Excerpt from Thirty-First Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institute, 1909-1910

Mrs. M. C. Stevenson, ethnologist, continued her researches among the Pueblo tribes of the Rio Grande Valley, New Mexico, giving special attention to the T ewa group. As during the previous year, her studies were devoted chiefly to the pueblo of San Ildefonso, which offers better facilities for ethnologic investigation than the other Tewa villages, although her inquiries were extended also to Santa Clara and Nambe. Owing to the extreme conservatism of the Tewa people, Mrs. Stevenson found great difficulty in overcoming their prejudices against the study of the esoteric side of their life, but with patience she succeeded finally in gaining the warm friendship of many of the more influential headmen, and by this means was enabled to pursue a systematic study of the Tewa religion, sociology, and philosophy. Like most Indians, the Tewa are so secretive in everything that pertains to their worship that one not familiar with their religious life is readily mislead into believing that the ceremonies held in the public plazas of their villages which, with few exceptions, are more Mexican than Indian in outward character, consti tute the sole rites of these people, whereas it has been found that the Tewa still adhere as strictly to many of their ancient customs as before white men came among them, although some of their ceremonies are now less elaborate than they were in former times.

While the creation myth of the San Ildefonso Indians differs somewhat from those of the Zuni and of other Pueblo tribes, it is the same in all essentials. According to their belief they were created in an undermost world, and passed through three other worlds before reaching this one. The tribe is divided into the Sun or Summer, and the Ice or Winter, people, the former having preceded the latter in their advent into this world, and their final home was reached on the western bank of the Rio Grande almost opposite the present pueblo. This place is marked by an extensive ruin.

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