Endnotes + 

The ancient pueblo of Zuni itself was called Hálonawan, or the Ant Hill, the ruins of which, now buried beneath the sands, lie opposite the modern town within the cast of a stone. Long before Hálonawan was abandoned, the nucleus of the present structure was begun around one of the now central plazas. It was then, and still is, in the ancient songs and rituals of the Zunis, Hálona-ítiwana, or the “Middle Ant Hill of the World,” and was often spoken of in connection with the older town as simply the “Ant Hill.” ↩ + 

This curious conception of the food of the storks and cranes and pelicans, for of such birds the folktale tells, is interesting. It is doubtless an attempt to explain what has been observed with relation to the pelicans and the storks especially: that they consume their food raw, and, as the Indian believes, cook it, as it were, in their own bodies, and then withdraw it, either for their young or for their final consumption. As this semi-digested food of such birds resembles very nearly the thick bean stews of the Zunis, they have evidently taken from it the suggestion for the special kinds of food which were offered to the youth. ↩ + 

This, like all the folk-songs, is difficult of translation; and that which is given is only approximate. ↩ + 

That is, people in the dark⁠—having no knowledge. ↩ + 

Situated about seven miles east of Zuni. ↩ + 

Mátsaki, now a ruin about three miles east of Zuni. ↩ + 

Pínawa, an ancient ruin about a mile and a half west of Zuni. ↩ + 

This, it may be explained, is all that the marriage ceremony consists of. ↩ + 

The native name of the Zuni town of Las Nutrias. ↩ + 

Aínshikʻyanakwin, or Bear Spring, where Fort Wingate now stands. ↩ + 

Probably Green River, or some important tributary of the Colorado Grande. ↩ + 

Fruit of the yucca, or soap-weed plant. ↩ + 

The Kâkâ, or Sacred Drama Dance, is represented by a great variety of masks and costumes worn by Zuni dancers during the performance of this remarkable dramatic ceremony. Undoubtedly many of the traditional characters of the Sacred Drama thus represented are conventionalizations of the mythic conceptions or personifications of animal attributes. Therefore many of these characters partake at once of the characteristics, in appearance as well as in other ways, of animals and men. The example in point is a good illustration of this. The Kʻyámakwe are supposed to have been a most wonderful and powerful tribe of demigods, inhabiting a great valley and range of mesas some forty miles south of Zuni. Their powers over the atmospheric phenomena of nature and over all the herbivorous animals are supposed to have been absolute. Their attitude toward man was at times inimical, at times friendly or beneficent. Such a relationship, controlled simply by either laudatory or propitiatory worship, was supposed to hold spiritually, still, between these and other beings represented in the Sacred Drama and men. It is believed that through the power of breath communicated by these ancient gods to men, from one man to another man, and thus from generation to generation, an actual connection has been kept up between initiated members of the Kâkâ drama and these original demigod characters which it represents; so that when a member is properly dressed in the costume of any one of these characters, a ceremony (the description of which is too long for insertion here) accompanying the putting on of the mask is supposed not only to place him en rapport spiritually with the character he represents, but even to possess him with the spirit of that character or demigod. He is, therefore, so long as he remains disguised as one of these demigods, treated as if he were actually that being which he personates. One of the Kʻyámakwe is represented by means of a mask, round and smooth-headed, with little black eyes turned up at the corners so as to represent a segment of a diminishing spiral; the color of the face is green, and it is separated from the rest of the head by a line composed of alternate blocks of black and yellow; the crown and back of the head are snow-white; and the ears are pendent and conical in shape, being composed of husks or other paper-like material; the mouth is round, and furnished with a four-pointed beak of husks, which extends two or three inches outward and spreads at the end like the petals of a half-closed lily; round the neck is a collar of fox fur, and covering the body are flowing robes of sacred embroidered mantles, which (notwithstanding the gay ornaments and other appurtenances of the costume) have, in connection with the expression of the mask, a spectral effect; the feet are encased in brilliantly painted moccasins, of archaic form, and the wrists laden with shell bracelets and bow-guards. When the long file of these strange figures making up the Kʻyámakwe Drama Dance comes in from the southward to the dance plazas of the pueblo, each member of it bears on his back freshly slain deer, antelope, rabbits, and other game animals or portions of them in abundance, made up in packages, highly decorated with tufts of evergreen, and painted toys for presentation to the children. In one hand are carried bows and arrows, and in the other a peculiar rattle or clanger made of the shoulder-blades of deer. The wonder expressed by the coyote as the story goes on, and his excessive admiration of the children of the Kʻyámakwe may therefore be understood. ↩ + 

It may be well to explain here that there is no more intensely painful or fiery bite known than the bite of the fire-ant or red ant of the Southwest and the tropics, named, in Zuni, halo. Large pimples and blisters are raised by the bite, which is so venomous, moreover, that for the time being it poisons the blood and fills every vein of the body with burning sensations. ↩ + 

It is impossible to translate this exclamation, as it is probably archaic, and it is certainly the intention that its meaning shall not be plain. Judging from its etymology, I should think that its meaning might be: + 

“Oh, alas! our little maiden! + 

Oh, alas! our little maiden! + 

Ala‑a‑a‑a‑a‑s!” + 

↩ + 

This term refers to the two Gods of War, Áhaiyúta and Mátsailéma, who, as has been seen in previous tales, were accounted immortal twin youths of small size. ↩ + 

Háwikuh, or Aguico of the Spaniards, a pueblo now in ruins across the valley northwestward from Ojo Caliente, the southwestern farming town of the Zunis. ↩ + 

One of the “measuring-worms” which is named the rainbow, on account of his streaked back and habit of bending double when travelling. ↩ + 

Fragments of mountain-sheep horn are used to this day by the Zunis for the same purpose. They are flattened by heat and perforated with holes of varying size. By introducing the shaft to be straightened, and rubbing with a twisting motion the inner sides of the crooked portions, they are gradually straightened out, afterward to be straightened by hand from time to time as they dry before the fire. ↩ + 

The kia-al-lan, or water-shield, is represented in modern times by a beautiful netting of white cotton threads strung on a round hoop, with a downy plume suspended from the center. This, with the dealings of Áhaiyúta and Mátsailéma with arrows of lightning, and the simile of their father the Sun, leaves little doubt that they are, in common with mystic creations of the Aryans, representatives of natural phenomena or their agents. This is even more closely suggested by the sequel. ↩ + 

The ridiculousness of the dialogue which follows may readily be understood when it is explained that each office in the celebration of victory has to be performed by a distinct individual of specified clans according to the function. ↩ + 

Here and hereafter I use this term “priest” reluctantly, in lack of a better word, but in accordance with Webster’s second definition. —⁠F. H. C. ↩ + 

One of the figures of speech meaning the gods. ↩ + 

To “see” an enemy signifies, in Zuni mythology, to take his life. ↩ + 

The words “terrace,” “sacred terrace,” “terraced plain” (awithluiane, awithluian-pewine), and the like, wherever they occur, refer to the figurative expression for the earth in the Zuni rituals addressed to the gods, where they are used as more nearly conforming to the usage of the gods. The symbol of the earth on the sacred altars is a terraced or zigzag figure or decoration, and the same figure appears in their carvings and other ornamental work. The disgraced god Mítsina applied the term to the robe spread out as the bed for his game. It may be stated in further explanation that the country in which the Zunis have wandered and lived for unnumbered generations, and where they still dwell, is made up largely of mesas, or flattop mountains or elevations, rising one above another and showing as terraces on the horizon. Beheld at great distances, or in the evening, these mountain terraces are mere silhouettes and serve to exaggerate the zigzag spaces of light between them. As the conventional sacred emblem for the earth is a terrace, outspread or upreaching, as the case may be, so the conventional sacred emblem for the sky is an inverted terrace. + 

To the gods the whole earth is represented as having seemed so small that they invariably spoke of it as the terraced plain, and in their playing of this game they are supposed to have used it as the bed for the game, as the Zuni people used the outspread buffalo robe for the purpose. ↩ + 

Reprinted from the Journal of American Folklore, vol. V., No. 16, pp. 49⁠–⁠56. ↩ + 

From té-na-la-a, “time or times of,” and pé-na-we, words or speeches (tales): “tales of time.” ↩ + 

The invariable formula for beginning a folk tale is, by the raconteur: “Són ah-tchi!” (“Let us take up”)⁠—té-la-pʻ-ne, or “a folk tale,” being understood. To this the auditors or listeners respond: “É-so!” (“Yea, verily.”) Again, by the raconteur: “Sons i-nó-o-to-na! Tem,” etc. (“Let us (tell of) the times of creation! When,” etc.) Again, by the listeners: “Sons éso! Te-ä-tú!” (“Yea, let us, verily! Be it so.”) ↩ + 

The Zuni classification of states of growth or being is as elaborate as that of relative space in their mythology⁠—both extremely detailed and systematic, yet, when understood, purely primitive and simple. The universe is supposed to have been generated from haze (shí-wai-a) produced by light (of the All-container, Sun-father) out of darkness. The observed analogy of this in nature is the appearance of haze (both heat and steam) preceding growth in springtime; the appearance of the world, of growing and living things, through mist seemingly rising out of the darkness each morning. In harmony with this conception of the universe is the correlative one that every being (as to soul, at least) passes through many successive states of becoming, always beginning as a shí-u-na hâ-i (haze being), and passing through the raw or soft (kʻya-pi-na), the formative (kʻyaí-yu-na), variable (thlím-ni-na), fixed or done (ak-na), and finished or dead (ä-shï-kʻya) states; whilst the condition of the surpassing beings (gods) may be any of these at will (i-thlim-na, or thlim-nah-na, etc.). There are many analogies of this observed by the Zuni, likening, as he does, the generation of being to that of fire with the fire-drill and stick. The most obvious of these is the appearance, in volumes, of “smoke-steam” or haze just previously to ignition, and its immediate disappearance with ignition. Further, the succession of beings in the becoming of a complete being may be regarded as an orderly personification of growth phenomena as observed in plants and seeds; for example, in corn, which is characterized by no fewer than thirteen mystic names, according to its stages of growth. This whole subject is much more fully and conclusively set forth in the writings to which I have already referred. ↩ + 

For the mythic origin of these two chief gods under the Sun, as his right- and left-hand being, their relation to chance, war, games, etc., I again refer the reader to the Zuni Creation Myths. ↩ + 

Pi-a-la-we (cord or cotton shields), evidently an ancient style of shield still surviving in the form of sacrificial net-shields of the Priesthood of the Bow. But the shields of these two gods were supposed to have been spun from the clouds which, supporting the sky-ocean, that in turn supported the sky-world (as this world is believed to be supported by under-waters and clouds), were hence possessed of the power of floating⁠—upward when turned up, downward when reversed. ↩ + 

Hé-lu-ha-pa; from hé-lu, or é-lu, “hurrah,” or “how delightful!”⁠—and há-pa, a corpse-demon, death. ↩ + 

This, like so many of the folktale songs, can only be translated etymologically or by extended paraphrasing. Such songs are always jargonistic, either archaic, imitative, or adapted from other languages of tribes who possibly supplied incidents to the myths themselves; but they are, like the latter, strictly harmonized with the native forms of expression and phases of belief. ↩ + 

The onion here referred to is the dried, southwestern leek-clove, which is so strong and indigestible that, when eaten raw and in quantity, gives rise to great distress, or actually proves fatal to any but mature and vigorous persons. This, of course, explains why it was chosen for its value as a symbol of the vigor (or “daylight perfection” and invincibility) of the Twin gods. ↩ + 

Dangerously susceptible, tender, delicate. ↩ + 

Hazy, steam-growing. ↩ + 

Mist-enshrouded. ↩ + 

Venice. ↩ + 

“Italy-people.” ↩ + 

The maiden here addresses mankind generally. ↩ + 

The twin children of the Sun were, in the days of creation, the benignant guardians of men; but when the world became filled with envy and war, they were changed by the eight gods of the storms into warriors more powerful than all monsters, gods, or men. The elder one was right-handed, the younger, left-handed; hence the form of expression here used. ↩ + 