The Zuni Emergence Myth tells how the Zuni ancestors climbed up from the dark fourth underworld beneath the earth through three further underworlds, guided by the twin war gods Ahayuda, before reaching the light of the present world and searching out Itiwana, the Middle Place, where Zuni Pueblo now stands. Each stage of the ascent is marked by trials and transformations of the people themselves, and the completed journey to the Middle Place remains foundational to Zuni religious identity and to the pueblo's own understanding of its place at the center of the world.
Facts
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Source TextRuth Bunzel's 1932 Zuni Origin Myths found that Zuni tradition preserves not one single fixed origin account but a long cycle of overlapping versions, differing by clan, kiva group and priesthood. 2 Source TextThe first substantial written record is Frank Hamilton Cushing's 1896 Outlines of Zuni Creation Myths, drawn from his residence among the Zuni from 1879 to 1884 and his 1881 initiation into the Priesthood of the Bow. 3 History
Historical NoteThe twin war gods of the myth, the Ahayuda, are also the name of paired wooden effigies that the Pueblo of Zuni holds communally rather than as individual property; since the 1990s the Pueblo has pursued, and in a number of cases won, the return of Ahayu:da figures from museums and private collections across the United States. 4 Meaning
Central MotifAncestors climb up through a sequence of underworlds, guided by twin culture heroes, to reach the designated center of the world. 1 Scholarship and Forensics
Scholarly NoteBunzel's structural study is still cited as the primary source for treating the Zuni emergence and migration narrative as a cycle of related accounts rather than a single canonical text, a reading later ethnographers have generally followed. 2 Cross-Tradition Connections
Belongs to Tradition
This gap was held pending a dedicated Zuni Religion page, now created.
Originated In
Related To
Sources
1. The Facts on File Encyclopedia of World Mythology and Legend
Anthony S. Mercatante, revised and expanded by James R. Dow, Facts on File, 2004s.v. Zuni mythology; emergence narrativeView the Source 1. The Facts on File Encyclopedia of World Mythology and Legend
Anthony S. Mercatante, revised and expanded by James R. Dow, Facts on File, 2004Originated In: North AmericaView the Source 2. Zuni Origin Myths
Ruth L. Bunzel, Bureau of American Ethnology (Forty-Seventh Annual Report), Smithsonian Institution, 1932View the Source 3. Outlines of Zuni Creation Myths
Frank Hamilton Cushing, Bureau of Ethnology, Smithsonian Institution (Thirteenth Annual Report), 1896View the Source 4. The Return of the Ahayu:da: Lessons for Repatriation from Zuni Pueblo and the Smithsonian Institution
William L. Merrill, Edmund J. Ladd and T. J. Ferguson, Current Anthropology, vol. 34, no. 5, pp. 523-567 (University of Chicago Press), 1993View the Source Reader Challenges (0 open reader challenges)
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