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Show 508 way back at the hole where the Zunis emerged from the earth, which is even farther west than Kachina Village (Tedlock and Tedlock 1971-1972:A7, 1), or else he has descended, death by death, to the lowest of the four underworlds, where the Zunis originated (Edmund J. Ladd, personal communication 1973). At this point he may return among the living as an animal, the species depending on the knowledge he acquired in life. A member of a Society of the Complete Path might become a mountain lion, bear, badger, wolf, eagle, mole, rattlesnake, or red ant; a witch might become a coyote, lizard, bullsnake, or owl; a member of the Kachina Society might become a deer (Ladd 1963:26; Tedlock and Tedlock 1971-1972:A7, 1). Even the first death brings about a loss of personal individual identity. When a person dies, he ceases to be mentioned by name, though he does receive personal prayers and offerings when he is first sent away from Zuni (Bunzel 1932c:632-634). Once he is gone he is addressed only in the sense that he is a member of one or more of the groups of dead people mentioned in prayers: ancestors in general, kachinas, or, more specifically, the dead of one of the smaller societies (Stevenson 1904:570; Benedict 1935, 2:17), or, still more specifically, the deceased officers of a society (Benedict 1935, 1:39). The only exceptions to this loss of individual identity are the deceased rain priests, whose successors invoke them by name, going as far back as the names are known (Bunzel 1932c:656). There is some talk at Zuni about the death of the world itself. At the beginning the earth was soft and wet (Tedlock 1972:226); the fathers and grandfathers of the present-day elders began to wonder whether it was getting old and dry (Tedlock 1965-1966:H-38). They prophesied a famine, and some now say that the famine is already here but has been made invisible by the supermarket. At the end, they said, all man-made things would rise against us, and a hot rain would fall. TEDLOCK |
