The Religious Life of the Zuñi Child Bureau of American Ethnology

Excerpt

The Pueblo of Zuñi is situated in Western New Mexico on the Rio Zuñi, a tributary of the Little Colorado River. The Zuñi have resided in this region for several centuries. The peculiar geologic and geographic character of the country surrounding them, as well as its aridity, furnishes ample sources from which a barbarous people would derive legendary and mythologic history. A brief reference to these features is necessary to understand more fully the religious phases of Zuñi child life.