Zuñi Fetiches | Page 3

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 Zu?i 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 Zu?is relate mostly to the animal gods, and principally to the prey gods.
ORIGIN OF ZU?I 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 Zu?is 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 Zu?is 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 Zu?i 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 Zu?i Iliad.
[Illustration: PREY GOD FETICHES.]
THE ZU?I 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 Zu?i. 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-t?n té-huthl-na-kw?n=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 knife (Sá-wa-ni-k'ia ?[']-tchi-?-ne). The shield (Pí-al-lan-ne) was a mere network of sacred cords (Pí-tsau-pi-wi,=cotton) on a hoop of wood, and to the center of this net-shield was attached the magic knife.
These children cut the face of the world with their magic knife, and were borne down