Cushing on the Zuni Language

The seven kiva is also representative of the center as a polemic of the inside and outside, which refers to the heart of the individual, as a center, and inner and outer space occurring in the "same place at the same time"[88] in their observance of the six directions, or the center of the pueblo as a center in relation to its periphery.  Historical evidence for the physical existence of the seventh kiva is noted by Dutton where the Tiwa had a seventh kiva outside the village walls and its original association was with the scalp society or warrior cult, and the Isleta which had a seventh kiva where scalps and other dangerous things were stored[89].  These kivas were representative of a possible fringe element in opposition to the center and their contents where antithetical to the peaceful center.  It was the task of men with religious knowledge (e.g. the kiva) to harness and control natural forms outside the pueblo, an area which the gods ruled, and bring them peaceably to the core. Acts of violence were reconciled and malevolent spirits transformed, for example, in a scalp dance required in the presentation of a scalp by a warrior returning from war, and was reconciliation in a paradoxical tribute to the sanctity of life[90].

In a like sense, the rock images of the Zuni lie at the periphery of the village and can stand in opposition to the peaceful center.  Their peaceful integration to the center is dependent upon a proper interpretation of context that requires an extensive knowledge of Zuni religion and myth.  In this it is representative of the dangerous.  While an image can be appreciated visually, its power to evoke proper narrative can bring danger in a deviant utterance.  Proper interpretation is the pragmatic elimination of individual expression and the proper narrative is reflective of a collective cohesion that is manifest as aesthetic appreciation, and while aesthetics and art find religion as their motive, aesthetic expression cannot be a part of religious dialogue.  As Walker noted, expressive language tends to categorize the user [91] and to the Zuni if this act has religious associations it could bring danger to the individual and lack personal accomplishment for it may subsequently bring danger to the collectivity.

Bunzel distinguishes between the old and new dances of the Zuni, remarking that only the new dances allow for self-expression but even then the "precision of movement belies a union of the totality"[92].  The exaltation of the religious experience lies in the manifestation of the activities and appreciation of the aesthetic quality that pervades.  This compensates for the intensity that is inherent in the personal religious exaltation and subjective satisfaction indicative of the vision quests of all the plains tribes.  To the Zuni, the lack of that feeling is the descriptive cohesion of the collective unity[93].

Because verbal and ostensive definition is related to the present, utterances and showings do not refer or display contextual implications.  It is for this reason that contemporary Western logic and anthropological analysis has failed in distinguishing Zuni concepts of being from concepts of becoming[94].  Newman comments that the Zuni language has no specific term for the copula, that function being filled by the term teya, which means "be" or "to live in a place"[95]; te- meaning terrestrial containment and location (both space and time)[96], and ya a collectivity.  Thus, when a Zuni asks you "How you have been living these many days?" (Ko'na to' tewanan ateyaye), it is asked in the present tense and imperative (-ye), for if you have been living according to observances (teshkwi), then the necessary answer, which may be provided, is Ketsanishi (happily).  Zuni logic dictates that the present state necessarily affirms all that has proceeded, much in the same sense that if a prayed for event transpires, then the prayer or ritual was properly performed, akin to Western logic's "affirming the consequence"[97].

This phenomenon has been approached in analysis[98] and has shown some merit in assuming syllogistic (validity) to be universal and propositional logic (truth) to be culturally sensitive, but appears to have failed in constructing cross-cultural identifiers in assuming that meaning structures both validity and truth[99].  For instance, in cases where "kind of" was absent as a semantic universal[100] the probability of idealizing physics would render ineffective any notion of an ideal (syntactic) language cross-culturally.  The very nature of semantics is the inherent improbability of idealizing physics. From a Zuni standpoint, the idealization of physics is not improbable, for ritual presupposes that in aRb, R is necessary, and relieves the perspective-taker of substantiating rationality ontologically.

Cushing?s writings are rich with examples of how the Zuni concept of being must conform to the context of form, function, and a pragmatic interpretation of context through ceremony.  In a narrative on pottery making he describes how vessels come to be made beings[101].  "The clay which served for their wares was seldom taken from the native quarries without propitiatory offerings" and the transition of the dormant potency of the raw material was by means of coaxing the "treasured source" which is the source of life that accompanies, protects and preserves whatever it is contained within[102].  Through the finishing and decorating of the vessels "no laughing, music, whistling or any other unnecessary noises are indulged in, and conversation was carried on in faint whispers or by signs; for it was feared that the 'voice' would enter the vessels, and that when the latter were fired, would escape with a loud noise" thereby shattering the vessel.  It is imperative that the "noise made by the pot when struck or when simmering on the fire is supposed to be the voice of its associated being"[103].  It is imperative that the voice of the pot be its true voice and not the voice of a deviant utterance.

Form and function serve to instill meaning to design images.  Cushing also describes the making of a canteen, which is formed in the shape of a female mammary gland.  It is named me'hetonne, according to both shape and function, where me'hana is the word for a human mammary gland, and ettonne is a word for fetish or ceremonial object.  The design images receive their specificity, which is to insure that vessel is always providing the milk of the desert (water), by the context, or function of the canteen.  It is an ettonne because it contains the "treasured source"[104].

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Notes