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The favorite number of the Zuñi
"[...] Were a hemorrhage to set in through the cord of the infant, it is supposed that some one has been in the room who has been bitten by a dog or a snake. He would have to be found and then to sa ve the life of the child he would have to wave some ashes over the heads of both child and mother—waving them four times.
Birthdays are not observed in Zuñi, but a kind of grouping by age there seems to be, for every four years an initiation into the kotikili is held and boys become eligible for this initiation some time after their first four-years age period, apparently towards the close of their second, i. e., they are not initiated before they are four and they may be initiated before they are eight. In the initiation ceremonial four is very prominent. The ceremonial lasts four days, days in which the initiate fasts from meat. As he passes between the lines of the twelve salimobi'ya, he is whipped[6] by each masked figure four times.
But even before the initiation the development of Zuñi children, and, in this case, of girls,[7] as well as boys, is attended to, ceremonially. During the watempla dances, purificatory dances of late winter and early spring, the masks known as the adoshlĕ and the suukĕ pay domiciliary visits upon refractory children. Into the disciplinary effect of these terrifying personages we need not go, noting only that four times they have to advance upon a house before its adult inmates stop beating upon their pans and drums to pretend to[...]".
Birthdays are not observed in Zuñi, but a kind of grouping by age there seems to be, for every four years an initiation into the kotikili is held and boys become eligible for this initiation some time after their first four-years age period, apparently towards the close of their second, i. e., they are not initiated before they are four and they may be initiated before they are eight. In the initiation ceremonial four is very prominent. The ceremonial lasts four days, days in which the initiate fasts from meat. As he passes between the lines of the twelve salimobi'ya, he is whipped[6] by each masked figure four times.
But even before the initiation the development of Zuñi children, and, in this case, of girls,[7] as well as boys, is attended to, ceremonially. During the watempla dances, purificatory dances of late winter and early spring, the masks known as the adoshlĕ and the suukĕ pay domiciliary visits upon refractory children. Into the disciplinary effect of these terrifying personages we need not go, noting only that four times they have to advance upon a house before its adult inmates stop beating upon their pans and drums to pretend to[...]".
8 pages, Kindle Edition
First published June 11, 2013
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