In a comparative study of the ceremonials of different pueblos, it is important to decide which are most primitive or nearest the aboriginal condition and which are least affected by foreign influences. The purer the present aboriginal culture, the greater worth will it have in our approximation to a true conception of the primitive pueblo culture. Many of the Pueblos practice a religious system which may be rightly called aboriginal, but in some it has been modified by outside influences. I think no one, for instance, would say that the present Zuñi custom of burial in a churchyard was not due in part to the influence of Catholic priests, for Spanish narratives of three and a half centuries ago are quite explicit in their statement that the Zuñi burned their dead. If one custom has been changed, how are we to distinguish the modified from the primitive? It can be shown that strong influences have been used for the direct purpose of destroying the Katcina worship. Take, for instance, Zuñi, the least changed of all the pueblos except those of Tusayan. It is pagan today, and probably never was profoundly modified by Christianity, but Roman Catholic fathers, with the avowed determination to Christianize it, could not have lived there continuously for over a century and caused the great missions to be built without modifying the religious customs of the Zuñians. It is said that after the priests were driven out the Pueblos returned to their ancient practices, but it must be admitted that no one has yet shown how the pure Katcina practices were preserved over three generations. They returned to an old worship, but who has evidence to say that it was the same as that of their great-great-grandfathers? In some instances the natives have very willingly adopted Christian teachings and the Christian God, believing that by so doing their own religion would necessarily become strengthened by an addition to their pantheon. Such adoption, however, no matter how regarded by them, made a permanent impression on their primitive condition by changing their mode of thought and life. They apparently may have abandoned all that the church taught; but what means could have been used to restore the pure worship of pre-Columbian times? The culture which was revived was aboriginal, but could never be identical[121] with that of the times before Coronado. The question then resolves itself into a historical one—which pueblos were the home of Catholic priests for the shortest time, and in which were their influences least powerful? The historian will of course answer the Tusayan pueblos, and ethnology contributes her quota of facts to indicate that the purest form of Pueblo ceremonials are now practiced by these villagers.