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Show t^h eret 127 . . .After a few hours ride, (we) reached the first cave. It is that of the (Kokko) or Good Dance and possesses the advantage of being ethnographic as well as archaeologicalt the ceremonies pertaining to it, having been performed during my stay at the Pueblo, and a visit of fifty warriors and priests having been made to it during the past summer. All of the sacrifices made on that occasion, in almost perfect preservation-numbering more than a hundred, I secured, together with remains pertaining to the stone-age, although of the same specific character. Wishing to mislead the volunteer Mexican guide who accompanied me, I did not enter the rear passage, where, by the flickering of my candle I could discern large numbers of still more primitive remains. The companion cave to this I did not for the same reason visit; since through the freely communicated information of the Indians I had months ago come to regard it as extremely rich in modern as well as ancient remains, and neither wished to give it away, nor risk early detecting by the Indians. After a trip of some twenty days and two hundred miles on the backs of mules, Cushing's small party returned to Zuni, where he quickly wrote a long letter to the Bureau of Ethnology reporting his finds. He later said that he sent the materials to Washington in two lots, "the first lot comprising a selected dozen objects sent by hand of Mr. Charles Kirchner," who accompanied him on the 127. 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. What Cushing meant by his "companion cave" can only be conjectured. To the north of the entrance to the cave now used at Kolhu/walatwa is what may have been another entrance, or "rear passage," but which is now collapsed. The current Komosona reports that deep in the cave a collapse of the walls has prevented further penetration by the priests in recent years. No other cave in the vicinity has been reported by the Zunis. - 84 - |
