An evidence that this was virtually the history of the change from the round kiva building to the square kiva building, and that this change was wrought thus gradually as though by long-continued intercourse, is found in the fact that to this day all the ceremonials performed in the great square kivas of Zuñi would be more appropriate in round structures. For example, processions of the performers in the midwinter night ceremonials in these kivas, on descending the ladders, proceed to their places around the sides of the kivas in circles, as though following a circular wall. The ceremonials of concerted invocation in the cult societies when they meet in these kivas are also performed in circles, and the singers for dances or other dramaturgic performances, although arranged in one end or in the corner of the kiva, continue to form themselves in perfect circles; the drum in the middle, the singers sitting around and facing it as though gathered within a smaller circular room inclosed in the square room. Thus it may be inferred, first, from the fact that in the structural details of the scuttles or hatchways by which these modern kivas are entered the cross-logged structure of the inner roof of the earliest cliff kivas survive, and from the additional fact above stated that the ceremonials of these kivas are circular in form, that the square kiva is a lineal descendant of the round one; and second, that even after the round kiva was inclosed in the square room, so to say, in order that its roof might be made as were the roofs of the women's houses, or continuous therewith, it long retained the round kiva within, and hence the ceremonials necessarily performed circularly within this round inner structure became so associated with the outer structure as well, that after the abandonment entirely, through the influences I have above suggested, of these round inner structures, they continued thus to be performed.
As further evidence of the continuity of this development from the earliest to the latest forms, certain painted marks on the walls of the cliff kivas tell not only of their derivation in turn from a yet earlier form, but also and again of the derivation from them of the latest forms. In the ancient ruins of the scattered round houses, which, it is presumed, mark the sites of buildings belonging to the earlier cliff ancestry folk on the northern desert borders, there are discovered the remains of certain unusually large huts, the walls of which appear to have been strengthened at four equidistant points by firmly planted upright logs. It is probable that, alike in this distribution and in the number of these logs, they corresponded almost strictly to the poles of, first, the medicine tent, and, second, the medicine earth lodge. When, in a later period of their development, these builders of the round huts in the north came to be, as has heretofore been described, dwellers in the kivas of the caves, their larger, presumably ceremonial structures, while reared without the strengthening posts referred to, nevertheless contained, as appropriate parts, the marks of them on the walls corresponding thereto. At any rate, in the still later kivas of the cliffs three parallel marks, extending from the tops of the walls to the floors, are found painted on the four sides of the kivas. Finally, in the modern square kiva of Zuñi there are still placed, ceremonially, once every fourth year, on the four sides of the lintels or hatchways, three parallel marks, and these marks are called by the Zuñi in their rituals the holders-up of the doorways and roofs. Many additional points in connection not only with the structural details of, but also in the ceremonials performed within, these modern kivas, may be found, survivals all pointing, as do those above mentioned, to the unbroken development of the kiva, from the earth medicine lodge to the finished square structure of the modern Zuñi and Tusayan Indians.
It likewise has been seen that through very natural causes a strict division between the dwellings of the women and children and of the adult male population of the cliff villages grew up. From the relatively great numbers of the kivas found in the courts of the round towns, it may be inferred that this division was still kept up after the cliff dwellers became inhabitants of the plains and builders of such round towns; for when first the Spaniards encountered the Zuñi dwellers in the Seven Cities of Cibola they found that, at least ceremonially, this division of the men's quarters from those of the women was still persisted in, but there is evidence that even thus early it was not so strictly held to on other occasions. Then, as now, the men became permanent guests, at least, in the houses of their wives, and it is probable that the cause which broke down this previous strict division of the sexes was the union of the western or rancheria building branch of the Zuñi ancestry with the cliff and round-town building branch.
In nothing is the dual origin of the Zuñis so strongly suggested as in the twofold nature of their burial customs at the time when first they were encountered by the Spaniards; for according to some of the early writers they cremated the dead with all of their belongings, yet according to others they buried them in the courts, houses, or near the walls of their villages. It has already been stated that the cliff dwellers buried their dead in the houses and to the rear of their cavern villages, and that, following them in this, the dwellers in the round towns buried their dead also in the houses and to the rear—that is, just outside of their villages. It remains to be stated that nearly all of the Yuman tribes, and some even of the Piman tribes, of the lower Colorado region disposed of their dead chiefly by cremation. Investigation of the square-house remains which lie scattered over the southwestern and central portions of Arizona would seem to indicate that the western branch of the Zuñi ancestry continued this practice of cremating the greater number of their dead. If this be true, the custom on the one hand of cremating the dead, which was observed by Castañeda at Mátsaki, one of the principal of the Seven Cities of Cibola, and the practice of burying the dead observed by others of the earliest Spanish explorers, are easily accounted for as being survivals of the differing customs of the two peoples composing the Zuñi tribe at that time. As has been mentioned in the first part of this introductory, both of these very different customs continued ceremonially to be performed, even after disposal of the dead solely by burial under the influence of the Franciscan fathers came to be an established custom.
In the Kâ´kâ, or the mythic drama dance organization of the Zuñis, there is equal evidence of dual origin, for while in the main the kâ´kâ of the Zuñis corresponds to the katzina of the Rio Grande Pueblo tribes and to the kachina of the Tusayan Indians, yet it possesses certain distinct and apparently extraneous features. The most notable of these is found in that curious organization of priest-clowns, the Kâ´yimäshi, the myth of the origin of which is so fully given in the following outlines (see [page 401]). It will be seen that in this myth these Kâ´yimäshi are described as having heads covered with welts or knobs, that they are referred to not only as "husbands of the sacred dance" or the "kâ´kâ" (from kâ´kâ and yémäshi, as in óyemäshi, husband or married to) and as the Old Ones or Á‘hläshiwe.
Throughout the Rio Colorado region, and associated with all the remaining ruins of the rancheria builders in central and even eastern Arizona as well, are found certain concretions or other nodular and usually very rough stones, which today, among some of the Yuman tribes, are used as fetiches connected both with water worship and household worship. Among the sacred objects said to have been brought by the Zuñi ancestry from the places of creation are a number of such fetich-stones, and in all the ruins of the later Zuñi towns such fetich-stones are also found, especially before rude altars in the plazas and around ancient, lonely shrines on the mesas and in the mountains. These fetich-stones are today referred to as á‘hläshiwe, or stone ancients, from a, a stone, ‘hlä´shi, aged one, and we, a plural suffix. The resemblance of this name to the Á‘hläshiwe as a name of the Kâ´yemäshi strongly suggests that the nodular shape and knobbed mask-heads of these priest-clowns are but dramatic personifications of these "stone ancients," and if one examine such stones, especially when used in connection with the worship and invocation of torrents, freshets, and swift-running streams (when, like the masks in question, they are covered with clay), the resemblance between the fetich-stones and the masks is so striking that one is inclined to believe that both the characters and their names were derived from this single source. From the fact that this peculiar institution of the clown-priest organization, associated with or, as the Zuñis say, literally married to the Cachina, or Kâ´kâ proper, was at one time peculiarly Zuñi, as is averred by themselves and avowed by all the other Pueblos, it would seem that it was distinctively an institution of the western branch of their ancestry, since also, as the myths declare, these Old Ones were born on the sacred mountains of the Kâ´kâ, on the banks of the Colorado Chiquito in Arizona. Finally, this is typical of many, if not all, features which distinguish the Zuñi Kâ´kâ from the corresponding organizations of other Pueblo tribes.
OUTLINE OF ZUÑI MYTHO-SOCIOLOGIC ORGANIZATION.
A complete outline of the mytho-sociologic organization of the Zuñi tribe can not in this connection be undertaken. A sufficient characterization of this probably not unique combination of the sociologic and mythologic institutions of a tribe should, however, be given to make plain certain allusions in the following outlines which it is feared would otherwise be incomprehensible.
The Zuñi of today number scarcely 1,700 and, as is well known, they inhabit only a single large pueblo—single in more senses than one, for it is not a village of separate houses, but a village of six or seven separate parts in which the houses are mere apartments or divisions, so to say. This pueblo, however, is divided, not always clearly to the eye, but very clearly in the estimation of the people themselves, into seven parts, corresponding, not perhaps in arrangement topographically, but in sequence, to their subdivisions of the "worlds" or world-quarters of this world. Thus, one division of the town is supposed to be related to the north and to be centered in its kiva or estufa, which may or may not be, however, in its center; another division represents the west, another the south, another the east, yet another the upper world and another the lower world, while a final division represents the middle or mother and synthetic combination of them all in this world.
By reference to the early Spanish history of the pueblo it may be seen that when discovered, the Áshiwi or Zuñis were living in seven quite widely separated towns, the celebrated Seven Cities of Cibola, and that this theoretic subdivision of the only one of these towns now remaining is in some measure a survival of the original subdivision of the tribe into seven subtribes inhabiting as many separate towns. It is evident that in both cases, however, the arrangement was, and is, if we may call it such, a mythic organization; hence my use of the term the mytho-sociologic organization of the tribe. At any rate, this is the key to their sociology as well as to their mythic conceptions of space and the universe. In common with all other Indian tribes of North America thus far studied, the Zuñis are divided into clans, or artificial kinship groups, with inheritance in the female line. Of these clans there are, or until recently there were, nineteen, and these in turn, with the exception of one, are grouped in threes to correspond to the mythic subdivision I have above alluded to. These clans are also, as are those of all other Indians, totemic; that is, they bear the names and are supposed to have intimate relationship with various animals, plants, and objects or elements. Named by their totems they are as follows: