The scalp ceremonial of Zuñi / by Elsie Clews Parsons.

  • Elsie Clews Parsons
Date:
1924
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The scalp ceremonial of Zuñi / by Elsie Clews Parsons. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    that the Scalp chief carries a plant wand. It is his pep’oanne, consisting of a hook growing plant called petskoa (whence the name pep’oanne), a piece of greasewood, and four pieces of yucca to which prayer-feathers are attached. (16) A short time before midday people begin to gather in the plaza, at dawn chairs had been set out on the housetops to preempt good places, and about midday from the northern entrance ad¬ vancing into the plaza by dance step appeared a major part of the Zuni hierarchy. They came in three lines, the pekwin leading the middle line advance, and the chief of the Coyote society well in the rear. The Coyote society man might have been recognized, I was told, by his hair feather {la’showane). It was an eagle wing- feather tied curving up, “like a spoon,” i.e. concavely {la’shokone, la’, feather, shokone, concave). A hair feather of this kind is al¬ ways worn by Coyote society members. Their chief had been invited into the ceremonial by the pekwin, with the cigarette of invitation. Whenever in the singing a prey animal v/as mentioned it was the part of the Coyote society chief to growl, acting like wolf or mountain lion. Next to the pekwin came the other high priests, first the three kyakweamosi, house chiefs, the cacique group, Chico, T’sa’tsana,^^ and Tsi’autiwa, then Waihusiwa of the palokwe or priests of the West,^® Okash, priest of the South, Lemi, priest of the East; fol¬ lowed Ha’ ts’ i, priest of the Is’ u’ etone and Na’kyawan, of the same priesthood,^® Mome, guardian of the pa’ etone,'^’’ a boy of the Corn He is chief {mosona). My informant thought Chico was chief, but her father corrected. The confusion has occurred before. Is it because the chief walks between his two assistants, not ahead? The confusion as to whether these priests are of the Eastor West was illustrated here by my informant and her father, she thinking the palokwe represented the east, her father asserting that they represented the west. These men and two others go into retreat on the fifth day of the eight day retreat of the priesthood of the South, joining that priesthood. (Cp. Kroeber, 175 n. 6). “Now it will be cold and windy,” people say. On this fifth day the priests of the South resume the eating of meat. The priests of the ts'u’clone are the children (chawe) of the priests of the South. (Cp. Stevenson, M. C. The Zuni Indians. Ann. Rep. Bur. Amer. Ethn. xxiii, 598n. b.) ” With him should have been his nephew, but the school would not e.'ccuse him.