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Show "Kia-tsu-tu-ma" trail, a trail that went more directly south from Ojo Caliente than did Wetsak'yaya Onnane. On this journey of exploration, which took nearly three weeks, Cushing found a series of six Zuni religious sites, where offerings were periodically deposited by Zuni religious officers. Each was associated with a cave or volcanic cinder cone (the arid, grassy plains in that vicinity, the present-day locale of Saint Johns and Springerville, Arizona, are dotted with volcanic cones and flows). Using the information he had learned from the Zunis, Cushing was able to locate a series of offering places in caves along the headwaters of the Little Colorado. Two of them in between Saint Johns and Springerville, he identified as "Crater of the Night" and "Cave of the Oblique Descent." Each had Zuni names, as well. Using climbing gear, he penetrated deep within the caves, and collected sacred offerings which had been left there. Some of the offerings were recent and some ancient. According to Cushing, all evidence indicated that the tribe had been visiting the shrines for ages. By candlelight he explored one cave to a depth of several hundred yards, finding offerings at every level. In all, he took hundreds upon hundreds of sacred offerings, including prayer plumes, religious objects associated with the War Gods of the Zunis, bows and arrows, and war clubs.124 123. Cushing to Baird, January 13, 1881, Hodge-Cushing Collection #48, Southwest Museum. "Copy of a letter to Professor Baird and Major Powell, Zuni, January 13, 1881," 23 pp., typed, National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution, Zuni # 1149, especially p. 15. 124. Cushing, Frank Hamilton "Catalogue of Specimens Collected by F. H. Cushing," Hodge-Cushing Collection #150, Southwest Museum; no date, but evidently drafted at some point after his 1895-96 Florida expedition, which may account for the apparently incorrect dates that he cites. - 82 - |
