But the presence of these ordinary names evidences no less than that of the more "idolatrous" ones, the uncompromisingly paganistic spirit of these supposedly converted Indians, and the unmodified fashion of their thoughts at the period of their truest apparent allegiance, or at least submission, to the church. Hence I have not hesitated to pause somewhat in the course of this introductory sketch to give these examples in detail, particularly as they evidence not merely the exceeding vitality of the native Zuñi cult, but at the same time present an explanation of the strange spectacle of earnest propagandists everywhere vigilantly seeking out and ruthlessly repressing the native priesthood and their dances and other ceremonials, yet, unconsciously to themselves, solemnizing these very things by their rites of baptism, officially recognizing, in the eyes of the Indians, the very names and titles of the officiators and offices they otherwise persecuted and denounced. It was quite of a piece with all this that during the acts of worship performed in the old church at that time by the Zuñis, whilst they knelt at mass or responded as taught to the mysterious and to them magic, but otherwise meaningless, credo, they scattered in secret their sacred white prayer-meal, and invoked not only the souls of their dead priests--who as caciques or rulers of the pueblo were accorded the distinction of burial in the church, under their very feet--but also, the tribal medicine-plumes and fetiches hidden away under the very altar where stood the archenemy of their religion! So, in following farther the Spanish history of Zuñi, we need not be surprised that all went well for a while after the completion of the church, and that more than twenty priests were at one time and another resident missionaries of Zuñi. Nor, on the other hand, need we be surprised that when in the early part of the present century these missionaries began to leave the pagan surnames out of their registers giving Spanish names instead--began to suspect, perhaps, the nature of the wall paintings, or for some other reason had them whitewashed away--and sought more assiduously than ever, in the deepest hiding places of the many-storied pueblo, to surprise the native priests at their unholy pagan practices, that the records of baptisms in the old books grew fewer and fewer, and that as the secular power withdrew more and more its support of the clergy, the latter could no longer control their disaffected flock, and that finally the old mission had to be abandoned, never again to be reoccupied save on occasions of the parochial visits of priests resident in far-away Mexican towns or in other Indian pueblos. Nevertheless, although the old church was thus abandoned and is now utterly neglected, there lingers still with the Indians a singular sentiment for it, and this has been supposed to indicate that they retain some conscious remnant of the faith and teachings for which it once stood.