Zuni Folktales

all of these languages a strange similarity in cosmology is observed, in that it is a cosmology of regions or worlds. About the home world of the tribe there is gathered a group of worlds, one above, another below, and four more: one at every cardinal point; or we may describe it as a central world, an upper world, a lower world, a northern world, a southern world, an eastern world, and a western world. All of the animals of the tribes, be they human animals, tree animals, star animals, water animals (that is, bodies of water), or stone animals (that is, mountains, hills, valleys, and rocks), have an appropriate habitation in the zenith world, the nadir world, or in one of the cardinal worlds, and their dwelling in the center world is accounted for by some myth of travel to this world. All bodies and all attributes of bodies have a home or proper place of habitation; even the colors of the clouds and the rainbow and of all other objects on earth are assigned to the six regions from which they come to the midworld.

We may better understand this habit of thought by considering the folklore of civilization. Here are but three regions: heaven, earth, and hell. All good things come from heaven; and all bad things from hell. It is true that this cosmology is not entertained by scholarly people. An enlightened man thinks of moral good as a state of mind in the individual, an attribute of his soul, and a moral evil as the characteristic of an immoral man; but still it is practically universal for even the most intelligent to affirm by a figure of speech that heaven is the place of good, and hell the place of evil. Now, enlarge this conception so as to assign a place as the proper region for all bodies and attributes, and you will understand the cosmological concepts of the Amerinds.

The primitive religion of every Amerindian tribe is an organized system of inducing the ancients to take part in the affairs of men, and the worship of the gods is a system designed to please the gods, that they may be induced to act for men, particularly the tribe of men who are the worshipers. Time would fail me to tell of the multitude of activities in tribal life designed for this purpose, but a few of them may be mentioned. The first and most important of all are terpsichorean ceremonies and festivals. Singing and dancing are universal, and festivals are given at appointed times and places by every tribe. The long nights of winter are devoted largely to worship, and a succession of festival days are established, to be held at appropriate seasons for the worship of the gods. Thus there are festival days for invoking rain, there are festival days for thanksgiving⁠—for harvest homes. In lands where the grasshopper is an important food there are grasshopper festivals. In lands where corn is an important food there are green-corn festivals; where the buffalo constituted an important part of their aliment there were buffalo dances. So there is a bear dance or festival, and elk dance or festival, and a multitude of other festivals as we go from tribe to tribe, all of which are fixed at times indicated by signs of the zodiac. In the higher tribes elaborate calendars are devised from which we unravel their picture-writings.

The practice of medicine by the shamans is an invocation to the gods to drive out evil spirits from the sick and to frighten them that they may leave. By music and dancing they obtain the help of the ancients, and by a great variety of methods they drive out the evil beings. Resort is often had to scarifying and searing, especially when the sick man has great local pains. All American tribes entertain a profound belief in the doctrine of signatures⁠—similia, similibus curantur⁠—and they use this belief in procuring charms as medicine to drive out the ghostly diseases that plague their sick folk.

Next in importance to terpsichorean worship is altar worship. The altar is a space cleared upon the ground, or a platform raised from the ground or floor of the kiva or assembly-house of the people. Around the altar are gathered the priests and their acolytes, and here they make prayers and perform ceremonies with the aid of altarpieces of various kinds, especially tablets of picture-writings on wood, bone, or the skins of animals. The altarpieces consist of representatives of the thing for which supplication is made: ears of corn or vases of meal, ewers of water, parts of animals designed for food, cakes of grasshoppers, basins of honey, in fine any kind of food; then crystals or fragments of rock to signify that they desire the corn to be hard, or of honeydew that they desire the corn to be sweet, or of corn of different colors that they desire the corn to be of a variety of colors. That which is of great interest to students of ethnology is the system of picture-writing exhibited on the altars. In this a great variety of things which they desire and a great variety of the characteristics of these things are represented in pictographs, or modeled in clay, or carved from wood and bone. The graphic art, as painting and sculpture, has its origin with tribal men in the development of altarpieces. So also the drama is derived from primeval worship, as the modern practice of medicine has been evolved from necromancy.

There is another method of worship found in savagery, but more highly developed in barbarism⁠—the worship of sacrifice. The altarpieces and the dramatic supplications of the lower stage gradually develop into a sacrificial stage in the higher culture. Then the objects are supposed to supply the ancients themselves with food and drink and the pleasures of life. This stage was most highly developed in Mexico, especially by the Nahua or Aztec, where human beings were sacrificed.