Excerpt from Tusayan Katcinas

In the present article I have tried to present a picture of one of the two great natural groups Of ceremonials into which the Tusayan ritual is divided. I have sought also to lay a foundation for comparative studies of the same group as it exists in other pueblos, but have not found sufficient data in regard to these celebrations in other villages to carry this comparative research very far. Notwithstanding these dances occur in most of the pueblos, the published data about them is too meager for comparative uses. NO connected description of these ceremonies in other pueblos has been published; of theoretical expla nations we have more than are profitable. It is to be hoped that the ever-increasing interest in the ceremonials of the Pueblos Of the south west will lead to didactic, exoteric accounts of the rituals Of all these peoples, for a great field for research in this direction is yet to be tilled.

In the use, throughout this article, of the words gods, deities, and worship we undoubtedly endow the subject with conceptions which do not exist in the Indian mind, but spring from philosophic ideas resulting from our higher culture. For the first two the more cumber some term supernatural beings is more expressive, and the word spirit is perhaps more convenient, except from the fact that it like wise has come to have a definite meaning unknown to the primitive mind.

Worship, as we understand it, is not a proper term to use in the de scription of the Indian's methods of approaching his supernal beings. It involves much which is unknown to him, and implies the existence of that which is foreign to his conceptions. Still, until some better nomenclature, more exactly defining his methods, is suggested, these terms from their convenience will still continue in common use.

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