Frank Hamilton Cushing's stay at Zu_i pueblo from 1879 to 1884 made him the first professional anthropologist actually to live with his subjects. Learning the language and winning acceptance as a member not only of the tribe but of the tribal council and the Bow Priesthood, he was the original participant observer and the only man in history to hold the double title of "1st War Chief of Zu_i, U. S. Ass't Ethnologist." A pioneer in southwestern ethnology, he combined the discipline of science with a remarkable imaginative capacity for identifying with Indian modes of thought and perception?and corresponding gifts of expression.
In 1879 Frank Hamilton Cushing rode unannounced into Zuni Pueblo. Sent by the Smithsonian Institution, he stayed at Zuni until 1884 and became the world's first live-in anthropologist. His writings gave Zuni a fame it never sought. Now Phil Hughte turns the tables on Cushing. His drawings tell the story of Cushing from the Zuni perspective, with anthropological commentaries by Triloki Nath Pandey, Jim Ostler, and Krisztina Kosse. This unique book will be relished especially by anthropologists, American Indians, and other people who partake of more than one culture.
The twenty-five myths offered here were recorded for a 1891 Bureau of American Ethnology report. They have been edited and annotated to present Zuni thought on cosmology, ethics and social order.
This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. To ensure a quality reading experience, this work has been proofread and republished using a format that seamlessly blends the original graphical elements with text in an easy-to-read typeface. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.
The Zuni society existed for centuries before there was a United States, and it still exists in its New Mexico desert pueblo. In 1879, three anthropologists--Matilda Stevenson, Frank Hamilton Cushing, and Stewart Culin--came to study Zuni and, fearing it might be destroyed, to salvage what they could of its tangible culture. Though their methods are now disparaged and ignored, their work vividly imprinted Zuni on the American imagination. The complex relationship between the Zuni as they were and are, and as they were imagined by these three remarkable, eccentric pioneers, is at the heart of Eliza McFeely's important book. Stevenson, Cushing, and Culin found professional and psychological satisfaction in submerging themselves in an alien world and in displaying Zuni artifacts in America's new museums and exhibit halls. McFeely puts their intellectual and personal adventures into perspective; she enlightens us about America, about the Zuni, and about how we understand each other.
"During the earlier years of my life with the Zuñi Indians of western-central New Mexico, from the autumn of 1879 to the winter of 1881—before access to their country had been rendered easy by the completion of the Atlantic and Pacific railroad, —they remained, as regards their social and religious institutions and customs and their modes of thought, if not of daily life, the most archaic of the Pueblo or Aridian peoples. They still continue to be, as they have for centuries been, the most highly developed, yet characteristic and representative of all these people." Contents: Outline of Spanish-zuñi History Outline of Pristine Zuñi History Outline of ZuñiMytho-sociologic Organization Myths The Genesis of the Worlds, or the Beginning of Newness The Genesis of Men and the Creatures The Gestation of Men and the Creatures The Forthcoming From Earth of the Foremost of Men The Birth From the Sea of the Twain Deliverers of Men The Birth and Delivery of Men and the Creatures The Condition of Men When First Into the World of Daylight Born The Origin of Priests and of Knowledge The Origin of the Raven and the Macaw, Totems of Winter and Summer The Origin and Naming of Totem-clans and Creature Kinds, and the Division and Naming of Spaces and Things The Origin of the Councils of Secrecy or Sacred Brotherhoods The Hardening of the World, and the First Settlement of Men The Beginning of the Search for the Middle of the World, and the Second Tarrying of Men The Learning of War, and the Third Tarrying The Meeting of the People of Dew, and the Fourth Tarrying The Generation of the Seed of Seeds, or the Origin of Corn
More than a biography, Richard Hart's work provides a history of Zuni during an especially significant period. Also the author of Zuni and the Courts: A Struggle for Sovereign.
