[130] If these statements are true one sees that they tell in favor of the theory which the ritual emphasized, and that while in a general way there is a similarity between the ceremonial system of the two people, it is absurd to say that “what is written of one is true also of the other.” Long ago their systems may have been identical; at present they have more or less differentiated one from the other. In Zuñi, according to Mrs Stevenson, “at the winter and summer solstices synchronal meetings of most of these societies are held, and also at other times.” After having carefully studied the ceremonials at the time of the summer solstice at Tusayan, I have not found any synchronal meetings of the societies which correspond with those mentioned as occurring at Zuñi at that time.

[131] It is desirable that the names of the priests who officiate in ceremonials be given in extended accounts of them in order that the intimate character of this sacerdotal organization may be made out. Until the names of the members of the different societies are complete we are more or less hampered in our studies. The Zuñi equivalent of wympkia appears to be kyalikwe (Tcihkyalikwe, Snake priests from tcihtola, snake, and kyalikwe, wympkia). I am unable to tell to what priests in Tusayan the “Ahshiwanni” correspond. The Tawa (Sun) wympkia or Sun priests have certain points in common with them, but this is as truly an esoteric society as any in Tusayan. I have elsewhere described the Tewa ceremony in which the Sun priests make the páhos and their chief, Kálacai, appeals directly to the rising sun. In that same ceremony páhos are likewise made to the Rain gods directly. In the Katcina celebrations some of the same Sun priests, however, appeal to the leader of the Katcinas to bring them rain, and this personage replies that he will. In this case, supposing, as I think we justly can, that the Katcinas are intercessors between men and gods of highest rank, we have in Tusayan the possible equivalent of the “Ahshiwanni (rain priests)” intrusting their prayers to a zoomorphic and anthropomorphic supernatural personage. The prayer of a single chief for rain for the people, showing something similar to the so-called Ahshiwanni at Zuñi, are not uncommon in Tusayan. In Tusayan an organization of rain priests is not differentiated at the present day from the other societies. All holders of wímis are Rain priests, as well as the organization called the Sun priests, and all at times make special prayers to the Rain gods.

[132] Op. cit., p. 314. I believe many facts might be marshaled to prove that ancestor worship is a most vital part of the Tusayan religious system.

[133] See “The Graff collection of Greek portraits,” New England Magazine, January, 1894. Mr J. G. Frazier (Jour. Anth. Inst. of Great Britain and Ireland, vol. XV, p. 73) from comparative studies of burial customs suggests that the habit of masking the dead is “to keep the way to the grave a secret from the dead man.” This explanation seems to me much more labored than that given above.

[134] Hahaíwüqti. I have elsewhere shown reasons to suspect that several personages may be the same “Earth goddess.” Kókyanwüqti, the Spider woman, is also an “Earth goddess.” As everything, even man himself, came from the womb of the earth, symbolized by the spider, it is not surprising that an Indian should call the spider the creator. It is a very different thing, however, to interpret such information by our philosophic ideas. That the primitive should consider the earth as the mother of everything, its creator in one sense, is natural; that the Pueblo Indian should symbolize that mother by the Spider woman is probable, for other races have done likewise; but that he associates with mother earth the spiritual idea which we have of the Creator is absurd. His cosmogony bears no evidence that he rose, in pre-Columbian times, to the belief in a Great Spirit who created the universe.

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