Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 5.djvu/603

Rh is the period of their greatest festivity and rejoicing. During this month their God sends his two sons, one to visit the living, the other the dead, of this "his chosen people." Their estufas are also used as halls for public meetings.



The executive authority of the Zuni is vested in an officer styled governor one—Pedro Pino—who, however, is but the mouth-piece of the spiritual ruler, the cacique; the orders of the latter are the laws governing the tribe, their execution simply resting with the governor. In conversation, Pedro Pino informed us that he was the ruler of the country between the Neutrias and Colorado Chiquito, some sixty miles, and Agua Fria and the Moquis settlements, about one hundred miles apart. In appearance, he is perhaps sixty years old, of commanding presence and affable manners; his hair is snow-white. He told us he had been governor of the Zuni people for many years, and that the tribe had always been friendly to the whites (Americans), from many of whom he had testimonials to the latter effect. Ordering his son, Patrizio, to bring him certain papers, he produced letters from officers of our army and private citizens, which referred to the governor in the highest terms, and also spoke of the uniform kindness in their treatment of his people.

"The Americans," continued the governor, "treat us well, but the Mexicans very badly; the latter have always maltreated us, and we want them neither to go through our country nor to reside among us. The heavens punish us by long drought for allowing them to remain on the Colorado Chiquito. My cacique, who prays for rain, and who is the spiritual and temporal ruler of this people, watches the sun daily, and is much distressed because no rain falls. He (the cacique) attributes the drought to the presence of the Mexican on our soil."