File:The American Museum journal (c1900-(1918)) (18160320835).jpg

Title: The American Museum journal
Identifier: americanmuseumjo16amer (find matches)
Year: c1900-(1918) (c190s)
Authors: American Museum of Natural History
Subjects: Natural history
Publisher: New York : American Museum of Natural History
Contributing Library: American Museum of Natural History Library
Digitizing Sponsor: Biodiversity Heritage Library

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84 THE AMEBIC AX MVHEUM JOURNAL , '4 * I,
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remarkable peo- ple have long at- tracted extraor- dinary attention from anthropolo- gists and students of the aboriginal. Frank Hamilton Cushing, whose genius in cer- tain directions has never been equaled among any of his col- leagues, took up his residence at Zuni nearly forty years ago, and became in every sense a full mem- ber of the tribe, looked on as such by the Zuni themselves. He took part in their war expeditions against the hated Apache and Na- vaho raiders; be- came a member of one of the six sacred Kivas, and was initiated into the religious soci- ety of the priests of the bow. A host of other students have fol- lowed in his foot- steps and the list of anthro))ologists Wand swallowed by a iiu'dicine juggler of a religious society. The lower smooth portion of the sliek is thrusi down the throat for a length of foiirte.-ii Iruhes who have visited Zuni includes most of the eminent names in America, such as Powell, McGee, and )VIrs. Stevenson, to mention only some of those no longer li^•ing, as well as Tylor and other famous foreigners. With all this study accomplished, one has howe\'er to be at Zuni only a few days before being aware that our knowl- edge of the life of the people is very in- complete; in fact that in many respects the ground has scarcely been scratched. Mrs. Stevenson for instance has pub- lished a quarto volume four inches thick on the ceremonies and religious system of the Zuni, yet any tourist in a week can see rituals enacted with full pomp to which she barely alludes. It is not that the studies that have been made are in their natiu-e superficial. In fact many of the published accounts are in- tensive in their detail. It is the Zuni life or culture that for all its aboriginal- ity, is so intricatel\' complex that no volume however thick could hold all that is to be said about any one of its several phases. No one knows exactly, but there must be nearly two hundred gods and mythological characters that are impersonated by distinctively masked and costumed dancers. There is not a month, and at certain seasons not a week, without a public dance in the town, and at no time a day without some sort of religious ritual. The family life of the Zuni is lived precisely as if no white man had yet set foot on American soil. The people are tlivided into sixteen clans each named after an animal or plant. Descent in these clans is not from the father as we inherit our names and as titles and royal succession descend in Eiu'ope, but from the mother. A Zuni is of his mother's clan but he recognizes his relationship to his father's people by calling himself the child ( f his father's clan.

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