The Scranton tribune. [volume] (Scranton, Pa.) 1891-1910, 1897-11-04
WITCHCRAFT IN NEW MEXICO.
How the Zuni Indians Punish Sus-
pected Sorcerers.

From the San Francisco Chronicle.
The Zuni Indian reservation, COM
prising 215,040 acres, is situated in the
western part of New Mexico, fifty miles
south of the Santa Fe Pacific railroad.
1t has larger population than any of
the other eighteen pueblos scattered
throughout the Territory, according to
the last census the tribe numbering L.
OIL men, women, and children. The
Zunis are very superstitious, and their
belief in supposed witch has led to
the execution and torture of many of
their members, who have been brought
before their high tribunal, tried and
found guilty of witchcraft If the gov
ernor of the Zunis or any of his assist
ants are taken sick, the witches are
charged with bringing on the afiliction;
failure of crops, seasons of drought or
heavy rains are attributed to their
power; calamities of all kinds are sup
posed to be the result of witchcraft.
Only few years ago a woman was
accused of bringing on a plague of
grasshoppers to the Zuni valley, and
she and her son We're executed in
horrible manner.
The sheriff of Valencia county, with
an escort of United States cavalry from
Fort Wingate, appeared at the village
of Zuni about the middle of Septem-
Der last and demanded the Indians who
were accused of maltreating a squaw
named Marta, whom they called a
witch. Four of the Indians were ar
rested and placed in the county Jail at
Los Lunas, and at their preliminary
hearing September 20 were bound over
to the grand jury in the sum of $1,000
each. Tomelike, or Nick, an Indian
who had been fearfully tortured, was
also taken to Los Lunas as a witness.
Miss de Settle, the principal of the school
at Zuni, and Miss Faurote, her assist
ant, who are expected to testify against
the offenders, remained at the Indian
village under the protection of a guard
of United States cavalry.
These arrests were mainly brought
about through the efforts of Captain
Charles +. NOrdstrom, United States
Army, who in March last was detailed
as acting Indian agent of the Pueblos
and Jicarllas. The captain has had
many years experience with Indians in
the southwest, and the arrest of the
rinGlaaders proves him to be a man
of determination. He is fully aroused
to the Importance of making these In
dians understand the supremacy of the
government.
The captain in his latest report to
the commissioner of Indian affairs
graphically states: "The village of
Iuni was recently the scene of an oc-
currence recalling all the horrors of the
days when our God-fearing ancestors
of New England piOusly devoted their
neighbors and friends to the stake.
"A poor old woman, seventy-fve or
eighty years old, having been reported
as a witch, the Society of the Priests
of the Bow ordered her tortured until
she should confess. The emissaries Of
the society accordingly went to her
house in the dead of night, dragged her
from her bed, and almost literally
dragged her down the five stories to
the ground, carried her off to the tor
ture corral where, tying her hands be-
hind her, until unable to endure the
agony longer, she confessed to-no one
knows what. 1t was, however, suf-
ficient to satisfy her judges, for she
was let down and allowed tocra wi hack
to her miserable abode as best she
could. Here she lay for days, no one
caring to go near her, or If they had
any compassion on her they We're afraid
to display it for fear of sharing her
fate as a witch, together with the in
Fiction of the same punishment. Two
or three days afterward a rumor of
what had taken place coming to Miss
de Settle, the estimable principal of the
school, she, accompanied by her assist
ant, Miss Faurote, went to the old
woman's house, where she was found
more dead than alive. For days this
noble woman, at the probable risk of
her life, and at the certain risk of the
undying enmity of the Priests of the
Bow, persisted in her heavenly minis
trations to this poor old creature, until
finally she was restored to life again
and the enjoyment of such health as
her shattered constitution will be able
to support. This tragedy, tragic in
more than one sense, happened last
February. At my visit in the June fol-
lowing ] saw the victim of this bar
barism, who barred her poor old shriv-
eled arms and showed me where the
cruel cords Of the torturer had cut the
flesh through to the bone"