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BRIEF ACCOUNT OF ZUNI MYTHOLOGY.
The Pueblo of Zuni is situated in Western New Mexico on the Rio Zuni,
a tributary of the Little Colorado River. The Zuni have resided
in this region for several centuries. The peculiar geologic and
geographic character of the country surrounding them, as well as its
aridity, furnishes ample sources from which a barbarous people would
derive legendary and mythologic history. A brief reference to these
features is necessary to understand more fully the religious phases of
Zuni child life.
Three miles east of the Pueblo of Zuni is a conspicuously beautiful
mesa, of red and white sandstone, t[=o]-w[=a]-yael laen-ne (corn
mountain). Upon this mesa are the remains of the old village of Zuni.
The Zuni lived during a long period on this mesa, and it was here that
Coronado found them in the sixteenth century. Tradition tells that
they were driven by a great flood from the site they now occupy, which
is in the valley below the mesa, and that they resorted to the mesa
for protection from the rising waters. The waters rose to the very
summit of the mesa, and to appease the aggressive element a human
sacrifice was necessary. A youth and a maiden, son and daughter of two
priests, were thrown into this ocean. Two great pinnacles, which have
been carved from the main mesa by weathering influences, are looked
upon by the Zuni as the actual youth and maiden converted into stone,
and are appealed to as "father" and "mother.
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