Religion (1992) 22, 221-234

HOPI AND ZUNI PRAYER-STICKS :

MAGIC, SYMBOLIC TEXTS, BARTER,
OR SELF-SACRIFICE?
John Fulbright
After a critical evaluation of prayer-stick theory the article argues for a
theory of prayer-stick ritual as symbolic strategies for the moral recenter-
ing of the self in relation to a human and cosmic field of others . Following
Barbara and Dennis Tedlock, prayer-sticks are understood as forms of
symbolic self-sacrifice that redefine an integral self as having cosmic
responsibilities for maintaining life . The relationship between the sym-
bolic action of prayer-stick ritual and sodality `fetishes' is discussed in
terms of the redefining and recentering processes of rites of passage . The
implications of prayer-stick ritual for understanding of Pueblo social
structure is also briefly discussed .

Every sodality priesthood at Hopi and Zuni has its own secret formula for the
making and coding of prayer-sticks . In general, however, Hopi paaho and
Zuni telikinawe are constituted by sticks of various kinds and lengths, com-
bined with various complex combinations of feathers, plants, grains, herbs,
cornmeal, pollens, minerals, and paints .' Because prayer-sticks are one of the
most omnipresent symbols of Pueblo ceremony, their ritual role is essential
for understanding the general principles informing Pueblo religious life and
culture . Don Talayesva describes the importance of Hopi prayer-sticks in
apocalyptic terms : `it is the most important work in the world, that the gods
and the spirits are holding out their hands for paaho, and that if the Soyala
should fail, life for the Hopi might end' . 2
Four models have emerged in Pueblo ethnography to account for the
meaning and function of prayer-stick ritual : (1) magic and its scheme of
analogic reasoning and lawful causation ; (2) the model of the symbolic text
and its reading/writing scheme of communication ; (3) the model of the
prayer-stick as gift and reciprocity ; (4) the model of the prayer-stick as self-
sacrifice . This paper analyzes these models in terms of their interpretive
coherence with Hopi and Zuni data . It also suggests a theory of prayer-stick
ritual and symbolic action that allows us a more comprehensive understand-
ing of their role in Pueblo rites of passage and fetish discourse . Prayer-stick
ritual provides ethnographers with a privileged domain of cultural perform-
ance that allows us insight into the role of symbolic action in transforming
the self and the world . I will argue that prayer-stick rituals are strategies for
the moral transformation of the self into a cosmic center of responsibility .

0048-721 X/92/030221 + 1 4 $03 .00/0 C 1992 Academic Press Limited

222 J. Fulbright

Pueblo prayer-stick rituals are logical and existential responses to the prox-
imity of self and other, power and moral responsibility . In effect, the re-
centering process of prayer-stick use, fetish discourse, and rites of passage
transforms both the self and the social structure of the cosmos in the ritual
maintenance of life .

PRA YER-STICKS AS SYMPATHETIC MAGIC

Many Pueblo ethnographies have relied on the 19th-century Primitivist
model of sympathetic magic to interpet prayer-sticks and the rituals within
which they operate . In this view, the diverse and complex combination of
elements constituting prayer-sticks are a kind of sympathetic magic which
compels the gods to act . 3 Following Sir James Frazer's theory of magical
causation, 4 anthropologists have held that prayer-stick ritual expresses an
analogical reasoning and causation, a `primitive' understanding of natural
lawfulness . The elements constituting prayer-sticks are said to symbolically
represent a part-whole or sympathetic relationship with the desired effect .
For example, the fluffy breast feather of the eagle, which is tied to all Hopi
prayer-sticks, is said to resemble or symbolize falling rain, and therefore, to
cause falling rain .
Ethnographers who follow Frazer often acknowledge the communicative
and reciprocity elements of prayer-stick rituals . But they as often tend to
explain the conceptual incongruence between the communication/reci-
procity models and the magical model as irrational historical fusions and
aberrations of the pure types of `magic' and 'religion' .' `Magic' presupposes
a mechanical and lawful universe, while `religion' presupposes an animated
universe in which prayer and reciprocity defines the relationship between
humans and gods . Some theorists like E . M . Zuesse have argued for a
magico-religious synthesis of these distinctions, arguing for `two basic modes
of the sacred, impersonal archetypical form and personal sacred presence' .'
What is at issue here is whether the concept of magic, or the synthesis
`magico-religious', is useful for understanding the full meaning and function
of Pueblo prayer-stick ritual as symbolic performances .
Recently the work of John Loftin has criticized the magical model for
explaining Hopi prayer-stick ritual . Loftin's analysis emphasizes the differ-
ence between the mechanical causation implied by the notion of magical law,
and the moral and social causation implied in the intentional and social
universe of the Hopi . Loftin argues that prayer-stick rituals are effective and
compulsive because the Hopi posit a relationship of `kinship' with intentional
Powers who animate the universe ('katsinas' or `spirit fathers') which
`obliges' them to respond with their gifts of life .
Loftin argues that the social and intentional universe of the Pueblo makes
it necessary to understand compulsion and causation as based upon social
 Hopi and Zuni Prayer-sticks 223

and moral obligation . 8 Thus, Hopi and Zuni prayer-stick ritual does have
something to do with causation and compulsion . Pueblo universes are lawful
and causal, but lawfulness and causation is understood within the context of
an animated and radically social cosmos . The Pueblo live in a world ani-
mated by human-like powers, a worldview traditionally glossed by the an-
thropological concept `animism' . In such a world the `effects' of nature and
the universe are caused by living and purposeful beings, rather than imper-
sonal, mechanical laws and processes . For the Hopi and Zuni, clouds and
katsinas are manifestations of deceased ancestors, and of high ranking
members of the ritual sodalities, who participate in the reciprocity and
gifting processes that order this radically social world . In short, the mechan-
ical and impersonal causation of the magical model is inconsistent with the
Pueblo ontologies that inform prayer-stick rituals as performative actions
which constitute mutual relationships between kinds of living beings .
One could agree with Zuesse and others that prayer-stick ritual does
represent certain archetypical forms of behavior with causal and instrumen-
tal ends, and, therefore, might legitimately be called `magical' . But this label
obscures the point that prayer-stick rituals presuppose a self and world of
intersubjectivity and responsibility in which power has its source not in
impersonal laws, but in the responsible actions of creative living beings
acting collectively . In other words, in mythic systems like the Hopi and Zuni,
archetypes originate from the power centers of individuals-in-relationship .
The binary relations personhood/relationship and power/responsibility are
irreducible and axiomatic presuppositions of the Hopi and Zuni social atd
cosmic systems . In effect, then to categorize prayer-stick rituals are either
magic or `magic-religious' obscures the ontological priority of intentionality
and power in Zuni and Hopi worldviews .

PRA YER-S TICKS AS SYMBOLIC TEXTS

The inappropriateness of the magical model is likewise the case for the model
of the symbolic text and its scheme of reading and writing . A . M . Stephen,
the trader-ethnographer, anticipates an important hermeneutic development
in ethnography when he characterized prayer-sticks as types of symbolic
texts : `the prayer stick is the same as my written paper. . . . When Cloud or
Sun or another deity sees the prayerstick, he looks for the prayer feather
[nakwakwusi] and there he reads what is in the Hopi maker's heart' .'
Stephen's metaphorical explanation of Hopi ritual `magic' as reading and
writing approximates the intentional and social universe of the Pueblo .
Prayer-stick rituals, as the term suggests, do seem to be a kind of coded
communication process : prayer is said to be attached to the prayer-stick,
either through the coding of its elements, or attached to the prayer-stick by
breathing upon it . 1D But a Zuni anecdote about the ethnographer Frank
224 J. Fulbright

Hamilton Cushing should make us skeptical about the literal application of

the symbolic text metaphor :

Once they made a white man into a Priest of the Bow,

he was out there with the other Bow Priests-
he had black stripes
on his white body .
The others said their prayers from their hearts,
but he read his from a piece of paper .''

The Zuni anecdote focuses on the perceived clown-like ambiguity of Euro-

American forms of symbolic representation and ritual action . Both Gill
(1982) and Tedlock (1983) note that the Zuni make a moral distinction
between themselves as an oral culture and Cushing's `heartless' prayer as a
`walking page of writing' . 12 Both the written page and Cushing are stripped .
Pueblo clowns are also stripped and they manifest the cosmic forces of chaos
and social irresponsibility .' 3 To the Hopi and Zuni, reading and writing
appear as impersonal and mechanical statements about reality, rather than
as authentic and sincere expressions of individual moral character and the
collective social bonds which effective ritual requires .
Thus, for oral cultures like the Hopi and Zuni, to express a prayer `from
the heart' is qualitatively different from an impersonal and mechanical
written appeal . Zuni and Hopi prayer-sticks must also be understood as
expressions of this value placed upon sincere and genuine appeal in social
community with others . The symbolic messages of prayer-sticks are thought
to communicate the moral condition of the maker and giver's heart which
must be `pure' for the prayer to be efficacious . As the necessary condition for
effective prayer-stick ritual, this moral condition is the axis mundi of Hopi
religious life . ! In contrast to the amoral, mechanical, and impersonal
schemes of magic and symbolic texts, prayer-stick rituals reveal an important
relation between the ontological and moral transformations of the self (the
`heart') and the symbolic actions of ritual .

PRA YER-STICKS AS GIFT AND SACRIFICE

Accepting the existential and moral character of prayer-stick performance is
essential to interpreting prayer-sticks as forms of giving and self sacrifice .
The feathers and other elements that constitute prayer-sticks are said to be
the clothing of the Hopi katsinas or Zuni `raw people' (ky'apinaaho'i) who
animate the natural world . 15 These personalities and powers of nature are
thought to depend upon the Hopi and Zuni for their sustenance and the
quality of their life, as the following story recorded by Ruth Bunzel makes
explicit :
 Hopi and Zuni Prayer-sticks 225

Before the Bear shamans at Shipapolima send the Zuni youth home, they
say to him : `The clothing that someone gave us long ago is now full of
holes . We wear feathers in our hair . When you reach your own country,
for as many of us as are here you will make hair feathers . Hair feathers
and prayer-meal, shell, corn pollen, sparkling paint you will prepare .
You will take them down to your field . At the eastern end of your field
[Shipapolima is east of Zuni] you will give them to us . When, with our
supernatural power, we have clothed ourselves with the hair feathers, the
prayer-meal, the pollen, the shell, the sparkling paint, then with our long
life, our old age, we shall bless you . 16

Dennis Tedlock argues that Zuni religion is based upon this model of reci-
procity . 17 As he notes, however, this model cannot be reduced to simple
exchange and barter ." Ritual exchange presupposes different kind of bonds
and ontological relationships between givers and receivers . As V . Valeri
argues, `the offerings always represent more than a simple equivalent in
exchange ; it represents the deities, the sacrificer, their relationship, and the
results required' .' 9 Ritual exchange occurs within a symbolic matrix and
therefore must be understood within its own cultural context .
The following Zuni prayer makes explicit a very important symbolic frame
for our understanding of Zuni (and Hopi) prayer-sticks :

With the massed cloud robe of our grandfather,

Male Turkey,
With the eagle's mist garment,
With the striped cloud wings
And massed cloud tails
Of all the birds of summer,
With these four items wrapping our plume wands (prayer-sticks),
We shall give them human form .
With the one who is our mother,
Cotton Woman,
Even a roughly spun cotton thread,
A soiled cotton thread,
With this four times encircling them and trying it around,
With hanging rain feather,
20
We shall give our plume wands human form .

In the context of sodality ritual, both Zuni and Hopi prayer-sticks are
given `human form' . Prayer-sticks have 'faces', 21 they may be `male' or
`female' and are `clothed' in the feathers of sacred birds . 22 Prayer-sticks must
23
have `food' for their journeys to the katsinas and raw people . This ritually
constructed and animated quality of prayer-sticks also qualifies the textual
model and emphasizes the social and oral context of prayer-stick ritual and
communication . It is also the reason why Barbara and Dennis Tedlock argue
that Zuni prayer-sticks are `sacrificial surrogates of the self' . 2 `t I find little
226 J. Fulbright

evidence for the surrogate status of prayer-sticks in the ethnographic data,

but the necessity of self-sacrifice and sharing is an important theme for
considering the full meaning and importance of prayer-stick ritual that has
been largely ignored in the interpretive literature .
In the above Zuni prayer, the prayer-stick is given life by its maker and by
the sacrificial gifts of grandfather turkey, the eagle, the birds of summer, and
cotton woman . Loftin notes that the living quality of the Hopi prayer-stick is
its `breath-body' (hikwsi adta ah'haa) ' 25 a quality symbolized in the nakwak-
wusi or breast feather which is associated with falling rain, 26 the `breath of
life', and the `spiritual essence of all creation' ." This sacrificial sharing of the
breath-moisture or essence of life is a necessary condition of kinship bonds
and obligations, and is one of the most important themes that should inform
our understanding of prayer-stick ritual .
The relationship between self-sacrifice and the constitution of kinship
bonds in sodality ritual should inform a new understanding of prayer-stick
ritual as involving the transformational impact of symbolic action on social
and cosmic solidarity . We can understand the full meaning and significance
of prayer-stick ritual, if we appreciate them as transformational processes
through which individuals are ontologically reconstituted and morally recen-
tered . The theme of self-sacrifice in this transformational process can be seen
in the fact that prayer-stick giving is essentially related to the reconstitution
of self and world in the symbols and rituals of `fetish' discourse and sodality
rites of passage .

RITES OF PASSAGE, FETISHES, AND THE MATURATION OF THE

SELF
At both Hopi and Zuni, knowledge of prayer-stick construction and distri-
bution is controlled by the secret sodalities that originally structure Pueblo
political hierarchies . 28 In sodality rites of passage the self is reconstituted
through the dialectic of ontological insight into the true self and the symbolic
reconstitution of the body/mind through ritual behavior. The Hopi and Zuni
understand rites of passage as personal maturation processes modeled on the
life processes of corn and clouds . In sodality rites of passage, the life pro-
cesses of clouds and corn allow sodality initiates to understand the ontologi-
cal and moral principles that inform the life of the individual, the com-
munity, and the cosmos . Insight into the ontological and moral relationships
between corn, clouds, and human beings is essential for the initiates to make
the transition from adolescence to the responsibilities of adulthood, from life
in this world to life in the next .
The themes of self-sacrifice and kinship solidarity are symbolized in the life
of clouds and corn . As the primary object-persons (or `fetishes') in Hopi and
Zuni rites of passage, corn is understood as the `mother' of the initiates . She
 Hopi and Zuni Prayer-sticks 227

and her children are the source of sustenance and life . 29 The life of both corn
and of human beings are thought of as `growing' toward perfection, a matu-
ration process which continues after death and into the afterlife, where
morally perfected Hopi and Zuni reincarnate as the person-processes of
nature, especially clouds and rain, 30 a maturation process dependent upon
the transformative power of secret sodality knowledge .
In sodality rites initiates learn that a human being shares important
ontological and moral relationships with the powers animating the cosmos .
The Hopi Wuwtsim, a rite of passage into manhood for all Hopi males,
teaches Hopis that their `flesh and blood', the essential self, is the `moisture
embodied within breath' (hikwsi), which is also identified as the substantive
essence of life, 31 especially corn and clouds . 32 At the center of the Hopi tiiponi,
the most powerful object-person of the Hopi sodalities, is a perfected ear of
`mother' corn, wrapped in feathers and cotton, symbols of the spiritual life of
clouds and moisture . Several nakwakwusi or `rain feathers' are tied to the
tiiponi as symbols of breath-moisture and the morally pure heart .33
Zuni ritual sodalities also conceptually associate breath-moisture, clouds,
and corn with the moral maturity of the self occasioned in sodality rites of
passage . The person-objects ('ettone') of the powerful Zuni Rain Priesthood
(A'shiwani) symbolize the essence of self and life as clouds and moisture : the
ettone are constituted of reeds filled with water and wrapped in cotton . 34
Initiates of Zuni Medicine sodalities learn that their pinanne or breath-soul
(literally `wind' or `air') is substantively identical to the powers animating
the raw people ." At the center of the mili, the primary object-person of the
Medicine sodalities, is a perfected ear of `mother' corn, a symbol of `the
breath of life and life itself' . The mili is said to be the new `mother' or `father'
of the initiates, who, as Barbara Tedlock notes," functions as `superegos' for
the initiates, thus disciplining the initiates toward their new sense of self and
its moral obligations . The individually owned mili is said to be the `new heart
of the initiate', 37 a symbolic indication of the redefinition and recentering
process of sodality rituals .
Object-persons like the Hopi tiiponi and the Zuni mili and ettone concretize
and embody the newly perceived ontological relationships and moral obli-
gations of clan and sodality . They can be understood as hermeneutic icons . 38
Upon receiving a personal mili at initiation, a Zuni breathes from the midi
four times, and will breathe from and blow on his new `mother', or her new
`father', at important ritual times throughout life . 39 In Hopi ceremony, the
tiiponi are owned by the high status shaman-priests of the sodalities, are said
to be the `mothers' of the sodality/clan, and the ultimate source of their
power . 40 The exchange of breath between initiates and the sodality person-
objects reveals these object-persons as centers of a new ontological identity
with, and new obligatory relationships between, humans and non-humans .
22 8 J. Fulbright

This redefining and recentering process allows us to understand the signifi-

cance of the paradigmatic exchange of kinship terms between sodality
members and their other-than-human sodality patrons . These linguistic ex-
pressions of `ritual kinship' signify newly discovered ontological unities and
their corresponding moral imperatives, an imperative described symbolically
as the `pure heart' or the `unity of hearts and breath', the moral prerequisite
for fruitful ritual action .
Thus, in sodality rituals, initiated Hopi and Zuni experience a form
of communitas (existential unity and bonding) with the forces of nature
peculiar to animistic cultures ." The Hopi and Zuni learn that all living
beings are not only ontologically related (breath-moisture), but that all living
beings co-exist in mutually dependent webs of moral and social ('kinship')
responsibilities, cycles of self-sacrifice that are at the heart of ritual and
symbolic action . In the transformative ('rebirth') experiences of liminality,
Hopi and Zuni initiates learn that the katsinas and the raw people (especially
clouds) give their `life blood' (breath-moisture) to nourish the young Corn
Maidens . In turn, the Corn mothers and maidens sacrifice their bodies and
life forces to nourish the community of humans ." Human beings fulfil their
moral obligations to the person-processes of life through the self-sacrifices of
ritual and ceremony, a sacrifice embodied and epitomized in the prayer-stick
rituals that begin and end all Hopi and Zuni ceremonies .
Lewis Hyde's recent insight into the nature of the gift suggests that prayer-
stick sacrifice is not merely a symbol of the transformation processes of
sodality rites of passage . What Hyde calls `gifts' of passage' or `threshold gifts'
are themselves the agents or strategies of individual transformation : `the
bearer of new life . . . gifts carry on identity with them' . 43 Hyde's creative
intepretation of Marcel Mauss, Marshall Sahlins, and Victor Turner
suggests that prayer-stick sacrifices are important ritual strategies for the
ontological and moral transformation of the self and of its `social' field . 44
Hyde suggests that this ritual strategy follows the `logic of eros, or relation-
ship, bonding, a "shaping into one" .' 45 Thus, an initiated Zuni is not only
obligated to give prayer-sticks (self-sacrifice) to the Sun Father, the Moon
Mother, and the dead in general at every solstice, but must also give to the
deceased of his/her particular sodality, 46 ancestors who have perfected them-
selves morally and who have transformed at death into the life-giving
person-processes of nature . 47
At Hopi this sense of sacrificial obligation is encapsulated in the terms
tumalta and magsonta, 48 which mean to work hard or sacrifice for others, and
pertains especially to prayer-stick making and offering . The terms also
encompass the, whole range of self-denials (fasting, dancing, all-night vigils,
the taking of harsh smoke during the smoking ritual," etc .) that constitutes
the perfection of ritual processes ." This sense of self-sacrifice and sharing,
 Hopi and Zuni Prayer-sticks 229

embodied in the life of corn and rain, and symbolized in sodality person-
objects, is an important theme of all Hopi forms of ritual giving . Homngumni is
ground white cornmeal symbolic of clouds and purity . It is used by the
common Hopi (and Zuni) as both an offering and a symbolic prayer that
symbolizes the hard work of planting and harvesting, i .e. the sacrifices
necessary throughout the agricultural cycle . Nakwakwusi, the eagle down
breast feathers tied to all Hopi prayer-sticks, not only symbolize the breath-
moisture of all life forms, they also symbolize the hard work necessary to
obtain the feathers from eaglets living in high and dangerous cliff walks .
But prayer-sticks and prayer-stick rituals embody the necessity of self-
sacrifice and moral perfection for maintaining life processes more than any
other ritual object and symbolic action . This explains why the Hopi often
refer to prayer-sticks as corn (kao), 51 and are said to be `planted' in corn
fields, river mud, springs, mountain shrines and other special locations . 52
Prayer-sticks are the symbolic embodiments of self-sacrifice and the rituals
strategies for the recentering of the self in a social field of cosmic responsi-
bility . Thus prayer-sticks are said to be the `roots' of the home and village . 53
In conclusion, the most important leitmotif of Hopi and Zuni ceremony is
revealed in prayer-stick ritual as the moral necessity of self-sacrifice to main-
tain the maturation and flow of life, the social and moral order of cosmic
processes . This principle of self-sacrifice defines the Zuni Rain Priesthood,
expressing a sense of moral responsibility that transcends even the human
community . Rain Priests devote much of their lives to fasting, prayer, and
exemplary moral conduct . A Rain Priest should respect all forms of life ; their
prayer-stick sacrifices are for the long and happy life of all beings, 'even every
dirty bug' . J4 Prayer-stick rituals reveal certain forms of Pueblo symbolic
action as strategies for transforming or maturing cultural selves into larger
and larger circles of relational bonding . They create integral selves with
secret knowledge of ontological processes and of moral responsibility for
maintaining the cosmic solidarity that animates these processes of self-sacri-
fice .

SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION

Understanding prayer-sticks in terms of magic assumes the representative,
instrumental, and mechanical causation of the Euro-American symbolic
world . A Pueblo understanding of causation is not mechanical, but is based
on the ontological models of kinship relations and obligations, a kind of social
causation and ethical compulsion . The models of the symbolic text and
barter are more helpful in understanding the meaning and function of
prayer-stick rituals, but these models conceal as much as they reveal . Under-
stood within the textual and barter models, prayer-stick rituals take on the
appearance of an economy of self-interested exchange-a bartering for goods
230 J. Fulbright

and services . To the contrary, Hopi and Zuni understanding of prayer-stick

ritual shows how symbolic action is not merely instrumental and communi-
cative, but is also transformative in fundamental ways . Ritual action trans-
forms the self in a dialectic of ontological insight and moral action that also
transforms experience, and so recreates self and world .
The performative elements of prayer-stick ritual-and ritual giving in
general-are the elements of a `technology'55 of symbolic action for revealing
the `truth' about the self and its moral obligations to the other, life-giving
persons or processes of the universe . As gifts of passage, prayer-sticks are
strategies of individual transformation . 56 In sodality rituals, the individual's
ontological and social relationships are reconfigured through the symbolic
action of the gift. The prayer-stick rituals that precede and conclude every
ceremonial activity of the Hopi and Zuni reveal the new domains of truth
and value, which transform the self and its social field, and extend the self in
a hierarchy of social value and moral obligations defined by a 'pure-heart', a
life of self-sacrifice, sharing, and community (communitas) . This emphasis
on personal sacrifice and moral responsibility helps us explain why initiation
into the secret sodalities also structures political hierarchy . For the appropri-
ate use of secret ritual power/knowledge and political action requires self-
sacrifice and responsibility for maintaining the life-giving relationships be-
tween self and other . We can better understand the Zuni perception that the
gift of secret ritual knowledge literally imports life . 57
Recently David Schneider and Michel Foucault have emphasized a new
skepticism and have identified a crisis of representation in the social sciences .
Foucault notes that `Nothing in man-not even his body-is sufficiently
stable to serve as the basis for self-recognition or for the understanding other
men . The traditional devices for constructing a comprehensive view of
history (and `social structure') and for retracing the past as a continuous
development must be systematically dismantled' ." Both Schneider and Fou-
cault agree that we must look to those cultural discourses and ritual strat-
egies which `produce' subjectivity in order to reveal to the `self' its import in
relation to a world of ultimate meaning ." In this case, what anthropologists
have called Pueblo `ritual kinship' must be taken seriously as a transform-
ation of the self and its social field of responsibility . Indeed, we need only
recognize the fact that deceased Hopis and Zunis are said to `live' in those
sacred geographic locations associated with their sodality memberships,
rather than with members of their matrilineal households, lineages, or clans,
to see that important forms of bonding transcend biological affiliation . This
transformation of the self and of kinship relations through ritual action
explains why Zuni women are thought to be reborn at those places associated
with their husband's sodality affiliation; the reverse of the matrilocal residence
patterns of this life . 60 This should suggest to sensitive ethnographers the
 Hopi and Zuni Prayer-sticks 231

misunderstanding of Zuni and Hopi value systems that occur when `social
structure' is arbitrarily and ethnocentrically separated from their understand-
ing of ontological processes and the moral responsibilities that those on-
tologies imply . This analysis of prayer-stick ritual necessitates a rethinking of
the effect of person-objects (especially important `fetishes') and symbolic
action on social structure . Prayer-stick rituals must be understood as import-
ant strategies for cultural transformation that recenter the individual within
new webs of `social' relations and moral responsibilties, new wholes which
qualify the old parts and create new worlds of meaning and value . Thus,
while Hopi and Zuni religion may be `religions of structure' 61 and concerned
with `cosmic harmony', 62 they are primarily concerned with the transforma-
tive processes of `social' bonding (communitas) that transcend biological
kinship, and that promote a broad sense of social and cosmic responsibility .

NOTES
1 E . C . Parsons, Pueblo Indian Religion, 4 vols, Chicago, IL, University of Chicago
Press 1939, pp . 276-81 ; D . Tedlock, `Zuni religion and world view', in Handbook
of North American Indians, vol . 9, Washington, D . C ., Smithsonian Institute 1979,
p . 501 ; A . Geertz and M . Lomatuway'ma, Children of Cottonwood : Piety and Cer-
emonialism in Hopi Indian Puppetry, Lincoln, NE, University of Nebraska Press
1987 .
2 From D . Talayesva, Sun Chief: the Autobiography of a Hopi Indian, New Haven, Yale
University Press London 1942, pp . 169-70 . The Soyala is the Hopi solstice
ceremony where constructing and giving prayer-sticks is the ritual priority .
3 See, for example, E . C . Parsons, `Increase by magic : a Zuni pattern', American
Anthropologist 21 :3 (1919) pp. 279-86 ; Patterns of the Southwest, Seattle, WA, Uni-
versity of Washington Press 1948 ; R . M . Bradfield, A Natural History of Associ-
ations : A Study in the Meaning of Community, London, Duckworth Press 1973, pp .
189-97 .
4 See J . G . Frazer, The Golden Bough : A Study in Comparative Religion, 2 vols, London,
Macmillan 1890 . Frazer first formulated the formal theory of magical causation .
Frazer argued that `primitive' ritual was based on an intellectual confusion of
resemblance : the principle of like produces like (mimetic or sympathetic magic)
or the principle that part stands for whole (homeopathic or contagious magic) .
Frazer argued that the universe of the primitive was like modern science in that it
was based on lawful, mechanical, and necessary laws of causation, but was
unlike science in that it was based on the `child-like' confusions of analogic
reasoning or poetic causality .
5 Underhill, op. cit ., p . 50 ; or Bradfield, op . cit ., p . 197 .
6 E . M . Zuesse, `Ritual', in The Encyclopedia of Religion, vol . 12, Mircea Eliade (ed .),
New York, Macmillan 1987, p . 410 .
7 J . Loftin, `Supplication and participation : the distance and relation of the sacred
in Hopi prayer rites', Anthropos 81 (1986) pp . 177-202 .
8 Ibid ., p . 188-92.
9 A . M . Stephen, Hopi Journal, E . C . Parsons (ed .), New York, Columbia Univer-
sity Press 23 1936, p . 164, emphasis mine .
10 Loftin, op. cit ., pp . 188-91 .
232 J. Fulbright

11 D . Tedlock, The Spoken Word and the Work of Interpretation, Philadelphia, PA,
University of Pennsylvania Press 1983 .
12 S . Gill, Native American Religions : An Introduction, Belmont, CA, Wadsworth Press
1982, p . 6 .
13 L . Heib, `The ritual clown : humor and ethics', in Forms of Play of Native North
Americans, Edward Norbeck and Claire Farrer (eds), St . Paul, MN, Saint Paul
Press 1979 .
14 A . Geertz, Children, p . 67, fn . 17, writes `the pure heart is the foundation of Hopi
religious life, and it is the basic ingredient of any successful endeavor' ; see also
Loftin, op . cit ., p . 182, 189-90 ; Stephen, op . cit ., pp . 1271-2 ; R. Bunzel Introduc-
tion to Zuni Ceremonialism, Forty-seventh Annual Report of the Bureau of Ameri-
can Ethnology, Smithsonian Institution 1932, p . 498 ; Parsons, Religion, p . 285 .
15 Bunzel, op . cit ., p . 500; Stephen, op . cit ., pp . 1271-2 ; D . Tedlock, Zuni Religion,
op . cit ., p . 501 .
16 R . Bunzel, Zuni Texts, Publications of the American Ethnological Society, vol .
XV, Franz Boas (ed .), New York, Stechert 1933, p . 240 .
17 D . Tedlock, Zuni Religion, p . 501 .
18 Modern ethnographers like A . Geertz, Children, pp . 29-30, fn . 23, still use the
magic/barter models to explain prayer-stick ritual : `One might sum it up by
saying that prayer-offerings serve as objects of barter between man and god, as
vehicles of mimesis within the cultural context, and as apotropaic powers them-
selves' .
19 V . Valerio, Kinship and Sacrifice : Ritual and Society in Ancient Hawaii, Chicago, IL,
University of Chicago Press 1985, p . 67 .
20 Bunzel, Introduction, pp . 484, 799 .
21 R . Voth, `Traditions of the Hopi', Field Museum of Natural History Publication 96,
Anthropological Series 8, p . 117 ; Stephen, op . cit ., pp . 75 ; Bunzel, Introduction, p .
126 ; A . Geertz, Children, p . 30, fin . 23 .
22 Voth, op . cit., p . 29 ; Bunzel, Introduction, p . 500 .
23 Loftin, op . cit ., p . 189 .
24 B . Tedlock, Prayer Stick Sacrifice at Zuni . Unpublished manuscript in the
library of the Department of Anthropology, Wesleyan University, 1971, refer-
enced in D . Tedlock, Zuni Religion, p . 501 .
25 Stephen, op . cit ., pp . 1271-2 ; Loftin, op . cit ., p. 190 .
26 Voth, op . cit ., p . 791 .
27 P . Qoyawayma, No Turning Back : A True Account of a Hopi Indian Girl's Struggle to
Bridge the Gap between the World of Her People and the World of the White Man .
Albuquerque, NM, University of New Mexico Press 1964, p . 86 .
28 See E . Brandt, `On secrecy and the control of knowledge : tags Pueblo', in Secrecy :
a Cross-Cultural Perspective, New York, NY, Human Sciences Press ; and Peter
Whiteley, `The Interpretation of politics : a Hopi conundrum', Man 22 :4
(December) pp . 696-714 .
29 M . Black, `Maidens and mothers : an analysis of Hopi corn metaphors', Ethnology
XXXII : 4 (October 1984), p . 286 ; Bunzel, Introduction, p. 277 ;
30 Black, op . cit ., p . 280 .
31 B . L . Whorf, An American Indian Model of the Universe, International Journal of
American Linguistics 16(1950), p . 69, n . 2 .
32 E . A . Kennard, `Metaphor and magic : key concepts in Hopi culture', in M . E .
Smith (ed .), Studies in Linguistics in Honor of George L . Trager, The Hague 1972, p .
471 ; Black, op. cit ., p . 282 ; Heib, op . cit ., p . 577 ; Loftin, op . cit ., p . 184 .
 Hopi and Zuni Prayer-sticks 233

33 Stephen, op . cit ., p . 799 ; A . Geertz, Hopi Indian Altar Iconography, Leiden, E . J .

Brill Press 1987, p . 54 .
34 Bunzel, Introduction, p . 324 ; See also, M . C . Stevenson, The Zuni Indians: Their
Mythology, Esoteric Fraternities, and Ceremonies, 23rd Annual Report of the Bureau of
American Ethnology, p . 416 .
35 B . Tedlock, `Zuni and Quiche dream sharing and interpreting', in Dreaming :
Anthropological and Psychological Interpretations, Cambridge, Cambridge University
Press 1982, p . 109 .
36 Ibid ., p . 139, fn. 4 .
37 Bunzel, Introduction, pp . 541, 795 ; B . Tedlock, op . cit ., p . 130, fn . 4.
38 B . Tedlock, Dreaming, p . 130 fn . 4, argues that Zuni fetishes should be labeled
`icons', following Pierce's linguistic model . Tedlock defines the icon as a 'rep-
resentation of some personage . . . itself regarded as sacred and honored with
worship or adoration' . She describes an icon as a sign `that bears a resemblance
of some sort-they are individual, have heads, and bodies, wear clothes-of the
person who possesses them, and as "indexes", or signs that point to or are
connected with the individual object or person' .
Clifford Geertz notes this important hermeneutical function of fetishes when
he comments : `objects are used not only to represent experience but also to
apprehend it and to interpret it, to give it meaningful shape . All textualization is
not verbal . Objects do speak and should be heard as significant statements of
personal and cultural reflexivity as shapes that "materialize a way of experienc-
ing" and "bringing a particular cast of mind out into the world objects, where
man can look as it"' . `Making experience authoring selves, story and experi-
ence-the goal of interpretive anthropology', in V . Turner and E . M . Bruner
(eds), The Anthropology and Experience, Chicago, IL, University of Illinois Press
1986, pp . 317-8 .
A new theory of the fetish can be developed out of these insights, but is beyond
the scope of this essay . As early as 1919, Kroeber suggested the importance of the
Zuni sodality fetishes for defining the self and clan, but little has been done to
articulate this function since his suggestion . See Kroeber, `Zuni Kin and Clan',
Anthropological Papers of the American Ethnology Bulletin 78, Washington .
39 B . Tedlock, Dreaming, pp . 108-9; A . Geertz, Altar Iconography, p . 54 .
40 A . Stephen, 'The Kachina bring the Tiiponi to the rain phratry', The Journal of
American Folklore 42 (1929), pp . 60-3 .
41 See H . A . Tyler, Pueblo Gods and myths, Norman, University of Oklahoma Press
1984, pp . 284-8 .
42 Black, op . cit ., p . 286 .
43 L . Hyde, The Gift: Imagination and the Erotic Life of Property, New York, Vintage
Books 1983, pp . 42-5 .
44 Marcel Mauss, Forms and Functions of Exchange in Archaic Societies, Ian Cunnison,
trans ., New York : W . W. Norton, 1967 [1967] ; Marshall Sahlins, Stone Age
Economics, Chicago, IL, Aldine 1972 ; Victor Turner, The Ritual Process : Structure
and Anti-structure, Ithaca, NY, Cornell University Press 1967 .
45 Hyde, op . cit ., p . 155 .
46 D . Tedlock, An American Indian view of death, in Dennis and Barbara Tedlock
(eds .), Teachings From the American Earth : Indian Religion and Philosophy, New York,
Liveright 1975, p . 256 .
47 B . Tedlock, Dreaming . pp . 108-9 .
48 The noun forms of these Hopi verbs are tumula and maqsoni .
234 J. Fulbright

49 Loftin, op . cit ., p . 191 .

50 Personal communication, Emory Sekaquaptewa, University of Arizona 1991 .
51 Voth, op . cit., p . 76 .
52 Bunzel, Introduction, p. 500 ; Parsons, Pueblo, p. 270 ; Voth, op . cit., p . 76 .
53 Parsons, Notes on Zuni, Memoirs of the American Anthropological Association 4 :3-4
(1917), p . 197 ; Parsons, Pueblo, p . 8; Voth, op. cit ., p. 76, fn . 122 . A . Geertz,
children, p . 132 fn . 62 notes that prayer-sticks are literally the foundation of both
Hopi homes and kivas ; they are buried at each corner before construction .
54 R. Bunzel, `Zuni ritual poetry', 47th Annual Report of the Bureau of American Eth-
nology for the Years 1929-1930, 1932, pp . 666-7 ; D . Tedlock, in Andrew Peynetsa
and Walter Sanchez (eds), Finding the Center : Narrative Poetry of the Zuni Indians,
from Performances in Zuni, New York, Dial Press 1972, pp . 32, 142, 152 .
55 This metaphor comes from Michel Foucault's Technology is of the Self: A Seminar
with Michel Foucault, Amherst, MA, University of Massachusetts Press 1988 .
56 Hyde, op. cit ., p. 42 .
57 Bunzel, Introduction, p . 494, fn . 20, writes : `This was made painfully evident to the
writer in the death of one of her best informants who, among other things, told
her many prayers in text . During his last illness he related a dream which he
believed portended death and remarked, "Yes, now I must die . I have given you
all my religion and I have no way to protect myself" . He died two days later . He
was suspected of sorcery and his death was a source of general satisfaction .
Another friend of the writer, a rain priest, who had always withheld esoteric
information, remarked, "Now your friend is dead . He gave away his religion as if
it were of no value, and now he is dead" . He was voicing public opinion .'
58 Michel Foucault, `Nietzsche, Genealogy, History', in Paul Rabinow (ed .), Fou-
cault Reader New York, Pantheon Books 1984, pp . 87-8 .
59 D . Schneider, A Critique of the Study of Kingship, Ann Arbor, MI, University of
Michigan Press 1984 .
60 Those Zunis initiated into one of six katsina dance groups (or Kiva groups) are
said to be reincarnated with their families at Katsina Village (Kothluwalawa), an
underground home of the katsinas west of the present day Zuni . Those initiated
into one of thirteen medicine sodalities are said to be reborn at Shipaapulo'ma, a
mountain to the east . Members of the Zuni Rain Priesthoods (Aashiwani), the
most powerful group of sodalities at Zuni, are said to be reborn as the markers of
rain for all the earth and live at the four corners of the universe . See D . Tedlock,
Death, pp. 265-70 .
61 E . M . Zuesse, Ritual Cosmos : The Sanctification of Life in African Religions, Athens,
OH, Ohio University Press 1979, pp . 8-9 .
62 A. Hultkrantz, Native Religions of North America, New York, Harper 1987, pp . 108-
9.

JOHN FULBRIGHT received a B .A . in Philosophy and an M .A . in

Religious Studies from Arizona State University . He has taught in Arizona
community colleges and universities since 1984 . His primary research
interests include hermeneutics and interpretive analytics and he has done
field research among the Hopi and Zuni .

909 Marina Village Parkway, Alameda, CA 94501, U .S .A .