outlines of zuni Creation Myths 5

outlines of zuni Creation Myths 5

Another and far more significant instance, that of the Cerro de Sal

in Peru may be mentioned, for in that country not only was salt of

various kinds to be found in many valleys and throughout nearly all

the deserts of the Medano region extending from northern Ecuador to

southern Chili, but the sea also lay near at hand along the entire

western border of this vast stretch of country; yet from remote parts

of South America trails lead, some from the Amazon and from Argentina,

more than a thousand miles away, some from nearer points and from all

local directions to this famous "Cerro de Sal." The salt from this

locality was, like that of the Lake of Salt, so highly prized that it

drew aboriginal populations about it in even pre-Incan days, and was a

source of supply, as well as, it is affirmed, of abundant tribute to

those dominant Pueblos of South America, the Incas of later days.[4]

 

[4] A parallel world example of the influence of salt

sources on the movements of primitive peoples may be found

in the fact that all the great historic trade routes

across Asia were first established along salt trails of

prehistoric times.

 

That the Lake of Salt, as a coveted source, actually did influence the

earlier descents of the cliff dwellers, and did lead to the building

and occupancy by them of the long line of ruins I have described,

rests, finally, on linguistic no less than on such comparative evidence

as has already been indicated. In turn, this leads to consideration of

the larger and at present more pertinent evidence that these dwellers

in the round towns were in part ancestors of the Zuñis, and that thus,

as assumed at the outset, the Zuñis are of composite, at least dual,

origin, and that their last, still existing, phase of culture is of

dual derivation.

 

The archaic and sacred name for the south in Zuñi is _Álahoïnkwin

táhna_, but the name more commonly employed--always in familiar or

descriptive discourse--is _Mák‘yaiakwin táhna_ (that is, the "direction

of the salt-containing water or lake," from _ma_, salt; _k‘yaía_,

water, or lake-containing or bearing; _kwin_, place of, and _táhna_,

point or direction of). That this name should have displaced the

older form in familiar usage is significant of the great importance

attached to their source of salt by the early Zuñis; yet but natural,

for the older form, _Álahoïnkwin táhna_, signifies "in the direction

of the home (or source) of the coral shells," from _álaho_, glowing

red shell-stuff; _ïnkwïn_, abiding place of, or containing place of,

and _táhna_. This source of the _álahowe_ or coral red shells (which

are derived from several species of subtropical mollusks, and were so

highly prized by the southwestern tribes that the Indians of the lower

Colorado traded in them as assiduously as did those of the cliffs and

round towns in salt) has been for generations the Gulf of California

and the lower coast to beyond Guaymas.

 

It is not improbable, then, that this archaic and now exclusively

ritualistic __EXPRESSION__ for the southward or the south is a surviving

paraphrase of the name for south (or of the source in the south of the

red shells), formerly known to the western branch of the Zuñi ancestry,

and once familiarly used by them to designate also, perhaps, the

direction of the source of their chief treasure (these coral red shells

of aboriginal commerce), as in the Gulf of California, which was then

south of them, but is now due west-southwestward from them.

 

What renders this supposition still more probable, and also strengthens

the theory of the dual origin of many parallelisms in Zuñi culture,

observances, and phraseology, is not so much the fact that this name

for red shells and the archaic Zuñi name for red paint, _áhona_,

resemble in sound and meaning the Yuman _ahowata_, _ahauti_, etc., for

red paint, nor yet the fact that such resemblance extends to many

archaic and other terms, for example of relationship in the Zuñi as

compared especially with corresponding terms in the Yavapai Tulkepaiya

and other dialects of the Yuman. In fact, all the terms in Zuñi for the

four quarters are twofold and different, according as used familiarly

or ritualistically. That for west, for instance, is in the archaic and

ritualistic form, _K’yálishiïnkwïn táhna_, and signifies "direction

of the home, or source of mists and waters, or the sea;" which, when

the Zuñi abode in the farther southwest near the Pacific, was the

appropriate name for west. But the familiar name for west in modern

Zuñi is _Súnhakwïn táhna_, the "direction of the place of evening,"

which is today equally appropriate for their plateau-encircled home of

the far inland.

 

"North," in the archaic form, is now nearly lost; yet in some of the

more mystic rituals it occurs as both _Wímaiyawan táhna_ (_Wíkutaiya_

is "north" in the Yuma), "direction of the oak mountains," and

_Yä´lawaunankwin táhna_, literally "direction of the place of the

mountain ranges," which from the lower Colorado and southern Arizona

are toward the north, but from northern Zuñi are not so conspicuous as

in the other direction, as, for instance, toward the southwest. On the

other hand, if we consider the familiar phrase for north, _Pïsh´lankwïn

táhna_, "direction of the wind-swept plains," or of the "plains of the

mightiest winds," to have been inherited from the aboriginal round-town

Zuñis, then it was natural enough for them to have named the north as

they did; for to the north of their earlier homes in the cliffs and

beyond lay the measureless plains where roamed the strong Bison God of

Winds, whence came his fierce northern breath and bellowings in the

roar of storms in winter.

 

The east, in common language, signifies "direction of the coming of

day;" but in the ritual speech signifies "direction of the plains of

daylight"--a literal description of the great Yuma desert as seen at

day-break from the Colorado region, but scarcely applicable to the

country eastward from Zuñi, which is rugged and broken until the Llanos

Estacados of Texas are reached.

 

The diverse meaning of terms in Zuñi architecture is no less

significant of the diverse conditions and opposite directions of

derivation of the Zuñi ancestry. If the aboriginal branch of the Zuñi

were derived from the dwellers in the northern cliff towns, as has

been assumed, then we would expect to find surviving in the names of

such structural features of their pueblos as resulted from life in the

cliffs linguistic evidence, as in the structures themselves material

evidence, of the fact. Of this, as will presently be shown, there is an

abundance.

 

If the intrusive branch of the Zuñi ancestry were, as has also been

assumed, of extreme southwestern origin, then we should expect to find

linguistic evidence of a similar nature, say, as to the structural

modifications of the cliff-dweller and round-town architecture which

their arrival at and ultimate position in these towns might lead us to

expect to find, and which in fact is to be abundantly traced in later

Zuñi ruins, like those of the historic Seven Cities of Cibola.

 

The conditions of life and peculiarities of building, etc., in the

caves and cliffs, then in the round towns, have been commented on at

some length in previous pages, and sufficiently described to render

intelligible a presentation of this linguistic and additional evidence

in regard to derivation from that direction; but it remains for me

to sketch, as well as I can in brief, the more significant of such

characteristics of the primitive Yuman house and village life as seem

to bear on the additional linguistic and other evidence of derivation

also from the opposite or Rio Colorado direction, for both clews should

be presented side by side, if only for the sake of contrast.

 

These ancient people of the Colorado region, Yuman or other, had, as

their remains show (not in their earliest period, nor yet in a later

stage of their development, when a diverging branch of them--"Our

lost others"[5]--had attained to a high state of culture in southern

Arizona and northern Mexico, but at the time of their migration in

part Zuñiward), houses of quite a different type from those of the

north. They were mainly rancherias, that is, more or less scattered

over the mesas and plains. They were but rarely round, commonly

parallelogrammic, and either single or connected in straight L-shape

or double L-shape rows. The foundations were of rough stones, designed

probably to hold more firmly in place the cane-wattled, mud-plastered

stockades which formed the sides and ends as well as (in the house

rows) the partitions. They owed their rectangular shapes not to

crowding, but to development from an original log-built house type--in

the open (like the rancheria house type of the Tarahumári), to which

may also be traced their generally greater length than width. They

were single storied, with rather flat or slightly sloping roofs,

although the high pitched roof of thatch was not wholly unknown, for

it was still employed on elevated granaries; but sometimes (this was

especially the case with single houses) the stockade posts were carried

up above this roof on three sides, and overlaid with saplings on which,

in turn, a bower of brush or cane or grass was constructed to protect

from the sun rather than from rain. Thus a sort of rude and partial

second story was formed, which was reached from below by means of a

notched step-log made of a forked or branching tree-trunk, the forks

being placed against the edge of the roof proper to keep the log (the

butt of which rested on the ground) from turning when being ascended.[6]

 

[5] See pages 403, 405-406.

 

[6] See Mindeleff, Architecture of Tusayan and Cibola,

Eighth Ann. Rep. Bur. Ethnology, p. 157.

 

Of these single houses the "bowers" described in the following myth of

the creation of corn (see page 391), and typically surviving still to

a great extent in the cornfield or farm huts of modern Zuñi, may be

taken as fair examples; and of the villages or hut-row structures of

these ancient plains and valley people, an excellent example may be

found in the long-houses of the Mohave and other Yumans of the valley

of Colorado river. Both these hut-row houses and the single-room houses

were generally surrounded by low walls of loose stone, stone and mud,

stockade and mud, or of mud alone; and as often as not one side or the

front of a hut within such a wall inclosure was left entirely open.

 

Thus the outer wall was intended in part as a slight protection from

the wind, and probably also to guard from flooding during the sudden

showers which sometimes descend in torrents over Arizona plains. They

may also have been designed to some extent for protection from the

enemy; for these people were far more valiant fighters than their

ultimate brethren of the north, and depended for protection less on

security of position than on their own prowess. Only during times

of unusual danger did they retire to fortified lava buttes (or,

when near them, to deep but more or less open crevices in some of

the more extensive lava fields), where their hut foundations may be

found huddled together within huge inclosures of natural lava blocks,

dry laid and irregular, but some of them skillfully planned and

astonishingly vast; but in these strongholds they never tarried long

enough to be influenced in their building habits sufficiently to change

the styles of their hamlets in the plains, for until we reach the point

in eastern Arizona where they joined the "elder nations" no change in

ground plan of these houses is to be traced in their remains.

 

* * * * *

 

It is necessary to add a few details as to costume, usages, and the

institutions of these semisettled yet ever shifting people.

 

They wore but scant clothing besides their robes and

blankets--breech-clouts and kilts, short for the men, long for the

women, and made of shredded bark and rushes or fiber; sandals, also

of fiber; necklaces of shell beads, and pendent carved shell gorgets.

The hair was bobbed to the level of the eyebrows in front, but left

long and hanging at the back, gathered into a bunch or switch with a

colored cord by the men, into which cord, or into a fillet of plaited

fiber, gorgeous long tail feathers of the macaw, roadrunner, or

eagle were thrust and worn upright. To the crown of the head of the

warriors was fastened a huge bunch of stripped or slitted feathers of

the owl or eagle, called, no doubt, then as now by its Yuman name,

_musema_; for it is still known, though used in different fashion, as

the _múmtsemak‘ya_ or _múmpalok‘ye_ by the Zuñi Priests of the Bow.

The warriors also carried targets or shields of yucca or cotton cord,

closely netted across a strong, round hoop-frame and covered with a

coarser and larger net, which was only a modification of the carrying

net (like those still in use by the Papago, Pima, and other Indians

of southern Arizona), and was turned to account as such, indeed, on

hunting and war expeditions.

 

Their hand weapons were huge stone knives and war clubs shaped

like potato-mashers, which were called, it would seem, _iítekati_

(their Yuman name) for, although changed in the Zuñi of today, still

strikingly survives in familiar speech as the __EXPRESSION__ _ítehk‘ya_

or _ítehk‘yäti_, to knock down finally or fatally, and in ceremonial

allusion (rather than name) to the old-fashioned and sacred war clubs

(which are of identical form) as _ítehk‘yatáwe_, or knocking-down

billets, otherwise called face-smashers or pulpers.

 

They sometimes buried the dead--chiefly their medicine men and women,

or shamans; but all others were burned (with them personal effects and

gifts of kin) and their ashes deposited in pots, etc., at the heads of

arroyas, or thrown into streams. They held as fetiches of regenerative

as well as protective power certain concretionary stones, some of the

larger of which were family heirlooms and kept as household gods,

others as tribal relics and amulets, like the canopas and huacas of

ancient Peru. These nodules were so knobbed, corrugated, and contorted

that they were described when seen elsewhere by the early Spanish

writers as bezoars, but they were really derived from the sources of

arroyas, or mountain torrents, in the beds of which they are sometimes

found, and being thus always water-worn were regarded as the seed of

the waters, the source of life itself. Hence they were ceremoniously

worshiped and associated with all or nearly all the native dances or

dramaturgies, of which dances they were doubtless called by their old

time possessors "the ancients," or "stone ancients," a name and in some

measure a connection still surviving and extended to other meanings

with reference to similar fetich stones among the Zuñis of today.

 

From a study of the remains of these primitive Arizonian ancestors of

the Zuñis in the light of present-day Zuñi archaisms, and especially

of the creation myths themselves, it would be possible to present a

much fuller sketch of them. But that which has already been outlined

is sufficiently full, I trust, to prove evidential that the following

Zuñi __EXPRESSION__s and characteristics were as often derived from this

southwestern branch as from the cliff dweller or aboriginal branch of

the Zuñi ancestry:

 

The Zuñi name of an outer village wall is _hék‘yapane_, which

signifies, it would seem, "cliff-face wall;" for it is derived,

apparently, from _héăne_, an extended wall; and _ák‘yapane_, the face

of a wide cliff. Thus it is probably developed from the name which at

first was descriptive of the encircling rear wall of a cave village,

afterward naturally continued to be applied to the rear but encircling

or outside wall of a round town, and hence now designates even a

straight outer wall of a village, whether of the front or the rear of

the houses.

 

The name for the outer wall of a house, however, is _héine_, or

_héline_, which signifies a mud or adobe inclosure; from _héliwe_, mud

(or mud-and-ash) mortar, and _úline_, an inclosure. Since in usage this

refers to the outer wall of a house or other simple structure, but not

to that of a town or assemblage of houses, its origin may with equal

propriety be attributed to the mud-plastered corral or adobe sides or

inclosures of such rancherias as I have already described.[7]

 

[7] In my "Study of Pueblo Pottery," etc. (Fourth Annual

Report of the Bureau of Ethnology, 1882-83), I have said

that "The archaic name for a building or walled structure

is _héshota_, a contraction of the now obsolete term

_héshotapone_; from _hésho_, gum, or resin-like; _shótaie_,

leaned or placed together convergingly; _tápoane_, a roof

(covering) of wood, or a roof (covering) supported by wood."

 

I regret to say that the etymology of this word as thus

rendered was not quite correct, and therefore its meaning

as interpreted in the passage which immediately followed

was also mistaken. It is quite true that _hésho_ signifies

gum or resin, etc. (referring, as I then supposed, to

_áhesho_, or gum rock, a name for lava; used constructively

in the oldest round huts of the basaltic regions); but the

root _he_ enters into many other compounds, such as not

only wax, gum, pitch, metal (as being rock-pitch, that

is, melted from rocks), etc., but also mud, clay-paste,

mud-mortar, and finally adobe, as being dried mud mortar;

hence walls made either with or of adobe, etc. Had I been,

at the time of this first writing, as familiar with the

language as I now am I should not have connected as a

single root _he_ and _sho_, making _hésho_ (gum or pitch)

of it. For, as elsewhere stated in the same essay, _shówe_

signifies canes, (_shóole_, a cane or reed), and it now

appears that the syllable thus derived formed a root by

itself. But I had not then learned that the greater number

of the ruins of southern Arizona, especially of the plains,

consisted of gabion-like walls, that is, of walls made by

packing stiff earth or rubble mortar or cement between

double or parallel cane-wattled stockades, and then heavily

plastering this exterior or casing (as was the case in the

main walls of the celebrated Casa Grande and the temple

mound of Los Muertos); or else, in less massive ruins of

lesser walls the cores or supports of which consisted of

close-set posts lathed with reeds or canes, the mud or

cement being built up either side of these cores, or, in

case of the thinnest walls, such as partitions, merely

plastered to either face.

 

I can not doubt that even the grandest and most highly

developed of these ruins--the Casas Grandes themselves,

which look today as if constructed wholly of massive

masonry--no less than the simplest plastered stockade

walls, were developed from such beginnings as the mere

mud-plastered cane and stockade screens of the ancient

rancheria builders. Thus, I am constrained to render

the primary meaning of _héshotapoane_ as approximately

"mud-plastered cane and stick structure;" from _heliwe_,

mud mortar; _shówe_, canes or reeds; _táwe_, wood, or

_tátawe_, wood-posts; _póa_, to place (leaningly or

closely) over against; and _ne_, (any) thing made. From

this, the generic term _héshota_, for walled structure

(especially ruined wall-structures), would very naturally

have been derived, and this might or might not have given

rise to the use of the prefix _he_, as occurring in all

names for _mortar-laid_ walls.

 

Again, the names in Zuñi, first, for a room of a single-story

structure, and, second, for an inner room on the ground floor of

such or of a terraced structure, are (1) _télitona_, "room or space

equally inclosed," that is, by four equal or nearly equal walls;

and (2) _téluline_, "room or space within (other rooms or) an

inclosure." Both of these terms, although descriptive, may, from

their specific use, be attributed to single-story rancheria origin,

I think, for in the cliff villages there was no ground-floor room.

The name for a lowermost room in the cliff villages still seemingly

survives in the Zuñi name for a cellar, which is _ápaline_, from

_a_, rock, and _páloiye_, buried in or excavated within; while the

cliff name for an upper room or top-story room, _óshtenu‘hlane_, from

_óshten_, a cave-shelter or cave roof, and _ú‘hlane_, inclosed by,

or built within the hollow or embrace of, also still survives. Yet

other examples of diversely derived house-names in this composite

phraseology might be added, but one more must suffice. The Zuñi

name for a ladder is _‘hlétsilone_, apparently from _‘hléwe_, slats

(_‘hléma_, slat), and _tsilulona_, hair, fiber, or osier, entwined

or twisted in. This primary meaning of the name would indicate that

before the ladder of poles and slats was used, rope ladders were

commonly in vogue, and if so, would point unmistakably to the cliffs

as the place of its origin; for many of the cliff dwellings can not

now be reached save by means of ropes or rope ladders. Yet, although

the name for a stairway (or steps even of stone or adobe) might

naturally, one would suppose, have been derived from that of a ladder

(if ladders were used before stairs, or vice versa if the reverse was

the case), nevertheless it has a totally independent etymology, for

it is _íyechiwe_, from _íkŏiyächi_, forked log or crotch-log, and

_yéhchiwe_, walking or footing-notched; that is, notched step-log or

crotch. And this it would seem points as unmistakably to such use of

forked and notched step logs or crotch-logs as I have attributed to

the rancheria builders, as does the "rope-and-slat" ladder-name to

the use of the very different climbing device I have attributed to

the cliff dwellers.

 

It is probable that when the round-town builders had peopled the

trail of salt as far from the northward as to the region of Zuñi and

beyond, the absence of very deep canyons, containing rock-sheltered

nooks sufficiently large and numerous to enable them to find adequate

accommodation for cliff villages, gradually led them to abandon all

resort to the cliffs for protection--made them at last no longer cliff

dwellers, even temporarily, but true Pueblos, or town dwellers of the

valleys and plains.

 

But other influences than those of merely natural or physical

environment were required to change their mode of building, and

correspondingly, to some extent, their institutions and modes of

life from those of round-town builders to those of square-town

builders, such as in greater part they were at the time of the

Spanish discoveries. In the myths themselves may be found a

clew as to what these influences were in that which is told of

the coming together of the "People of the Midmost" and these

"Dwellers-in-the-towns-builded-round." For there is evidence in

abundance also of other kind, and not a little of it of striking force

and interest, that this coming together was itself the chief cause

of the changes referred to. It has been seen that the western branch

of the Zuñi ancestry (who were these "People of the Midmost") were

almost from the beginning dwellers in square structures; that their

village clusters, even when several of their dwelling places happened

to be built together, were, as shown by their remains wherever found,

built precisely on the plans of single-house structures--that is, they

were simple extensions, mostly rectilinear, of these single houses

themselves.

 

Now peoples like those of the round towns, no less than primitive

peoples generally, conceive of everything made, whether structure,

utensil, or weapon, as animistic, as living. They conceive of this life

of things as they do of the lives of plants, of hibernating animals, or

of sleeping men, as a still sort of life generally, but as potent and

aware, nevertheless, and as capable of functioning, not only obdurately