Personal Life

Conception Pregnancy, and Birth: Sometimes, as at Isleta, efforts are made to prevent conception. These are usually magical in character and are not in general use. After a woman becomes pregnant, she is forbidden various activities because of beliefs that in same magical way the child will be injured. For example, she must not go into a house where a dead person is lying. She should be generous, especially to children. She should not turn her back on the fire or the sun. For a varying period before birth is expected, intercourse between husband and wife is forbidden. The father also has prenatal prohibitions for the welfare of the child. He must not go hunting, slaughter animals, or engage in other proscribed activities.

Men are rarely present at birth: never the husband or close relatives. A woman midwife usually officiates. In some towns, at Isleta and perhaps Tewa, the medicine societies have a specialist who is sent, but in most cases a member of a medicine society would be called in only in case of emergency although frequently a medicine society member will purify the expectant mother shorty before the birth is expected. In any case the assistance of a medicine society member is purely magical; whatever mechanical manipulation is used, generally massage or squeezing the abdomen, is performed by the midwife. Birth is generally in a kneeling position, the infant being received on a sheepskin placed on a specially prepared sand bed. Twins are considered unlucky.

The umbilical cord is cut or burned with a coal. The after birth is thrown in the river, buried on the river bank, or under the house ladder or in one of the corn fields. The infant is bathed shortly after birth by the midwife, medicine society member if one is present, or one of the grandmothers. Generally the child is held up and offered to the cardinal directions, and a prayer said. Confinement is four days, that is, during this time the mother does not leave the house, although she may get up sooner.

After four days the mother leaves the house for the first time. The child is taken out by a member of a medicine society, in which case an altar is set up in the room first and certain rituals performed, or some female relative takes the child outside and offers it to the sun with a prayer. Usually the child's first name is applied at this time, although practise varies a little. In most towns it is the father's sister who commonly give the name. Offerings are frequently made at this time of prayer sticks, sacred meal, etc. Names usually refer to natural objects or phenomena.

A fire poker or a perfect, fully kernelled ear of corn is usually kept by the child to protect it from witches and ghosts, particularly if the child must be left alone in the room. Ashes are frequently rubbed on the child as a protection against witches. Lightning-struck wood is preferred in making cradles for the same reasons.

The upbringing of children is rather strict. They are forced to rise early and are taught to help their parents. Boys are often forced to bathe in icy water in early morning and to go several hours without drinking water. Nevertheless, parents are fond of children and rarely abuse them. Lullabies are sung to infants.

Infants are nursed, usually well into the next pregnancy. If it is desired to wean the child, bitter substances such as sheep gall are rubbed on the nipples.

Children are often given presents by the masked dancers: dolls for the girls, bows and arrows for the boys. These presents are secretly made and given to the dancers by the parents.

There are practically no ceremonies directly connected with adolescence. Both girls and boys are instructed as to the physiological changes at this time, before they occur, and a girl may be told to keep her feet dry, not wash her hair, etc., but there is no social or ceremonial recognition of the first menses as is common among so many primitive tribes. About the time of physiological maturity boys are usually initiated into the secrets of the masked dancers. (Parsons, 1919b, 1923c, 1925a, 1929b, 1932; Goldfrank, 1927; White, 1932, 1932a; Dumarest; Spencer.)

Bridal dress is elaborate and partly native. At Cochiti the bride wears tanned deerskin leggings or moccasins and a dress of dark blue Hopi cloth. A gaudy piece of colored silk trimmed with lace hangs over the hips and, if wealthy, the bride is loaded with necklaces of turqoise, little sliver crosses, and a necklace of silver balls. The fingers are covered with rings of brass and silver. The groom wears a new shirt, red kerchief, new trowners, new moccasins, dyed red and yellow, and an immense blanket, often drawn in at the waist with a broad leather belt ornamented with round silver placques of Navaho workmanship. At his left side he wears a little bag, sometimes beaded, containing cornmeal or pollen. On feast days leggings of red and yellow buckskin fringed the same way at the seams.

Marriage restrictions cannot be discussed fully here except to say that where there is no other bar than blood kinship, the extent to which blood relationship forbids marriage is more extensive than the restrictions of the Catholic Church. (Parsons, 1919b, 1925a, 1929b, 1932; White, 1932, 1932a: Gold frank, 1927; Dumerest.)

Death: Buried of the dead occurs the same day, unless it cannot be completed before nightfall. In the latter case burial is postponed until the following day. Various rites are performed with the corpse either by relatives, by members of the ceremonial corn group to which the deceased belongs (Isleta), or by the head of a medicine society (San Felipe). The rites vary from town to town, but consist essentially of sprinkling the corpse with sacred meal or pollen, making a meal road from the corpse to the door, washing the corpse or washing the head of the corpse. Not all these occur in every village. Food and sometimes belongings are usually buried with the dead. Generally the door of the room must be kept open until the corpse is buried or, sometimes, until four days after death.

The soul of the dead is generally supposed to remain about the house for four days. At that time a ceremonialist, usually the head of one of the medicine societies, sets up an altar and performs rites to purify the house and exorcise the inmates. Food offerings are made to the dead and either miniature garments and other articles, or the clothing and other property of the dead, slightly mutilated to show they are for the dead, are offered at shrines along with food and prayer sticks (of which a special variety is made for the dead). The shrines are usually to the north, which is where the dead are supposed to go. The dead are almost universally conceived of as becoming cloud or rain spirits, the well-known kachina, which are represented in the masked dances. Not all the kachina (Keresan k'atsana, Tewa Oxuhwa) are supposed to be the dead but the dead with few exceptions become rain-bringing spirits. When a really prominent ceremonialist dies, it is expected often that there will be a thunderstorm, which is an indication that the rain spirits have come for the soul of the dead. There is no formalized ancestors worship as such, however.

Most of the Pueblos under Catholic influence observe All Soul's Day, November 2. All sorts of food are taken to shrines at the north or to the church. The people fast and all the property of the household is displayed. It is believed that the spirits of the dead return this night and partake of the essence of the food offered and admire the property of the household they have left. It some cases the men assemble in the ceremonial houses and kivas and some of the societies dance, often at each house in the village. (Parsons, 1920, 1925a, 1917; 1929b, 1932; Goldfrank, 1927; White, 1932, 1932a; M. C. Stevenson, 188.)

Sickness and Curing: Aside from certain diseases of recognized natural origin, all sickness is believed to be sent by witches. Any longstanding illness or epidemic is caused by them. There is nothing a Pueblo Indian mortally hates and fears a much as a witch. In former times a person suspected of being a witch would be killed; at least this is known to have occurred in some villages and probably once was universal, as it was among other tribes. The American government is probably the only deterrent today in many towns. Witches are the more dangerous in that anyone, even a close relative, may be a witch and working against one's health and welfare. There are a few exceptions to the witch-theory of disease causation. Certain diseases may be supernaturally sent by animals, particularly ants, which may cause skin disease.

Witches cause sickness by sending foreign objects into the body of the victim or by stealing the soul, or heart. The two are usually equated. The methods used by witches are not usually known. Witches generally have places of assemblage, frequently in caves, and are believed able to turn themselves into various animals, dogs, cats, owls, coyote, crew, wolf, bear, and into one type of clown. Owl and crow feathers and cactus spines are part of a witch's paraphernalia. The particular clowns known as koshare (or equivalents) are believed to have close contacts with black magic and so are the members of the medicine societies. Anyone seen around graveyards, peering into doors and windows, etc., may be suspected as a witch. There is no doubt that many of these concepts have been reinforced by Spanish witchcraft beliefs, but on the other hand the whole pattern is undoubtedly basically similar to widespread and unquestionably native practises and beliefs in respect to the power of evilly disposed medicine men.

Ashes, bear paws, and flints of all sorts, particularly knives and arrow points, are considered potent prophylactics against witches.

If witchcraft is suspected, a member of a medicine society is called to effect a cure. Should the illness be serious, the whole society may be summoned. The curing involves the setting up of an altar, the use of various items of paraphernalia such as fetish stones figuring the prey animals, mountain lion, wolf, bear, etc., which are patrons of the medicine societies; the use of bear paws, flints, medicine water, and sacred meal, prayers and exorcism, and divination by gazing into the medicine bowl or a crystal. If the disease is caused by intrusion of foreign objects, the medicine men either suck the objects out of the patients body or brush them out with feathers.

If the disease involves the stealing of the heart by the witch, the doctors must find the heart. This involves going out from the room in which the cure is being effected and fighting with the witches which have the heart in custody. The doctor wears a bear paw on his left arm and carries a flint knife. He is accompanied by the war captains. He has struggles with the witches, invisible of course to anyone else, and eventually brings back the heart, sometimes a doll within which is a ball of rags containing grains of corn, or simply the ball itself with the corn inside. Examination of the condition of the corn grains reveals whether the heart has been damaged. If it has, the patient will not recover, but if they are in good condition, they are swallowed by the patient. Sometimes the doctor captures a witch which is brought in as a small figure and killed by the war captain. The doctor frequently returns in an exhausted condition and goes into a sort of trance or frenzy. (See section on medicine societies.)

In most of the towns there is a communal curing and cleansing ceremony each spring at which all the medicine societies perform in their chambers. Everyone goes to one or another of the medicine society meetings and is exorcised and perhaps has objects sucked or brushed from him. The doctors often go out to fight witches and return with a "communal heart" containing many grains of corn, one of which is given to each person to swallow. (Parsons, 1920, 1925a; White, 1932, 1932a; Goldfrank, 1927; M. C. Stevenson, 1884; Dumarest.)

Social Organization

Two types of social organization appear on the Rio Grande, the bilateral patrilineal family similar to our own, and a clan organization. In a clan organization, each person is born into the group of one parent, the mothers in the case of the Pueblos, and all members of the mother's group are regarded as relatives, so that marriage is necessarily with someone not a member of the mother's group or clan. Usually the member's of the father's clan are also all regarded as relatives and hence un-marriageable, even though there be no actual blood relationship.

In Isleta, Taos, Picuris, and probably Sandia, that is, in the Tigua speaking Pueblos, there are no clans, not even a vestige. Descent is reckoned patrilineally or, perhaps more accurately, bi-laterally. One set of relatives is not more important than the other. Marriage with any blood relative, including cousins, is forbidden. House and land ownership and inheritance follow the same principles that they do among ourselves; the surviving wife or husband may inherit, or property is divided more or less equally among the children regardless of sex-conditioned, of course, by the usual considerations of need, age, and previous assistance rendered by the parents, as well as purely personal questions of favoritism.

The Tewa towns have a vestige of clans, membership in which is through the mother, as elsewhere among the Pueblos. The name applied to these clans (sun, corn, turquoise, etc.) are the same or similar to names occurring in towns with a full fledged clan organization. Tewa clans, however, have no regulatory function. Marriage may be within the clan or outside it, according to personal desires, and the entire social fabric is organized as if the clans were not there, i. e., precisely as in the clanless Tigua towns. Consequently it is evident that either the clans are decadent or are relatively recent importations which do not really function in Tewa society. The latter hypothesis seems the most reasonable at present, for although Spanish influence might be suspected in the patrilineal formation of Tewa and Tigua society, yet certain aspects such as the forbidden degrees of relationship in marriage go beyond Spanish custom and there is no a priori reason to assume that the bilateral family is not native. It is well known to occur in various primitive societies, including many of the neighbors of the eastern Pueblos.

The Keres and Jemez have a full-fledged clan system with descent reckoned through the mother. The more westerly towns have the most complex system. This reckoning of descent through the mother has important effects upon inheritance and property ownership. There is a tendency towards female house ownership and inheritance of houses by women rather than men, which in the most western Pueblos such as Acoma, becomes more developed but far from universal. As we shall see, female house ownership and inheritance become universal with the western Pueblos, the Hopi and Zuni. In all the Keresan towns and at Jemez there is a marked consciousness of the clan members, clan heads who settle disputes within the clan and represent clan members in problems arising with members of other clans, etc. Santo Domingo Jemez, Laguna, and Acoma have ceremonial clan functions.

Despite the clan organization, the bilateral family does not disappear among the Keres and Jemez. Both father's and mother's relatives are recognized and accorded a place in family relations. (Parsons, 1923c, 1923d, 1924b, 1925a, 1929b, 1932, 1932a; Goldfrank, 1927; White, 1932, 1932a).

Political Organization

The political organization of the eastern Pueblos is known to be a modified Spanish form, in large measure. Usually the Pueblos are referred to as intensely democratic on the basis of their town government which is assumed to be elected. Only in one town, Isleta, does there seem to be actually the form of election, and here all the candidates are nominated by the religious organization. Elsewhere the meetings which are assumed to be elections are actually held to notify people of the choices which have been made by the town chief or head of the ceremonial organization, usually with the advice or approval of the heads of the medicine societies. Consequently it is clear that the government of the Pueblos is actually a theocracy.

The town officials all serve for one year without compensation. They are chosen by the religious officials in December and are generally invested with their offices on January 6, when the important officers receive canes symbolizing their authority. The canes now in use are generally the so-called Lincoln canes. These are sprinkled with corn meal and blessed by the town chief and sometimes other functionaries, usually in the town chief's house. There is usually a council in addition to the elected officials, of varying composition.

The civil officials have rather restricted functions. They settle internal disputes of a secular nature such as land disputes, theft, murder, domestic disagreements, etc. Murder is very uncommon and apparently sometimes is compounded by a payment to the family of the victim. The civil officials also are very useful in acting as a screen to the real government, the theocracy. They are the go-betweens between the theocratic officials and the whites, particularly the government. So well do they serve this function that whites who have lived for years in fairly close contact with the Pueblos are often unaware of the existence of the town chiefs and other ceremonial officials.

The grouping of officials can best be illustrated by specific examples. Isleta has a governor, lieutenant governor, a lieutenant, head war chief, six war captains or assistant war chiefs, two majordomos in charge of the irrigation ditch, a town crier (life-long office), and a council of 12 men.

The Tewa have a characteristic organization scheme which runs through both secular and religious offices, of a head man and two assistants called the right-hand man and the left-hand man. San Juan officials are governor and three assistants plus right-hand man (lieutenant) and left-hand man (sheriff), the outside chief (war captain) with five assistants who act as police, and a crier who holds office for life. The war captain plans the winter dance series, guards ceremonies, and repairs the ceremonial houses. Some of the other Tewa towns have one or more fiscals who are connected in Spanish towns with the church but here have only the function of burying the dead.

Jemez has a governor, lieutenant governor, two fiscals with five assistants, two war captains with six youths as assistants.

Cochiti has a governor and lieutenant governor, war captain and lieutenant, fiscal, lieutenant, six little fiscals and six helpers of the war captain.

Acoma has a governor, two lieutenant governors, three fiscals, majordomo or ditch boss, and three outside chiefs.

Although the war captain is an annually appointed officer with police functions, who corresponds to certain Spanish officials, it is clear there has been some sort of amalgamation of functions here. The war captain as a policeman does not obey the governor but the town chief as head of the religious organization. They are intimately connected with ceremonial organization, often plan dances, repair religious or ceremonial houses, often have ceremonies of their own to perform, and must be present at every meeting of the medicine societies, whether members or not. In fact, at Cochiti no secular official may be a member of a medicine society. (Parsons, 1920a, 1923c, 1923d; Goldfrank, 1927; White, 1932, 1932a.)

Religion

The religion of the Pueblos may be summarized under the heading of three or four fundamental cults. These are, first and preeminently, particularly in the west, the Kachina-death weather control and fertility cult, the curing-animal supernatural cult, particularly developed in the east, and the war hunting cult. Possibly the last is a relatively modern fusion of two separate cults due to a decline in the importance of the two activities, but in many ways they seem to be intracately associated. Each of these cults has its organization which is responsible for carrying out the activities and rituals connected with it. These organizations are to some extent parallel and sometimes interwoven. In similar fashion functions of each organization are somewhat blurred so that the curing and war societies may at times exercise weather control functions, while the kachina cult sometimes exercises curing and even war functions. The emphasis also varies from place to place so that, for example, the Hopi medicine societies are preeminently weather control societies with the curing function distinctly in the background. There are at best many loose ends which cannot be tucked into this neat scheme, but a scheme we must have to effect any concise statement of Pueblo religion and ceremonial, and certain broad generalizations may be made validly on the basis of these categories.

The weather control group or kachina cult seems to be the most fundamental aspect of Pueblos religion, although the kachina cult itself is probably a later overlay upon an older weather control organization. The kachina spirits are supernaturals who bring rain and good health. They were created at the time of the first emergence of the people from their underground home or shortly thereafter. Some of the Pueblos say that part of the people fell in the water and were drowned after the emergence, thus becoming the kachina. Usually it is said the kachina, who thus represented the dead, formerly returned to earth and visited the living, dancing for them in the villages. To see their dead relatives made people sad; furthermore, whenever the kachina came, they took back with them some of the living, which still saddened those upon the earth. Finally the kachina gave the people masks and costumes they now wear so that they could dress like the kachina and perform the dances of the kachina. Then the actual kachina would return in spirit, bringing the rain with them. While wearing the mask, the person impersonating a kachina becomes for the time being the actual embodiment of the spirit which is considered to reside in the mask. Thus the impersonator is charged with supernatural power and becomes dangerous for ordinary people to touch until he has been discharmed at the end of the performance after removing the mask. Today the dead are said to become kachina and return with the rain just as do the old kachina. When a prominent ceremonial leader dies, it is said the clouds will gather and it will rain because the kachina have come for him. Occasionally it is said also that the dead return to the earth mother, who live below ground or below a lake, in the original subterranean home of the peoples of the world, but this does not prevent them from becoming kachina also, for these spirits are associated with lakes and in some obscure way with the earth mother. Usually the kachina are conceived of as living in the west where they live as do the people upon earth, having the same sort of organization and performing the same ceremonies.

Sometimes some of the kachina are conceived of as not being ancestral beings but to have been created or to have existed at the time of the emergence. There does not seem to be, however, any distinction in attitude toward these pre-existent kachina The recent dead in any case are not supposed to be impersonated nor are specific kachina impersonations supposed to represent specific dead. There is no real ancestor worship involved.

In some places such as Cochiti there are other spirits called shiwanna or rain clouds, who are spoken of as if they were separate from the kachina. Even here, there is some vague association and in most towns the rainclouds and kachina are identified, the rainclouds being merely the mask behind which the kachina move and bring bowls of rain which they pour upon the earth. It is not the cloud that rains.

Other supernaturals are supposed to have power to produce rain. The war gods or god especially are powerful rain makers. The functions are less specific, however, and they are not supplicated by the rain maker groups.

In general the kachina are masked in impersonation, but this is not universal. There are unmasked kachina ceremonies in most Pueblos and in the east the number of masked performances is relatively small. Added to the fact that there are fewer types of masks or impersonations in the east, and that the mask is virtually non-existent at Taos, not being worn in dances, it is reasonably evident that the center and probable place of origin of the kachina cult is not on the Rio Grande but to the west. More specifically, its main development probably took place at Zuni and thence spread to Hopi, Keres, and Tewa, the last being the least affected. This is not to say that the whole kachina cult is a purely Zuni creation: Zuni is merely the place where the kachina cult is most firmly rooted with more masks and ceremonies, and where presumably more of the development took place than elsewhere.

Associated with the kachina are one or more, generally two, clown groups. These are supposed to have been created in various ways, according to native theory, but the primary purpose they serve seems to have been to prevent people from being too saddened by seeing the kachina and also to act as heralds, police, and general assistants of the kachina. They almost always appear only in association with the kachina, performing various clowning actions, including obscenity, burlesque and satire, as well as more serious functions, acting as police, bringing in the kachina, and often having important rituals of their own connected not only with the weather, but with curing and sometimes with war. In addition, it is often suspected that they have close association with black magic. They are sometimes classed as kachina themselves of a special sort. Their close association with kachina has yet to be explained on both historical and psychological grounds, as well as the problem of their dualism. This dualism runs through much of the kachina organization and requires explanation before the history of Pueblo ceremonialism is adequately explained. It appears most strongly where the kachina organization is least developed but is present everywhere and seems most closely associated with the weather control aspect of Pueblo religion.

The kachina organizations and the kachina dances are intimately associated with those religious structures known as kivas. These are in many respects men's club houses as well as religious structures. Their organization in connection with the kachina cult approaches that of a men's secret society, for in many of the Pueblos the women and uninitiated boys are theoretically and in some cases actually in ignorance of the true nature of the kachinas, believing that the impersonations are the actual spirits materialized upon earth.

Although the kachina cult as such is not universal or fully developed among all the Pueblos, the kivas and some sort of attendant organization are to be found everywhere, and function as a rain and fertility cult, whether they equate specifically with the kachinas or not. Since the great bulk of the kachina ceremonials and dances, as well as the kachina organization are associated with the kiva, while no other cult or organization has any direct relation with the kiva, it may be postulated with some certainty that the kiva and kiva organizations are an earlier and conceptualization of the rain and fertility cult which to the west developed into the kachina cult. This cult has not yet spread to all the Rio Grande pueblos in fully developed form.

It is in the kachina and kiva organizations that one also finds an expression of dualism. In the east, the Kiva organization is on a dual principle; that is, the entire population is divided in membership between two kivas. This finds its best expression among the Tewa and most easterly Keresan peoples as well as at Isleta. Taos has some sort of dual organization which is not yet fully understood.

This division of the Pueblo into two parts, or moteties, has usually been described in connection with social organization. It is true that it looms as large in the consciousness of the people of the Rio Grande as does the clan among the western Pueblos, but it has no real relation to the social organization. In some places the moiety or dual division to which one belongs is determined by the membership of one's father, but this is far from universal and there is no moiety or kiva on marriage, and there is no regulatory function in marriage. A woman will join her husband's moiety or kiva on marriage, and, in case of intermoiety marriages in some Pueblos, the children will alternate between the kivas, the eldest to one, the next eldest to the other, etc. All this is hardly characteristic of any type of social organization and the moiety is evidently a ceremonial device associated with the kiva and with rain and fertility functions.

The clown organizations fall in with this dual division everywhere except among the Tewa. In most eastern towns they are definitely connected with the kivas by a variety of associations and in both east and west they are associated with the kachina. At Isleta the clown and the kiva organizations are identical. Elsewhere the two clown organizations are connected with the two kivas and also have the same division into winter and summer associations that is found among the kivas. It is entirely possible that the clown is the unmasked prototype in the east, out of which developed the western kachina. At Acoma and Zuni one of the widespread clown organizations has become identical with the kachina society and lost its clown functions. Acoma, Zuni, and Hopi do not have the dual kiva or moiety system. Acoma and Zuni have, or formerly had, six kivas connected with the kachina organization, but these kivas are themselves aligned into two groups upon certain occasions. The aberrant clown group of Zuni, the koyenshi, may have developed to take the place of the clown group absorbed in the kachina organization. (Parsons, 1920, 1920a, 1923d, 1924, 1925a, 1929b, 1932; White, 1932, 1932a; Goldfrank, 1927.)

The Pantheon: The Pueblo pantheon varies relatively little from town to town. There is no real grading or hierarchy of the supernaturals in the Pueblo mind. They are ordered, not by the character of their powers, but by the sequence in which they emerged from the underworld into the present world. This sequential aspect is therefore intimately connected with emergence myths. The type of these myths is rather similar throughout the Pueblos, although the specific content varies considerably. The Pueblos have no account of a real creation; rather, the various spirits, animals, and people emerged from a sort of underworld. The people emerged in different orders; so, too, did the various spirits which have power, over the universe. In these emergence myths, which include a description of a lengthy period of migration before the people finally settled in their present locations, occur the incidents which led to the founding of the present order of society and which afford the justification of the customs and rites practiced. Consequently there is an ordering or hierarchy of spirits which has nothing to do with their various powers and importance.

In the main the supernatural powers and spirits of the Pueblos do not command or dominate one another. Each spirit or class of spirits, or supernatural beings has its sphere of influence and its functions. Within this sphere it is supreme, but it has no influence or effect upon that which lies outside its sphere. Consequently there is no rigid scheme of ritual or observance ordered with relation to the differing importance of the spirit or class of spirits.

In view of this we find that, although the spirits or pantheon of the Pueblos are very homogeneous, the importance assigned the various spirits varies from town to town. Thus the important war gods of Zuni become mere mythological personages at Taos.

The spirits of the Pueblos all exhibit anthropomorphic characteristics. Like the Greek gods, they have been known to mingle with men in human form. Even the spirits conceived of as animals have only to remove their skins and they will become men in shape and appearance, although retaining their supernatural attributes and powers.

The Pueblo spirits may be classified as cosmic, including Sun, Moon, Earth, Stars, Wind; animal: including the prey animals, Puma, Deer, Wolf, etc., Water Serpent, Spider; and ancestral or human, including most of the kachina, Skeleton and the War Gods. "Sun is a traveller, and begets sons, and tests them; certain stars have once lived as men or women on the earth, not to speak of the very human war spirits who are yet associated with the stars; Earth is a benevolent mother; Spider, a resourceful and ever helpful grand-mother; Wind, a malevolent old woman; Salt and Turquoise are touchy beings who run away from careless men; Coyote is a trickster who not merely cheats the other animals but beguiles girls into marrying him; Paiyetamu or Taiowa is a seducer of a higher class, a youthful musician; the Water Serpents act as police to men; Mountain Lion is the great hunter; the Bears are doctors.

"Identified with direction are the cloud beings or spirits of rain fertility, par excellence the kachina, including warrior spirits such as the shalako or salymobia of Zuni or the towae of the Tewa, and the Water Serpents of Jemez. The zenith or the east is associated with the Sun; the nadir with the Mother who lives underground. At Zuni, less definitely among Keres and Tewa, the animal supernaturals are also assignable to the directions — Mountain Lion to the north, Bear to the west, Badger to the south, Wolf to the east, Eagle to the zenith, Mole or other burrower to the nadir." (Parsons, 1924, p. 146.)

A few specific examples may illustrate the scope of the pantheon. The Tewa have the Mother or Mothers, here not clearly separable from the corn ear fetishes by which they are represented; Sun, Moon, Stars, all more important than in most Pueblos; and lightning, Universe or World Man, Fire Flower Woman, Wind Woman, Wind Man, Ragged Woman, Mean Old Woman, Mean Old Man, Salt Woman, Spider Woman, Cactus Grandmother, the Cloud Beings (Oxuhwa or kachina) who are the dead and send the rain when kachina dances are performed, the Grandfathers, War Spirits, Two Water Serpents, and Poseyemu. (Parsons, 1929b, pp. 264-276.)

At Laguna, the Sun is head of the pantheon, associated with his son, or perhaps himself as a youth. The Sun Youth is the "handsome lover of many maidens." Then follow, Moon, Stars, (e. g., Milky Way, Morning Star, etc.), Twin War Gods, associated with a star, Storm Clouds, Lightning, Earth Mother, most authentic deity and the central figure, and the kachina.

At Acoma there is the Sun, father of the twin war gods, Masewi and Oyoyewi; the Kachina, anthropomorphic rain spirits the k'obishtaiya, the ill-defined but powerful spirits who dwell in the east; the Mother, who is perhaps most important, and who lives, as elsewhere, at the place of emergence; Moon, Stars, Clouds, Lightning, the Four Rain Makers of the cardinal directions; the Hunting Gods, among who the Cougar is paramount; and the Medicine or curing gods. (White, 1932, pp. 66-67. Also cf. Parsons, 1924, 1932, 1923d, 1925a; Goldfrank, 1927; White, 1932a.)