outnumber and even give character to all others. We find that the
Fetiches of the Zuñis relate mostly to the animal gods, and principally
to the prey gods.
ORIGIN OF ZUÑI FETICHISM.
This fetichism seems to have arisen from the relationships heretofore
alluded to, and to be founded on the myths which have been invented to
account for those relationships. It is therefore not surprising that those
fetiches most valued by the Zuñis should be either natural concretions
(Plate I, Fig. 6), or objects in which the evident original resemblance to
animals has been only heightened by artificial means (Plate IV, Fig. 7;
Plate V, Fig. 4; Plate VI, Figs. 3,6, 8; Plate VIII, Figs. 1, 3, 4, 5; Plate
IX, Fig. 1).
Another highly prized class of fetiches are, on the contrary, those which
are elaborately carved, but show evidence, in their polish and dark
patina, of great antiquity. They are either such as have been found by
the Zuñis about pueblos formerly inhabited by their ancestors or are
tribal possessions which have been handed down from generation to
generation, until their makers, and even the fact that they were made by
any member of the tribe, have been forgotten. It is supposed by the
priests (Á-shi-wa-ni) of Zuñi that not only these, but all true fetiches,
are either actual petrifactions of the animals they represent, or were
such originally. Upon this supposition is founded the following
tradition, taken, as are others to follow, from a remarkable mythologic
epic, which I have entitled the Zuñi Iliad.

[Illustration: PREY GOD FETICHES.]
THE ZUÑI ILIAD.
Although oral, this epic is of great length, metrical, rythmical even in
parts, and filled with archaic expressions nowhere to be found in the
modern Zuñi. It is to be regretted that the original diction cannot here
be preserved. I have been unable, however, to record literally even
portions of this piece of aboriginal literature, as it is jealously guarded
by the priests, who are its keepers, and is publicly repeated by them
only once in four years, and then only in the presence of the priests of
the various orders. As a member of one of the latter, I was enabled to
listen to one-fourth of it during the last recitation, which occurred in
February, 1881. I therefore give mere abstracts, mostly furnished from
memory, and greatly condensed, but pronounced correct, so far as they
go, by one of the above-mentioned priests.
THE DRYING OF THE WORLD.
In the days when all was new, men lived in the four caverns of the
lower regions (Á-wi-tën té-huthl-na-kwïn=the "Four Wombs of the
World"). In the lowermost one of these men first came to know of their
existence. It was dark, and as men increased they began to crowd one
another and were very unhappy. Wise men came into existence among
them, whose children supplicated them that they should obtain
deliverance from such a condition of life.
It was then that the "Holder of the Paths of Life," the Sun-father,
created from his own being two children, who fell to earth for the good
of all beings (Ú-a-nam átch-pi-ah-k'oa). The Sun-father endowed these
children with immortal youth, with power even as his own power, and
created for them a bow (Á-mi-to-lan-ne,=the Rain Bow) and an arrow
(Wí-lo-lo-a-ne,=Lightning). For them he made also a shield like unto
his own, of magic power, and a knife of flint, the great magic war