The free press. (Poplarville, Miss.) 1890-19??, 1893-01-05
RELIGIOUS ZUNIS.
The Pueblo Indian Pays Under
All Circumstances.
Everything in His Daily Life
Has a Sacred Side.

has a sacred SIDE.
The Pueblo Indian, says G. L.
Lummis in Frank Leslie's, Is essen
TALLY religious person. The most
trivial of his acts cannot be stripped of
asacred import. He has even sue
ceeded in that most hopeless of tasks
Ito be at once Christian and pagan.
His business affairs and his amuse-
ments, his agriculture, his hunting,
his dances, his races, his wars-all are
under the dual patronage of saint and
Fetch, and all have their sacred side.
His prayers arc as endless as the
wheels of Burmah; and when he has
no time to pray In person, he is not at
loss for medium to pray for him
and to keep it up beyond the endur-
| ance of human breath. His saints
hang in tattcrcd canvas and fading
oil upon the adobe walls Of church
and home; his particular fctiches arc
hidden in tho cstufa or in secret places
OF the mountains, and never seen by
alien eyes. But all around his towns,
in rain-carved gullies, under sheltered
banks, his lonely little prayers may be
found praying themselves day and
night, until they succumb TO stress Of
weather.
He is not an idolator in our usual
careless application of the term. His
fetichcs are not worshipped for them
selves; they do not even pretend to
be likencsses, but merely to represent,
in an occult way, the attributes of the
Power for which they stand. He
would not think Of going to hunt
without the rude stone image of a
coyotc-swiftcst of runners-in his
pouch. To be thoroughly efficacious
it must have an arrowhead lashed to
the side, eyes of coral or turquoise,
ard heart of turquoise set in the
middle Of the belly and holding under
it pinch of the sacred meal. One of
tho choicest hunting -fctiches in my
collection is a bear made of the pccu-
liar striated spar found by the Zunis,
and greatly valued by them for orna-
ments and charms. Tho top of the
head, which is black, is as unmisak-
ably a counterfeit of tho bottom of a
deer's hoof as could be carved in
and the fetch is particularly designed
for deer-hunting.
The automatic prayers are small
Whitfield sticks, about the size of q
lead-pencil, with a tuft of feathers
bound near the top, the bottom being
stuck into the ground to keep the pray
CT pointed heavenward. The color of
tho feathers and the bird from which
they are chosen vary with the circum-
stances and the object of the prayer.
Eagles feathers arc of great efficacy,
and bright-colored plumes from pea
cocks or gay Mexican birds are highly
valued, and are largely bought from
the southern tribes. So much is color
matter of omen, that traders will
sell countless packages of goods that
come in rcd wrappers. while the blue
packages roman undisturbed upon
their shelves.
One of the more important of the
invocations is that offered to the Hero
Brothers, Mai tzl-lai-n and A-hui-u-
ia. Those brothers, who are among
the leading figures in all Southwestern
mythology - Pueblo, Navajo and
Apachc-were sons of the Sun Father
and the Moon Mother. 1t was they
the aboriginal twin Promctheus-who
descended 10 the inner rccesses of the
earth, where mankind then dwelt in
darkness, gave them fire and the stone
knife, aud at last, after many vicssi-
tudcs, brought them out upon the face
of the earth through the sacred lagoon
Co-thlu-el-lom nc-which lies, accord
ing to the Zuni tradition, in eastern
Arizona. The brothers arc now wor-
shipped as the gods of war.
A Fight With Pirates.
SI once had an adycu;:,re with