Page:American Anthropologist NS vol. 22.djvu/77

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PARSONS] IS LET A, SANTA ANA, AND AGO MA 65

informant; but understanding of the meaning of this term is hard to come at, so that unless the enquiry is followed up in particulars of personnel and of function, categorical statements remain uncertain. The cheani groups are: Flint, Fire, Eagle, shiwanna, and two sets of shika. 1 There are no saiyap (shumaekoli) or shahaiye Giant cheani. The Flint cheani have to manage the kushaili (kashare)* and each set of shika cheani has kurena. 3 As at Laguna, to become a shiwanna cheani you must have experienced lightning- shock. My informant denied that the Eagle cheani were thought of, as at Jemez, 4 as eagle hunters or trappers. Their functions are the same as the functions of the other cheani curing and weather control. As at Laguna 5 and Acoma, there are sheek or hunting

��1 Stevenson gives shike, for star, an extinct Star clan. ("The Sia," p. 19.) This may be the meaning of the shika cheani of Santa Ana and the shikani of Cochiti and Laguna. The shikani-kurena of Laguna called upon the stars in his solstice chant and had a right to the use of the cosmic symbols, sun, moon, and stars. ("Ceremoni- alism at Laguna," p. 108 n. i.)

In this connection I may note that Stevenson for some obscure reason calls the ne'wekive of Zuni, the Galaxy fraternity. The ne'wekwe are the homologues of the Keresan koshare or kurena.

1 also note that the tzi-hui medicine-man of the Tewa, corresponding, according to A. F. Bandelier, to the shikani (shikama) of the Keresans, has charge of the war god or star god fetiches, the name of one, tzi-o-veno ojua (Keresan, shiwanna) suggesting chakwena, the masked war group of shiwanna or k'atsina associated in ritual with the shikani cheani of Laguna. (Final Report, Pt. I, pp. 305, 308-9.)

2 In this connection compare the association of the Flint cheani and Summer people (the koshare being elsewhere identified with Summer people) at Isleta. There are suggestions of a sometime association between Flint cheani and kashare at Laguna.

3 At Laguna and Cochiti the weather controlling, non-curing division of the shikani (shikarne) are kurena (quirana).

4 "Notes on Cochiti," pp. 193-4. According to Felipe, eagle trapping by fasten- ing a live rabbit in a pit is Najaho, and the Eagle cheani are derived from the Navajo.

5 The she'ek (shaiyaik) knows the proper hunting songs, songs which make it easy to kill deer and rabbits, and how to make the hunter's feather-sticks. Four days before going on his hunt the hunter takes to the she'ek to set on his altar some micaceous hematite (wakur), representing the foot of the deer, red beads, (yashjamutse wishtgurin), representing the red flesh of the deer, flint (hish) representing the white on his neck and chest, and some turquoise (shuimi) or, if the quarry is an antelope, some white- pink shell (yashja) to represent the heart. Subsequently this shell mixture is taken on the hunt and deposited in the tracks of the quarry, at the frontal tip of the track. The feather-sticks are deposited in the lairs of the animals .... After the kill the head of the animal is pointed in the direction of the hunter's home. If the animal is still alive when caught, the muzzle is tied up close. (See Ceremonialism at Laguna p. 127.)

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