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Show those worn by themselves, when they would come in spirit and abide for a time in the persona tors of themselves. The Zunis have their mediums, gifted with superior sight, who see the ghosts. Another author, Frank Waters in his work Masked Godst Navaho and Pueblo Ceremonialism also describes the need for masks and the use of masks, while also discussing the creation of Kolhu/walatwa and the Koyemshi's pink clay that comes from the sacred area. Theater, or drama, is part of the Zunis' lives, in their homes, in their lives at every turn, as they take on supernatural roles for years at a time, or even for their entire life, knowing it is a role and that they are impersonators, but viewing the impersonation as a sacred ritualized activity with a reality in this world and the other. Patrick T. Houlihan, in his foreword to Barton Wright's Kachinas of the Zuni, observes that at Zuni the theater is "just outside their door," while Wright notes that the kachinas live in a "incorporeal parallel world." Wright's book is illustrated with paintings of 220 Zuni Kachinas, painted by Zuni Duane Dishta, who today is one of the permanent guardians of the Shalakos for the Small Group 63 Kiva. These kachinas are intangible spirits whose ranks are composed of several orders of beings, including deities, past heroes, lost children, the ancestral dead, and numerous supernatural assistants or allies.... Mirroring the Zuni people, the kachinas have their own village, Kothluwala, which lies in the depths of the Lake of Whispering Water 62. Waters, Frank Masked Godst Navaho and Pueblo Ceremonialism, Sage Books, Denver, 1950, pp. 277-296. Waters emphasizes the similarities between Buddhist and Zuni religion. 63. Wright, Barton Kachinas of the Zuni, with a foreword by Patrick T. Houlihan and original paintings by Duane Dishta, Northland Press, 1985, pp. ix and 1-4. - 43 - |
