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Cushing at Zuni: The Correspondence and Journals of Frank Hamilton Cushing, 1879-1884

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As a Zuni, I had to respond to the previous reviewers comments. They seem to have good intentions, but include supposition that might be regarded as fact.

I agree that Frank Hamilton Cushing was the only ethno-historian who took the time to learn our language and gain trust among our people. Most of the anthropologists that followed gained much of their information through coercion and bribes. In return, they were given distorted and blatant disinformation.

Unfortunately, the previous reviewer has many inaccurate information in his review. Kothluwalawa is not the sacred river, it is the Zuni Heaven. Some children became not only frogs but other water dwelling creatures including ducks. The koko as he calls them are not the deciding factor in day to day activities, although they are important. There are many more than two clans in the Pueblo. He must be confused with 2 clans for each child. The "adult-of" on the mother's side and the "child-of" on the father's side which is the matrilineal hierarchy he mentions. Political hierarchy is modeled after the Spanish and is completely separate from the religious hierarchy. There are bow priests, sun priests, katchina priests, etc. Prayers sticks are not and were not carried by everyone. Prayer sticks are made and planted during the summer and winter solstice for the community and monthly for people in other religious groups.

Our religious practices were never stripped away after European discovery, perhaps only practiced underground or hidden from European view.

There were no atrocities at Zuni that I am aware of. A battle was fought and won by Coronado after which we fed and supplied their men. People were killed on both sides which happen during a battle. He may have committed atrocities elsewhere, but not at Zuni. The Zuni's and Hopi's were not part of the Pueblo revolt other than killing of the priests during that time.

The Zuni language is like no other in the world and has not been proven to have ties to any other language. The Zuni, Hopi and other Pueblo Indians are though to be the direct descendents of the Anasazi and were never conquered by the Navajos. The Navajos came from Canada and other Athabaskan regions long after the Pueblo people were already settled. Navajo's are deathly afraid of the dead and would never have knowingly settled in the same quarters as the deceased. We have had little if any influence from the Navajo, however the Navajo have heavily borrowed Pueblo mythology, art, practices and continue to do so.

The legend of the parrot and the crow was about the present Zuni picking the brightly colored crow egg while the other Zuni group picked the dull parrot egg. The Zuni ended up in the harsh desert environment where the crow lived and our lost others went to the land of the parrot with a lush environment and abundant food. There are no rituals for choosing a boy or girl child.

Cushing's contemporaries were critical of his efforts and activities in Zuni, primarily because of what they considered the lack of published material that Cushing produced during his tenure at the Pueblo. This fact has also been lamented by anthropologists since that time, and the lack of writings may well be the source of the general opinion that the material he made available is tainted and superimposed with "poetic overtones". Granted, Cushing's grandiose is evident in many of his publications that appeared in periodicals during his lifetime. However, in order to be fair one should consider that Cushing was writing to an audience of the Victorian Era and he spoke in terms that he knew they would understand and wanted to hear. In this regard we can only criticize him for the forfeiture of his science to what was popular at the time. He created the objects of his research by a temporal distancing that was reflected in a terminology that at that time was not only popular, but was also scientific. Thus, subsequent criticisms such as Barbara Tedlock's portrayal of "wrong-headedness" and "wrong-heartedness" are in themselves wrong headed and wrong hearted, and Cushing's methodology is based upon concepts that even a so-called ethnologist should understand.

Jesse Green's compilation is an extremely important body of work for any student of the Zuni culture. There is a great amount of material here that reflects Cushing's theories on Zuni semantics and mathematics (counting), and stories by Cushing that can be found no where else. Many of the letters he wrote to his sympathetic colleagues are rich in information as to the sources of the folklore and myth that he documented, and revealing on many aspects of his membership in the Priesthood of the Bow. Would you like to know Cushing's side of the story in his feud with the Stevensons? It is here.

What is also here to a certain extent is Cushing's vindication. Next generation Zuni anthropologists such as Ruth Bunzel and Franz Boas were highly critical of Cushing's findings. While Bunzel's work at Zuni is nothing less than important, it has as its source those Zuni denizens who were or had been intent on implementing the demise of the Bow Priesthood, a secret society of which Cushing was a member and was his source of much folklore and myth, including those of the Zuni origin.

Cushing's letters and journal entries are very readable and incredibly enjoyable. He was a poet at heart and it is reflected in his writing style. The book is worth its weight in gold simply for Jesse Green's lengthy and informative notes, occasional insights, and his extensive bibliography.

The movement of historical interpretation away from nationalist subjectivity to more objective understanding of cultural values is a recent phenomenon in the United States. Frank Hamilton Cushing (1857-1900), a pioneer in Native American ethnohistory, gained prominence in his field due to studies on the Zuni reservation. Cushing's ability to recognize a separate culture and not people who needed to be "civilized" enabled him to observe Zuni sacred traditional ceremonies. The respect Cushing gave to the Zuni increased historical knowledge and set a precedent for future studies on Native American culture. The amount of data previously gathered on the Zuni, like many Native American tribes, is mostly second-hand and from missionaries' point-of-view.
The Zuni have a colorful history that is riddled with conquest, strife, and world-famos artistry, but their ultimate strength is religion. The Zuni have deep ties with their land, religion, and ancestors because all are considered linked. The Zuni origin story rests on the entry to their sacred land from the underworld. According to the Zuni origin story, several children were lost in the sacred river Kothluwalawa on the way to their land. Those children became frogs and were the first to become koko, or katcina. The koko, which are the first ancestral spirits of Zuni, are the deciding factor in day-to-day affairs of Zuni lives. Each Zuni village has two clans divided within it. Priests head the clans, but village status is dependent on matrilineal hierarchy. Women have the power to divorce and are in charge of children and property. Each Zuni man or woman, prior to European discovery, carried a prayer stick made of cottonwood, which aided in their daily prayers. After European discovery, many of the Zuni religious practices were stripped away from them.
The Zuni were discovered by Francisco Vazquez de Coronado on his expedition to find a worthy seaport for Spanish ships and the Seven Cities of Cibola. The seven cities were fabled to be constructed of solid gold and were the ultimate treasure for any explorer. Coronado first heard about the seven cities from a Catholic priest named Marcos de Niza, who helped him lead the expedition. Once the conquistadors arrived at the fabled location that the Zuni now populated, they were hungry from lack of food and their expectations were shattered. The Zuni Pueblo of Hawikah was built upon the ancient Anasazi city of Halona that was one of the Seven Cities of Cibola. Coronado ordered his soldiers to attack the town after hostilities and a hungry army. Aside from the physical atrocities done to Zuni residents of the Hawikah village, undeliable damage was done to Zuni culture with the institution of a Catholic mission. Catholic priests lived among the Zuni and catalogued daily lives of the Zuni, but tried to integrate their religion into Zuni religion. Remember, Zuni religion is the defining factor of their culture.
Historians have traced the Karesan sub-language group of Pueblo Indians to the Anasazi group that were displaced prior to Spanish conquest. Fortunately, enough artifacts and cultural similarities from the Anasazi people prior to Pueblo settlement have produced links with the Zuni group of Pueblo Native Americans. Apparently the Anasazi were conquered by Apaches, Navajos, and other Southwestern Native American groups over the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. The Pueblo tribes resettled the region after Anasazi displacement, and formed their own cultures associated with region.
Although the Zuni methods of construction, irrigation, and matrilineal political hierarchy are similar to the other Pueblo Native American groups , the Zuni language is unique in pronunciation.
Many historians have deliberated over the precepts over the invasion of Hawikah during Coronado's conquest. Many history books suggest that the prime motivation for Coronado's army to take the Zuni pueblo they called "Cibola" was a search for gold. Private accounts and diary entries by soldiers there and Coronado himself suggest other issues that arose. The massacre at Zuni Hawikah set the tone for Pueblo Native Americans in dealings and trust of the Spanish. This could have been the precedent set for the Pueblo revolt several decades later. Soldiers suggested that the Zuni grouped outside their city walls and began shooting arrows at the Spanish soldiers. Once a Friar received a close call and several others were wounded, including horses, the soldiers stormed the Zuni warriors. The warriors retreated to the city and the order was to claim the city because the soldiers had not eaten in a day. The plunder of a few gemstones was retrieved and many Zuni were killed. Some of the soldiers involved in the atrocities committed in Hawikah were brought to trial. One soldier admitted to the atrocities and was fined and sentenced to the military for a term of thirty months.
The Zuni are indeed a unique tribe. From their language of Zunani to their nomad style of dress. From the prayer sticks of cottonwood to their "Priesthood of the bow," the Zuni were an intelligent agriculturist society that did not deserve genocidal attempts by the Spanish. Zuni art is world-renowned and the craft is used by so few. The art of stone inlay is unique to the Zuni and their fetishes are sold for large sums of money. Zuni beadwork and turquoise colors are representative of an enriched culture of artisans that continue the work of their ancestors. Therefore, the use of color in Zuni artwork is mirrored in Zuni religion and traditional ceremonies. Turquoise depicts the Zuni legend of the parrot and the crow, which each present an egg to a Zuni woman for her decision on having a boy or a girl for a child.
A topic of future research that may introduce new material to ethnohistorians is the possibility for two cultures to unite and produce their own culture through fusion. The Zuni language is one marker that may suggest such a union. The Apache and Navajo conquerors of the Anasazi probably settled certain regions after conquest because of living quarters and crops already established by the Anasazi. A juncture of tribes would best describe the uniqueness of the Zuni culture, religion, and art.

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