Outlines of Zuñi Creation Myths: Thirteenth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, 1891-1892, Government Printing Office, Washington, 1896, pages 321-448Cushing, Frank Hamilton
History
Outlines of Zuñi Creation Myths: Thirteenth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, 1891-1892, Government Printing Office, Washington, 1896, pages 321-448
Cushing, Frank Hamilton
Zuni mythology
Believing, as the Zuñis do, in this arrangement of the universe and
this distribution of the elements and beings chiefly concerned in them,
and finally in the relationship of their clans and the members thereof
to these elementary beings, it is but natural that they should have
societies or secret orders or cult institutions composed of the elders
or leading members of each group of their clans as above classified.
The seriation of these secret and occult medicine societies, or,
better, perhaps, societies of magic, is one of the greatest consequence
and interest. Yet it can but be touched upon here. In strict accordance
with succession of the four seasons and their elements, and with their
supposed relationship to these, are classified the four fundamental
activities of primitive life, namely, as relating to the north and its
masterfulness and destructiveness in cold, is war and destruction;
relating to the west is war cure and hunting; to the south, husbandry
and medicine; to the east, magic and religion; while the above, the
below, and the middle relate in one way or another to all these
divisions. As a consequence the societies of cold or winter are found
to be grouped, not rigidly, but at least theoretically, in the northern
clans, and they are, respectively: ’Hléwe-kwe, Ice-wand people or band;
Áchia-kwe, Knife people or band; Kâ´shi-kwe, Cactus people or band;
for the west: Pí‘hla-kwe, Priesthood of the Bow or Bow people or band
(Ápi‘hlan Shiwani, Priests of the Bow); Sániyak‘ya-kwe, Priesthood
of the Hunt or Coyote people or band; for the south: Máke‘hlána-kwe,
Great fire (ember) people or band; Máketsána-kwe, Little fire (ember)
people or band; of the east: Shíwana-kwe, Priests of the Priesthood
people or band; Úhuhu-kwe, Cottonwood-down people or band; Shúme-kwe,
or Kâ´kâ‘hlána-kwe, Bird-monster people or band, otherwise known as
the Great Dance-drama people or band; for the upper region: Néwe-kwe,
Galaxy people or band or the All-consumer or Scavenger people or
band (or life preservers); and for the lower regions: Chítola-kwe,
Rattlesnake people or band, generators (or life makers). Finally, as
produced from all the clans and as representative alike of all the
clans and through a tribal septuarchy of all the regions and divisions
in the midmost, and finally as representative of all the cult societies
above mentioned is the Kâ´kâ or Ákâkâ-kwe or Mythic Dance drama people
or organization. It may be seen of these mytho-sociologic organizations
that they are a system within a system, and that it contains also
systems within systems, all founded on this classification according
to the six-fold division of things, and in turn the six-fold division
of each of these divisions of things. To such an extent, indeed, is
carried this tendency to classify according to the number of the six
regions with its seventh synthesis of them all (the latter sometimes
apparent, sometimes nonappearing) that not only are the subdivisions of
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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