Monopolization of contact with the divine world
Zuni
A most instructive example of the monopolistic claim on the world of the spirit by the shamanistic religious operators is given to us by the Zuni, a Pueblo tribe living in the northern part of New-Mexico. The Zuni interest us because at the top of the Zuni hierarchy a group of thirteen A:shiwanni, the rain priests and the
directors of the Little Fire and Cimex fraternities, those who fast and pray for rain, can claim the right to their exclusive use of the mind-altering datura, called A'neglakya in their language. (Coxe, Ethnobotany of the Zuni Indians, in the Thirtieth Annual Report of the
Bureau of American Ethnology, 1908-09; page 39)
The Zuni, named for the river that runs through their lands, have grown corn since mythical times and after the arrival of the Spanish conquerors in the early sixteenth century they started to herd livestock.
By mid nineteenth century American troops stationed in the plains helped the Zuni warriors defeat invading bands of Apaches and Navajos. From that moment on closer relations developed between the Zuni and the Europeans that settled the region, starting an ever growing economy of handmade silver and turquoise jewelry, painted pottery, baskets, and other handicrafts.
As traders and tourists moved in, so did the anthropologists who have given us the first detailed accounts of the Zuni way of life, their mythology, and their complex system of government, legitimized by divine revelations and maintained through elaborate rituals. What strikes us most in these early anthropological reports is the secrecy encountered among the members of the Zuni, a characteristic shared by the neighbouring Pueblo Indian tribes. It was thought to be a response to the unwelcome inquisitiveness of outsiders. As Edward Dozier, himself an anthropologist, stated:
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"The unsuccessful attempts of recent ethnologists to break the Pueblo
iron curtain appear to demonstrate that these Indians still believe
that the release of ceremonial knowledge will be used against them.
They, therefore, guard tenaciously their native ceremonial system
from all outsiders, offering only the Spanish-Catholic and some less
sacred aspects of the native system to public scrutiny." (Dozier, E, "The Pueblo
Indians of North America,"
p. 97; New York, Holt, Rinehart and Winston,1970). |
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But upon a more thorough examination of the issue, fellow anthropologist Elizabeth Brandt concluded that Zuni and other Pueblos’ secrecy had various objectives. Although certainly meant to keep non-Zuni investigators at bay, it also served to restrict the flow of information within Zuni society so as to make it only available to a limited group of handpicked individuals. According to Brandt:
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"Certain kinds of information are declared secret, particularly information concerning religious matters, and there is a high degree of concern over "the secrets." The content of a secret is variable to some extent and what is secret is defined by religious leaders, not left up to individual choice of community members." (Brandt, E., "The Role of Secrecy in a Pueblo Society", p 14), in "FLOWERS OF THE WIND,
Papers on Ritual, Myth and Symbolism
in California and the Southwest," BALLENA PRESS, Socorro, New Mexico, 1978) |
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Because of this exclusive transmission of knowledge among a restricted inner circle, Zuni society is divided among those who know and the bulk of its members who are aware of the general rules but left out of the “status hierarchies based upon access to knowledge which is communicated only in oral form.” (Brandt, idem, p 16) This exclusion from the theological and ritual knowledge wouldn’t be that vexing if it were not for the fact that this knowledge, and the leading positions it bestows in the myriad of rituals performed by the tribe, are essential requirements for all the important political functions as well.
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The Old People have a firm grip upon the society through control of the secular political system which their access to knowledge gives them. Through secrecy they can invoke dire but unnamed supernatural
sanctions on the rest of the population. They can ban anything they wish without the necessity for explanation by invoking secrecy. The lulina (the Old People in Pueblo language) are the judicial system within the village and the legitimate agents of social control with the power to fine, imprison, whip, or expel anyone who threatens their authority. The tribal government is also backed by the support of the Federal government. The secrets can only be revealed if one of the lulina chooses to reveal them. Secrecy is thus an internal political tool of great utility." (Brandt, The Role of Secrecy in Pueblo Society, pdf 18, p 26, in Flowers of the Wind, edited by T.C. Blackburn, 1978) |
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"Discussing both the constrains and the privileges provided by the knowledge system is a major preoccupation for Zunis who are either still learning the protocol required for their level of responsibility or for those individuals who feel excluded from religious societies."
( Brandt, Elizabeth, "Egalitarianism, Hierarchy, and Centralization in the Pueblos." in The Ancient Southwest Community: Models and Methods for the Study of the Prehistoric Social Organization”, edited by W. H. Wills and Robert D. Leonard,. Albuquerque, University of New Mexico Press, 1994).
None of the anthropologists that have studied the Zuni have given an account that justifies this monopoly on knowledge. However, at the end of the nineteenth century, pioneer American anthropologist Mathilda Coxe Stevenson reported a myth that explains in a nutshell the powers at play in Zuni society.
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In the olden time a boy and a girl, brother and sister (the boy’s name was
A´neglakya and the girl’s name A´neglakyatsi’tsa), lived in the interior of
the earth, but they often came to the outer world and walked about a great
deal, observing closely everything they saw and heard, and repeating all to
their mother. This constant talking did not please the Divine Ones (twin
sons of the Sun Father). On meeting the boy and the girl the Divine Ones
asked, “How are you?” and the brother and sister answered, “We are happy.”
(Sometimes A´neglakya and ´neglakyatsi´tsa appeared on the earth as old
people.) They told the Divine Ones how they could make one sleep and see
ghosts, and how they could make one walk about a little and see one who
had committed theft. After this meeting the Divine Ones concluded that
A´neglakya and A´neglakyatsi´tsa knew too much and that they should be
banished for all time from this world; so the Divine Ones caused the brother
and the sister to disappear into the earth forever. Flowers sprang up at the
spot where the two descended, flowers exactly like those which they wore on
each side of their heads when visiting the earth. The Divine Ones called the plant A’neglakya, after the boy’s name. The original plant has many children
scattered over the earth; some of the blossoms are tinged with yellow, some
with blue, some with red, some are all white, the colors belonging to the four
cardinal points. (Coxe, Ethnobotany of the Zuni Indians, in the Thirtieth Annual Report of the
Bureau of American Ethnology, 1908-09; page 46) |
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The myth informs us that the gods didn't like inquisitive and too knowledgeable youths and therefore banished them underground.
Since we know from mythological societies – because they tell us so – that gods are made by people, it stands to reason that the myth about these sons of the Sun who banished A’neglakya and his sister must have been concocted by the A’shiwanni, the rain priests, eager to remain the chosen worldly representatives of their gods. And although the myth wants us to believe that the children were banished for knowing too much, it is not the knowledge that was considered bad, since we learn from other anthropological reports that the plant gave the rain priests exactly the same esoteric knowledge for which the children were banished:
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"A small quantity of the powdered root of Datura meteloides is
administered by a rain priest to put one in condition to sleep and see
ghosts. This procedure is for rain, and “rains will surely come the
day following the taking of the medicine, unless the man to whom it
is given has a bad heart.” .../....
Frequently when a man has been robbed and wishes to discover the
thief, he summons to his aid a rain priest, who prepares plume offerings,
...., and plants them at sunrise of the
day he is to treat the man who has lost his property, with the following
prayer to A’neglakya, A’neglakyatsi’tsa, and his ancestors: “I give
you te´likkyina´we [plume offerings] and collect your medicine which
I will give to my child at night that he may see the one who has
robbed him.”
(Coxe, Ethnobotany of the Zuni Indians, in the Thirtieth Annual Report of the
Bureau of American Ethnology, 1908-09; page 39) |
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Among the Zuni thererfore the myth referred to above has served to impress that esoteric knowledge obtained through the use of the plant should be kept out of the hands of young people and remain the exclusive possession of the older generation.
It shouldn’t surprise us then that in keeping with the divine restriction of knowledge conveyed through the myth and as far back as memory goes, the rain priests were reported to have been the only ones allowed to collect the A’neglakya.
This privilege gave the rain priests the monopoly over communication with the forces of nature, on earth and in the cosmos at large. Only they were empowered to pray to the birds. (Coxe, p 30-31) According to Coxe Stevenson, they would ground the blossoms and root of the A’neglakya to a powder and before going out at night to commune with the feathered kingdom, they’d “put a bit of this powdered root into their eyes, ears, and mouth, that the birds may not be afraid and would listen to them when they’d pray to them to sing for the rains to come.” (Coxe, The Zuni Indians, their Mythology, Esoteric Fraternities and Ceremonies, in the Twenty-Third Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology, 1901-02; page 386)
The monopoly on knowledge and the zeal employed to keep that knowledge secret were sustained by a couple of effective measures. As Zuni authority Bunzel writes, "
Priesthoods are hereditary in maternal families, and
to fill a vacancy the members select the least quarrelsome rather than
the most intelligent of the eligible young men."
(Bunzel 1932a:542). The heredity of the priestly offices reinforces the priestly claim on their monopoly of divine knowledge and since no proof has to be given of this inheritance, since it is secret religious knowledge, nobody will ever be in a position to dispute the claim's legitimacy. Challenges to this claim failed in Federal court, where the secrecy was upheld by appeal to freedom of religion afforded under the First Amendment of the US Constitution. This amendment thus creates a most paradoxical situation by having the government, bound to uphold democracy and to enforce prohibition world wide, allow an autocratic community claiming divine legitimacy through the consumption of a mind-altering substance to function within its borders.
A second means to force compliance with the divinely revealed rules is through fear. The possibility to create fear increases exponentially once the people's existential security has been taken away through the monopolization of the mind-altering substance. The muzzling of the spirit is a well known political means to fan the existential insecurity in which fear can take hold. This is what happened when as a result of the monopolization of the use of A'neglakya the Zuni entered in the era of worship of intellectually imagined divinity, the era of the institutionalized religions that dominate today's religious landscape.
Our present example of the monopolization of the use of mind-altering substances at the dawn of Zuni history is of further interest because it gives us also a clear picture of the change from the living experience of the personal world of divinity to the ritualized worship of the imagined divinities of the community. In her "Talk of the Katcina Chief" Ruth Bunzel records a myth as told by an older lady in the Zuni language and translated for her by an English speaking family member. As generations of Zuni before us must have been, we are informed in prosaic language of the reasons for the absence of the gods and of the origins of the Kachina, the human messengers impersonating the divine spirits.
It reminds us of the Jewish god Yahweh who likewise did not want the couple he had created to have divine knowledge and for that reason forbade them to eat from the fruit of knowledge of good and evil. It is quite probable that the Zuni myth was influenced by the biblical one at some time when the tribe had come into close contact with Christian civilization. The alliance of the Zuni warriors with the American troops against the invading Apaches and Navajos might have been the appropiate moment for its creation. In contrast to the Jewish version, the Zuni myth doesn't prohibit the plant but does away with the too wise youngsters. Where the biblical book of Zechariah teaches parents to kill their offspring when they start profetizing, i.e. proclaim divine knowledge, in keeping with Zuni mythology the youngsters vanish below the ground, the realm from where the people were said to have come into the world.
Is it to not contradict Christian belief that the Zuni did not elaborate further on the A'neglakya plant? That plant is used by a small elite for the same purpose that Yahweh bannished Adam and Eve from Paradise and the Zuni gods bannished the youths: its visionarry powers and the knowledge it bestows. But contrary to the total ban on the mind altering biblical fruit, the highest level of Zuni hierarchy is allowed the A'neglakya consumption. These are the rain priests, numbering just thirteen, and the Elder and the Younger Bow priests whom together form the exclusive society of A:shiwanni, those who fast and pray for rain. The A:shiwani are responsible for
the "welfare of the total Zuni world" and thus are capable of influencing
not only the people of Zuni but the elements of the universe, such as
rain, wind, and all life forms.
At the top of the Zuni hierarchy a group of 13 A:shiwanni, those who fast and pray for rain, claim the exclusive use of the mind-altering datura, A'neglkaya it's called in their language. They are called rain priests, but that is an erroneous title, since like all shamans they leave at regular intervals their minds behind in order to enter into contact with the world of the spirit. Like shamans, they are also diviners and medical healers, using the mind altering datura to find the spiritual origins of bodily ailments. Below the A:shiwanni, on the second of the four hierarchical levels of Zuni society, are situated the Kachina, the Leaders, who oversee the ritual observances that maintain the connections with the ancestral spirits and the well-being of the entire tribe. These Leaders are what we would call priests, who teach the tenets of the faith and perform the rituals, and attend to the needs of the members of the congregation.
The second level of leadership is reserved
for the Kodikyanne (Kokko [Kachina] Leaders), who are responsible for maintaining connections with the ancestral spirits and therefore for the welfare of Zuni through the overseeing of ritual observances.
The Zuni use many wild plants for healing and divinatory purposes, the most important of which is the datura (Datura wrighti), the ‘sacred datura’ known by the natives as A’neglakya. It is a perennial plant, used as an ornament but it interests us for its entheogenic properties and the way these have shaped the entire Zuni culture. |
