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Show Birds', after the spokesmen of the 9uwanammi (Bunzel 1932c:639, 695), mdyatokka siwani 'Sun Priest', because he is the keeper of the calendar and the spokesman of the Sun Father himself (Kroeber 1916:274-275). In the sixth position, representing the nadir, is the Bow Priest of the House Chiefs; he is a member of the Society of Bow Priests and is called tek9ohannan pi9la siwani 'Daylight Bow Priest' to distinguish him from other members. The Sun Priest and the Daylight Bow Priest do not have sacred bundles like those of other rain priests; instead, the Sun Priest goes into retreat "to try himself" rather than relying on a bundle, and the Daylight Bow Priest,* instead of secluding himself in a house, wanders among his fields and goes to mountaintops to pray to the bow priests of the 9uwanammi (Bunzel 1932c:663-664, 1933:19, 24). Taken together, the retreats of the six Daylight Priests span 40 days. The office of Sun Priest has been vacant since 1952, but his retreat days are still counted and he is still mentioned in prayers. His duties (other than those of retreat) have been taken over by the House Chief. The Night Priests go into retreat as follows: first, Eagle clan's Priest; second, Little Group Priest, whose bundle is kept in a house adjacent to the kiva of that name; third, Corn clan's Priest; fourth, kolo'wisi Priest, named after the feathered serpent effigy his bundle is kept with; fifth, Helix People's Priest, who is the head of the Helix Society; sixth, Sun clan's Priest; seventh, Priest of the kan9a-kwe, head of the kan9a'kwe group in the Parched Corn kiva; eighth, Red Door Priest, whose bundle is kept in a house with a red door (Kroeber 1919:171, 175; Parsons 1933:80-89). The Big Shell Society head, although the society itself has long since ceased to function as such, is also a rain priest; he goes into seclusion during the latter half of the fourth Night Priest's retreat. (A different enumeration of the rain priests is in "Zuni Social and Political Organization," this vol.). Each of the Daylight and Night Priests, except for the Sun Priest and the Daylight Bow Priest, has anywhere from two to five ranked male assistants, the first among whom is usually his successor; several priests have one or two female assistants as well, but they are not potential successors (Kroeber 1919:169-170; Parsons 1933:80-83). The House Chief and the Sun Priest must be members of thepiccrkwe clan or the sons of men who are; some of the other priesthoods are associated with particular clans, but only because their sacred bundles are kept in houses belonging to members of these clans (Kroeber 1919:166-167). In no case is there any automatic inher- * As Kroeber points out (1919:176), both this office and that of Eagle clan's Priest (who follows the Daylight Bow Priest in the retreat sequence) were apparently held by the same man in Stevenson's time, resulting in her description of the nadir priest as going into retreat with a bundle (1904:173-178) when in fact no bundle attaches to that office per se. itance of priestly office within particular lineages; suitability of temperament counts for more than kinship. Death and the End of the World Death was introduced among daylight people by the first witch, who was allowed to live among them because he . brought the first yellow corn (Tedlock 1972:258-261). Witchcraft is still one of the major causes of death, but there are others: a man who does not believe in the kachinas may be choked by his mask, and deaths may also result when a kachina dance goes on for too many days; the dead themselves may appear in dreams and try to take the living with them (Bunzel 1932c:634). Every living person carries with him an invisible road, long or short, which determines the proper time for his death (Benedict 1935, 2:51, 65). If a person dies prematurely, through suicide or because of excessive grief, he is barred from the afterworld until he comes to the end of his appointed road (Ladd 1963:25-26). All deaths are portended, most commonly in dreams; the deaths of rain priests are forecast by the cosmos itself in events such as landslides (Bunzel 1933:54) and unseasonable thunderstorms. Burial of the body takes place within a day after death, but thepinanne 'spirit' (literally 'wind') of the dead person remains in his home until four days after his death. A deceased rain priest then joins the 9uwanammi priests in the waters of the world (Bunzel 1932a:482). A member of the Society of Bow Priests becomes one of the lightning-makers, who are the bow priests of the 9uwanammi (Stevenson 1904:20, 110). Members of the Societies of the Completed Path join their raw counterparts in the east at sipa-puli9ma (Bunzel 1932a:517). Among the remaining people, any initiate of the Kachina Society goes west to Kachina Village. If a man owned a mask during life he may both join the constant dancing at Kachina Village and come invisibly to Zuni to "stand before" the living kachina impersonators (Bunzel 1932b: 607; Ladd 1963:27). A woman, unless she is one of the rare female initiates, goes to Kachina Village by virtue of marriage (a reversal of the uxorilocal residence of life), being reunited with her first husband (Benedict 1935, 1:130). She does the same thing there that she did in life, preparing feasts for the dancers. Any person of Kachina Village may return among the living as a cloud, most happily in a whole group of rainclouds, but a person who never went to see the dancers in life will be alone in the sky, and a person who was not "straight" in life will be a "lying" cloud (Bunzel 1929:94-102). Girls and uninitiated boys become turtles or watersnakes when they die, and they try to return to their living kin (Tedlock and Tedlock 1971-1972:A7, 1). When a person has been separated from his former daylight existence by four deaths, he finds himself all the 507 ZUNI R E L I G I O N AND WORLD VIEW |
