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Show might be about a person whom the composer saw doing something, drinking in a bar or walking along with his prayersticks. Song narrative can also originate in news items from the Gallup Independent (newspaper) or from television. Song composers, called in Zuni tena- waseyen?ona, are usually men, although some Zuni women arc known to have composed songs which their husbands then took to their kiva group. Zunis do not, however, believe that just everyone can compose new songs. They say that there are only some people born with "song talent," consisting in part of ce?mak ?anikwa, 'a smart mind' or a 'good memory'; as one composer put it, "If you make up a song and then just forget it, that won't mean anything to the people. If you make up a song you'll have to think about it all the time, keep repeating it over and over." Each kiva group in the Kachina Society usually has two or three song composers in its membership. However, the Small Croup and Corn Kernel kivas, both of which have large, active memberships, are particularly known for having many good composers. The Small Group kiva has a long-standing reputation for making new Kachina Call Songs, especially Good Kachina and Downy Feather on a String, while Corn kernel kiva is known for its Log Drum Songs, especially hilili, Crazy Grandchild, and Comanche. Zuni composers feel that good text composition within the Kachina Call genre consists of what sounds at first like the usual lyrics about rain and other blessings, which are often lines from prayers, but is "really about something today, right now." Bunzel (1932b:891) reported a clever topical Good Kachina Song text which seems to fit this ideal: "Say, younger brother, Where are you going? Here you go about greeting us with fair words." "Hither at the north edge of the world Smoke Youth Delights in the songs of the masked gods. So he says, Therefore lie goes about Greeting all the rain makers with fair words." Thus the Dogwood clan man said to all his children. 21 |
