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Show crevice for sixteen or eighteen feet to where the rock was so solid that they both determined no human creature could penetrate farther. They examined the place most carefully by means of an artificial light. Through a small aperture stones could be thrown to a depth from which no sound returned, but excepting this solitary opening all was solid, immovable rock. In this cave many plume sticks were gathered. Near the opening of the cave, or fissure, is a shrine to the Kok'ko, which must be very old, and over and around it are hundreds of the plume sticks and turquoise and shell beads. Cushing had acted against the wishes of the Zunis. The Stevensons did likewise, and with militant disdain. Speaking of the Zunis' traditions concerning Kolhu/walatwa, Mrs. Stevenson called the Zunis "credulous," and openly defied the tribe, she reported that, to the Zunis, "The punishment for visiting the lake without the permission of the Ko'mosona is not only death within four days by the anger of the gods, but severe corporal punishment and perhaps death by order of 134 the Ko'mosona." Nevertheless, knowing this, the Stevensons had pressured an old Zuni man into guiding them to Kolhu/walatwa, ridiculing his belief that it might cause his death. While there, the party took prayer offerings from the sacred cave and collected a quantity of the pink pigment, so sacred to the Zunis, "that if the smallest portion should be parted with no rain would again fall upon the land."1 The Stevenson party also took items from the old, abandoned Catholic mission at 116 Zuni, and Cushing suffered as a result. He explained! A few years since a party of Americans who accompanied me to Zuni desecrated the beautiful antique shrine of the church, carrying 134. Stevenson, 1904, og. cit., p. 155. 135. Ibid., which work also contains a photograph of the lake a ridge overlooking the valley surrounding Kolhu/wala:wa, and a photograph of the shrine-like structure near the entrance to the cave on Korkokshi Yalanne (PL. IV and PL. XXX). 136. Cushing, 1896, og. cit., p. 337. - 89 - |
