File:The American Museum journal (c1900-(1918)) (17972422818).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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82 THE AMERICAN MUSEUM JOUHXAL Sante Fe and St. Augustine of Spanish foundation. The tribe numbers six- teen hmidred souls or as many as it could muster after it had gathered itself together after the first disastrous shock of Spanish contact. The houses are still l)uilt in the prehistoric way of stone masonry, mortared and plastered with clay, and rise densely clustered, terraced one above the other to a height of four or five stories. The life too of the Zuhi, runs in the current of long ago. They have bor- rowed from the American his shirt and his overalls, and have learned to like his coffee and sugar, his bacon and wheat flour. Sheep and donkeys they ob- tained long since from the Spaniard, and many today can boast of owning horses and wagons. But inwardly and in all his relations with other Indians, the Zuiii is still purely aboriginal. He does not know whether toda;)' is Sunday or Wednesday, whether it is January or July; or what the American names of the store-keeper, missionary and govern- ment agent are. He knows these people by nicknames which he or some friend has given them, and he reckons time by the number of days to the next cere- monial dance ordained l)y his priests. He supports himself as his forefathers of the immemorial long ago did, through raising corn by hand culture in sandy patches where it would seem that the grain woukl not even sprout. In the middle of the plaza around which his town is built stands a decaying, roofless and gutted Catholic church, which his forefathers built of adobe under the direction of Spanish missionaries; but two centuries of Christian regime ha\'e not influenced the inward spirit of the Zufii. He knew that soldiers stood back of the priest and therefore he obeyed him, yet he hardened his heart against him; and no sooner did Spanish and Mexican authority relax than the Indian quietly shook off the hateful yoke of im- posed religion, and re\-erted openl\- to the ancient native ceremonials which he and his fathers had kept alive l)y secret prac- tices in hidden imderground rooms within fiftv vards of the walls of the mission.
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Paiuled dance tablets with sun, star and cloud sym- bols. There is never a month at Zufii and at some seasons never a week without a public ceremonial dance, and every day brings some religious ritual

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