Download the full version of the textbook now at textbookfull.

com

Public Painting and Visual Culture in Early

Republican Florence 1st Edition George R.
Bent

https://textbookfull.com/product/public-painting-
and-visual-culture-in-early-republican-
florence-1st-edition-george-r-bent/

Explore and download more textbook at https://textbookfull.com

 Recommended digital products (PDF, EPUB, MOBI) that
you can download immediately if you are interested.

Renaissance Porticoes and Painted Pergolas Nature and

Culture in Early Modern Italy Visual Culture in Early
Modernity 1st Edition Natsumi Nonaka
https://textbookfull.com/product/renaissance-porticoes-and-painted-
pergolas-nature-and-culture-in-early-modern-italy-visual-culture-in-
early-modernity-1st-edition-natsumi-nonaka/
textbookfull.com

Early Film Culture in Hong Kong Taiwan and Republican

China Kaleidoscopic Histories 1st Edition Emilie Yueh-Yu
Yeh
https://textbookfull.com/product/early-film-culture-in-hong-kong-
taiwan-and-republican-china-kaleidoscopic-histories-1st-edition-
emilie-yueh-yu-yeh/
textbookfull.com

Art and History Texts Contexts and Visual Representations

in Ancient and Early Medieval India 1st Edition R.
Mahalakshmi (Editor)
https://textbookfull.com/product/art-and-history-texts-contexts-and-
visual-representations-in-ancient-and-early-medieval-india-1st-
edition-r-mahalakshmi-editor/
textbookfull.com

Quintessence of Dental Technology, Volume 39, Quintessence

Publishing 2016 2016th Edition Silas Duarte Jr.

https://textbookfull.com/product/quintessence-of-dental-technology-
volume-39-quintessence-publishing-2016-2016th-edition-silas-duarte-jr/

textbookfull.com
Fundamentals of Cognition 3rd Edition Michael W Eysenck
Marc Brysbaert

https://textbookfull.com/product/fundamentals-of-cognition-3rd-
edition-michael-w-eysenck-marc-brysbaert/

textbookfull.com

Venezuela, ALBA, and the Limits of Postneoliberal

Regionalism in Latin America and the Caribbean Asa K.
Cusack
https://textbookfull.com/product/venezuela-alba-and-the-limits-of-
postneoliberal-regionalism-in-latin-america-and-the-caribbean-asa-k-
cusack/
textbookfull.com

Australian Screen in the 2000s 1st Edition Mark David Ryan

https://textbookfull.com/product/australian-screen-in-the-2000s-1st-
edition-mark-david-ryan/

textbookfull.com

Criminal Justice and Corruption: State Power,

Privatization and Legitimacy Graham Brooks

https://textbookfull.com/product/criminal-justice-and-corruption-
state-power-privatization-and-legitimacy-graham-brooks/

textbookfull.com

Mathematical Disquisitions The Booklet of Theses

Immortalized by Galileo Christopher M. Graney

https://textbookfull.com/product/mathematical-disquisitions-the-
booklet-of-theses-immortalized-by-galileo-christopher-m-graney/

textbookfull.com
Cybersecurity Readiness First Edition Dave Chatterjee

https://textbookfull.com/product/cybersecurity-readiness-first-
edition-dave-chatterjee/

textbookfull.com
PUBLIC PAINTING AND VISUAL CULTURE IN EARLY
REPUBLICAN FLORENCE

Street corners, guild halls, government offices, and confraternity centers

contained paintings that made the city of Florence a visual jewel at pre-
cisely the time of its emergence as an international cultural leader. This
book considers the paintings that were made specifically for consideration
by lay viewers as well as the way they could have been interpreted by audi-
ences who approached them with specific perspectives. Their belief in the
power of images, their understanding of the persuasiveness of pictures, and
their acceptance of the utterly vital role that art could play as a propagator
of civic, corporate, and individual identity made lay viewers keenly aware of
the paintings in their midst. Those pictures affirmed the piety of the people
for whom they were made in an age of social and political upheaval as the
city experimented with an imperfect form of republicanism that often failed
to adhere to its declared aspirations.

George R.Bent is the Sydney Gause Childress Professor of the Arts at Wash-
ington and Lee University, where he has taught in the Department of Art
and Art History since 1993. A Fulbright scholar, Bent has written about the
art of Lorenzo Monaco, Florentine painting of the Late Middle Ages and
Early Renaissance, and manuscript production in the fourteenth century.
PUBLIC PAINTING AND
VISUAL CULTURE IN
EARLY REPUBLICAN
FLORENCE

GEORGE R. BENT
Washington and Lee University
One Liberty Plaza, 20th Floor, New York, ny 10006, usa

Cambridge University Press is part of the University of Cambridge.

It furthers the University’s mission by disseminating knowledge in the pursuit of
education, learning, and research at the highest international levels of excellence.

www.cambridge.org
Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9781107139763

C George R. Bent 2016

This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception

and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements,
no reproduction of any part may take place without the written
permission of Cambridge University Press.
First published 2016
Printed in The United States of America by Sheridan Books
A catalogue record for this publication is available from the British Library.
Library of Congress Cataloging–in–Publication Data
Names: Bent, George R., author.
Title: Public painting and visual culture in early republican Florence / George R. Bent.
Description: New York : Cambridge University Press, 2016. | Includes bibliographical
references and index.
Identifiers: lccn 2016021810 | isbn 9781107139763 (hardback)
Subjects: lcsh: Painting, Italian – Italy – Florence – Themes, motives. | Public art – Italy –
Florence – History – To 1500. | Art and society – Italy – Florence – History – To 1500. |
Florence (Italy) – Civilization. | BISAC: HISTORY / Europe / General.
Classification: lcc nd621.f7 b47 2016 | ddc 701/.03–dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016021810
isbn 978-1-107-13976-3 Hardback
Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of urls for
external or third-party Internet Web sites referred to in this publication and does not
guarantee that any content on such Web sites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.
CONTENTS

List of Illustrations page vi

Acknowledgments xiii

INTRODUCTION: PUBLIC PAINTING AND VISUAL

CULTURE IN EARLY REPUBLICAN FLORENCE, 1282–1434 1

1 PAINTINGS IN THE STREETS: TABERNACLES, PUBLIC

DEVOTION, AND CONTROL 17

2 IMAGES OF CHARITY: CONFRATERNITIES, HOSPITALS,

AND PICTURES FOR THE DESTITUTE 65

3 ART AND THE COMMUNE: POLITICS, PROPAGANDA, AND

THE BUREAUCRATIC STATE 105

4 PICTURES FOR MERCHANTS: THE GUILDS, THEIR

PAINTINGS, AND THE STRUGGLE FOR POWER 135

5 PUBLIC PAINTING IN SACRED SPACES: PIERS AND

PILASTERS IN FLORENTINE CHURCHES 185

6 MURALS FOR THE MASSES: PAINTINGS ON NAVE WALLS 221

7 MASACCIO’S TRINITY AND THE TRIUMPH OF PUBLIC

PAINTING FOR COMMON PEOPLE IN EARLY REPUBLICAN
FLORENCE 273

Notes 289
Bibliography 311
Index 325

v
 ILLUSTRATIONS

color plates appear between pages 158 and 159

I. Giottino, Lamentation of Christ, ca. 1360, Uffizi Galleries,
Florence
II. Giottino, Madonna della Sagra, 1356, Accademia, Florence
III. Andrea del Bonaiuto, Madonna of Humility, ca. 1375, Via San
Gallo, Florence
IV. Madonna dei Malcontenti, ca. 1385, Via dei Malcontenti,
Florence
V. Jacopo del Casentino, Madonna della Tromba, ca. 1335–1340,
Palazzo Arte della Lana, Florence
VI. Santa Maria della Tromba, Codice Rustici, fol. 22, 1442–1447,
Biblioteca Seminario Maggiore, Florence
VII. Bernardo Daddi, Madonna of Orsanmichele, 1347,
Orsanmichele, Florence
VIII. Bernardo Daddi, Crucifix (recto), ca. 1345, Museo Poldi
Pezzoli, Milan
IX. Bernardo Daddi, Crucifix (verso), ca. 1345, Museo Poldi
Pezzoli, Milan
X. Niccolò di Pietro Gerini, Flagellation of Christ, ca. 1390,
private collection
XI. Workshop of Bernardo Daddi, Allegory of Mercy, 1342,
Museo del Bigallo, Florence
XII. Niccolò di Pietro Gerini and Ambrogio di Baldese,
Abandonment of Children and the Reunification of Families, 1386,
Museo del Bigallo, Florence
XIII. Reconstruction, Abandonment of Children and the
Reunification of Families, 1386, Museo del Bigallo, Florence
XIV. Jacopo di Cione, Madonna Lactans, ca. 1375, National Gallery
of Art, Washington, D.C.
XV. Workshop of Lorenzo Monaco, Double Intercession, ca. 1400,
Metropolitan Museum of Art (The Cloisters), New York
XVI. Giotto (?), Enthroned Madonna with Symbols of the City,
1334–1336, Museo Nazionale del Bargello, Florence
XVII. Andrea di Cione (?), Expulsion of the Duke of Athens, ca. 1345,
Palazzo Vecchio, Florence

vi
ILLUSTRATIONS vii

XVIII. Jacopo di Cione, Coronation of the Virgin, 1373, Accademia,

Florence
XIX. Fra Angelico, Madonna and Child, 1435, Museo di San Marco,
Florence
XX. Mariotto di Nardo, Madonna and Child with Saints Stephen
and Reparata, ca. 1385, Accademia, Florence
XXI. Incipit Page, Arte della Lana 4, fol. 6, ca. 1335, Archivio di Stato,
Florence
XXII. Sala d’Udienza, Palazzo Arte della Lana, Florence
XXIII. Madonna della Lana, ca. 1315, Palazzo Arte della Lana,
Florence
XXIV. Nardo di Cione (?), Judgment of Brutus, ca. 1345, Palazzo Arte
della Lana, Florence
XXV. Bernardo Daddi, Saint Paul, 1333, National Gallery of Art,
Washington, D.C.
XXVI. Giovanni del Biondo, Martyrdom of Saint Sebastian, ca. 1376,
Museo dell’Opera del Duomo, Florence
XXVII. Jacopo di Cione and Giovanni del Biondo, Saint Zenobius,
ca. 1390, Santa Maria del Fiore, Florence
XXVIII. Nardo di Cione, Madonna and Child with Saints John the
Baptist, John the Evangelist, Zenobius, and Reparata, ca. 1360,
Brooklyn Museum of Art, Brooklyn, New York
XXIX. Giovanni del Biondo, Saint John the Evangelist, ca. 1380,
Accademia, Florence
XXX. Andrea di Cione and Jacopo di Cione, Saint Matthew and
Scenes from His Life, 1369, Uffizi, Florence
XXXI. Lorenzo Monaco, Agony in the Garden, ca. 1396, Accademia,
Florence
XXXII. Saints Mary Magdalene, Nicholas, Miniato, Andrew, and
Christopher, ca. 1380–1390, San Miniato al Monte, Florence
XXXIII. Coronation of the Virgin, ca. 1300, Santa Maria del Fiore,
Florence
XXXIV. Last Judgment and Biblical Scenes, detail, Last Judgment
(southwest, west, and northwest vaults), ca. 1275–1300, San
Giovanni, Florence
XXXV. Last Judgment and Biblical Scenes, detail, east vault, John the
Baptist Imprisoned, ca. 1275–1300, San Giovanni, Florence
XXXVI. Andrea di Cione, Triumph of Death, ca. 1345, Santa Croce,
Florence
XXXVII. Masaccio, Holy Trinity, 1427, Santa Maria Novella, Florence
XXXVIII. Pulpit, Santa Maria Novella, Florence
XXXIX. View of the Trinity from the east portal, Santa Maria
Novella, Florence
viii ILLUSTRATIONS

black and white figures

1. Fra Angelico, Deposition of Christ, 1435, Museo San Marco, Florence page 3
2. Bernardo Daddi, Madonna del Bagnuolo, ca. 1335, Museo dell’Opera
del Duomo, Florence 7
3. Isometric project of Santa Croce with tramezzo, before Vasari’s
renovation 10
4. Sketch of Santa Croce with tramezzo 11
5. Niche, Piazza Santo Spirito, Florence 19
6. Taddeo Gaddi, Madonna and Child, ca. 1340, Via Antonino,
Florence 20
7. Niccolò di Tommaso, Saint Sixtus, ca. 1385, Via del Sole, Florence 21
8. Maestro di San Martino a Mensola, Madonna and Child, ca. 1395,
Piazza Piattellina, Florence 23
9. Lorenzo di Bicci, Madonnone, ca. 1390, Via di San Salvi, Florence 25
10. Giovanni del Biondo (?), Renunciation of Worldly Goods, ca. 1390,
Orsanmichele, Florence 26
11. Giovanni del Biondo (?), Miracle of the Ordeal by Fire at the Grain
Market, ca. 1390, Orsanmichele, Florence 27
12. Giovanni del Biondo (?), Miracle of the Hanged Thief, ca. 1390,
Orsanmichele, Florence 29
13. Mercato Vecchio before its demolition, Florence 33
14. Giuseppe Moricci, Santa Maria della Tromba, ca. 1860, Galleria
d’Arte Moderna, Florence 35
15. Johannes Stradanus, Mercato Vecchio, Palazzo Vecchio, Florence 36
16. Jacopo del Casentino, Madonna and Child with Saints Benedict and
Peter, ca. 1345, Borgo degli Albizzi (Via dei Giraldi), Florence 37
17. Orsanmichele, Florence 47
18. Supplicants before the Madonna of Orsanmichele, Chigi L VIII 296, fol.
152, ca. 1342–1348, Vatican Library, Vatican City 49
19. Riot at Orsanmichele, Biadaiolo Manuscript, fol. 79, ca. 1340, Biblioteca
Laurenziana, Florence 53
20. Saint Anne, ca. 1345, Orsanmichele, Florence 57
21. Andrea di Cione, Tabernacle of Orsanmichele, 1352–1359,
Orsanmichele, Florence 59
22. Duccio di Buoninsegna, Rucellai Madonna, ca. 1290, Uffizi Galleries,
Florence 67
23. Cimabue, Santa Trinita Madonna, ca. 1295, Uffizi, Florence 69
24. Mariotto di Nardo, Coronation of the Virgin, 1408, Minneapolis
Institute of Art, Minneapolis, Minnesota 73
25. Niccolò di Pietro Gerini, Vir Dolorum, ca. 1400, Accademia,
Florence 76
26. Jacopo del Casentino, Saint Agatha, ca. 1335, Museo dell’Opera del
Duomo, Florence 80
27. Anonymous, Saint Agatha, ca. 1290, Museo dell’Opera del Duomo,
Florence 81
Visit https://textbookfull.com
now to explore a rich
collection of eBooks, textbook
and enjoy exciting offers!
ILLUSTRATIONS ix

28. Flagellants, Chigi L VIII 296, fol. 197v, ca. 1342–1348, Vatican Library,
Vatican City 82
29. Loggia del Bigallo, Florence 85
30. Alberto Arnoldi, Madonna and Child, ca. 1365, Museo del Bigallo,
Florence 86
31. Nardo di Cione, Christ in Judgment with Angels, ca. 1364, Museo del
Bigallo, Florence 87
32. Workshop of Bernardo Daddi, Allegory of Mercy (detail, roundels),
1342, Museo del Bigallo, Florence 89
33. Workshop of Bernardo Daddi, Allegory of Mercy (detail, bread and
wine), 1342, Museo del Bigallo, Florence 90
34. Workshop of Bernardo Daddi, Allegory of Mercy (detail, funeral bier),
1342, Museo del Bigallo, Florence 91
35. Copy, Abandonment of Children and the Reunification of Families, 1386,
Museo del Bigallo, Florence 93
36. Pseudo Don Silvestro dei Gherarducci, Madonna Lactans, ca. 1380,
Accademia, Florence 97
37. Workshop of Giotto, Chapel of the Magdalene with Last Judgment,
ca. 1321, Museo Nazionale del Bargello, Florence 110
38. Workshop of Giotto, Chapel of the Magdalene with Hell, ca. 1321,
Museo Nazionale del Bargello, Florence 111
39. Giovanni Toscani, Incredulity of Saint Thomas, ca. 1420, Accademia,
Florence 115
40. Ambrogio Lorenzetti, Allegory of Bad Government, 1339, Palazzo
Pubblico, Siena 121
41. Stemmi, Uffizi, Florence 124
42. Jacopo di Cione, Coronation of the Virgin (detail, Virgin), 1373,
Accademia, Florence 125
43. Jacopo di Cione, Coronation of the Virgin (detail, Victor and
Zenobius), 1373, Accademia, Florence 130
44. Gold florins 131
45. Bernardo Daddi, Madonna and Child, ca. 1340, Accademia, Florence 136
46. Fra Angelico, Madonna and Child (Saints Mark and Peter), detail, 1435,
Museo di San Marco, Florence 139
47. Taddeo Gaddi, Madonna and Child, ca. 1350–1355, Accademia,
Florence 141
48. Jacopo del Casentino, Madonna and Child with Saints Stephen and
Philip, ca. 1340, Palazzo Arte della Lana, Florence 143
49. Palazzo Arte dei Giudici e Notai, Via del Proconsolo, Florence 145
50. Palazzo Arte dei Giudici e Notai, Sala d’Udienza, Via del
Proconsolo, Florence 146
51. Ambrogio di Baldese, Cleric, ca. 1406, Palazzo Arte dei Giudici e
Notai, Florence 147
52. Ambrogio di Baldese, Allegorical Women, ca. 1406, Palazzo Arte dei
Giudici e Notai, Florence 148
x ILLUSTRATIONS

53. Ambrogio di Baldese, Uomini Famosi, ca. 1406, Palazzo Arte dei
Giudici e Notai, Florence 149
54. Ambrogio di Baldese, Allegorical Winged Figure, ca. 1406, Palazzo
Arte dei Giudici e Notai, Florence 151
55. Palazzo Arte della Lana, Via Calimala, Florence 155
56. Bottega, Palazzo Arte della Lana, Via Calimala, Florence 157
57. Vault, Palazzo Arte della Lana, Florence 158
58. Annunciation of the Virgin, ca. 1315, Palazzo Arte della Lana, Florence 159
59. Saints Martin, Pancras, Peter, and Frediano, ca. 1370–1380, Palazzo Arte
della Lana, Florence 161
60. Ambrogio Lorenzetti, Allegory of Good Government, 1338–1339,
Palazzo Pubblico, Siena 165
61. Judgment of Brutus, detail (dado), ca. 1345, Palazzo Arte della Lana,
Florence 167
62. Nardo di Cione, Paradise, ca. 1357, Santa Maria Novella, Florence 168
63. Andrea di Cione, Strozzi Altarpiece, 1357, Santa Maria Novella,
Florence 169
64. Judgment of Brutus, detail (left figures), ca. 1345, Palazzo Arte della
Lana, Florence 177
65. Judgment of Brutus, detail (right figures), ca. 1345, Palazzo Arte della
Lana, Florence 179
66. Giovanni del Biondo, Scenes from the Life of Saint Sebastian, left panel,
ca. 1376, Museo dell’Opera del Duomo, Florence 188
67. Giovanni del Biondo, Scenes from the Life of Saint Sebastian, right
panel, ca. 1376, Museo dell’Opera del Duomo, Florence 189
68. Bernardo Daddi, Saint Catherine, ca. 1335, Museo dell’Opera del
Duomo, Florence 193
69. Giovanni del Biondo, Saint Catherine with Noferi Bischeri, ca. 1380,
Museo dell’Opera del Duomo, Florence 195
70. Jacopo di Cione, Saint Zenobius, 1394, Museo dell’Opera del
Duomo, Florence 197
71. Bernardo Daddi, Madonna and Child with Saints (“San Pancrazio
Altarpiece,” ex–Santa Maria del Fiore), 1342, Uffizi, Florence 199
72. Lorenzo di Niccolò, Saint Reparata, ca. 1408, Museo dell’Opera del
Duomo, Florence 200
73. Jacopo del Casentino, Enthroned Madonna Lactans, ca. 1335, Museo
dell’Opera del Duomo, Florence 201
74. Jacopo del Casentino, Saint Bartholomew Enthroned, ca. 1335,
Accademia, Florence 203
75. Circle of Andrea di Bonaiuto, Annunciation of the Virgin, ca. 1380,
Accademia, Florence 205
76. Lorenzo di Bicci, Saint Martin, ca. 1395, Accademia, Florence 209
77. Vision of Saint Bernard, ca. 1360, Accademia, Florence 212
78. Saint Mary Magdalene, ca. 1275, Accademia, Florence 213
79. Niccolò di Pietro Gerini, Saint Bartholomew, 1408, Orsanmichele,
Florence 215
ILLUSTRATIONS xi

80. Christ with the Virgin and Saint Miniato, facade, ca. 1240, San Miniato
al Monte, Florence 222
81. Christ Enthroned, apse, 1297, San Miniato al Monte, Florence 223
82. Saints on the South wall, ca. 1380–1410, San Miniato al Monte,
Florence 224
83. Saints John the Baptist, Reparata, Zenobius, and Benedict, ca. 1400–1410,
San Miniato al Monte, Florence 227
84. Christ with the Instruments of the Passion and Saints Julian, Miniato, and
Catherine with Female Donors, ca. 1409–1410, San Miniato al Monte,
Florence 228
85. Christ with the Instruments of the Passion, ca. 1409–1410, San Miniato
al Monte, Florence 229
86. Vir Dolorum, ca. 1340–1350, Santa Maria del Fiore, Florence 233
87. Last Judgment and Biblical Scenes, detail, Heaven (southwest vault),
ca. 1275–1300, San Giovanni, Florence 242
88. Last Judgment and Biblical Scenes, detail, Hell (northwest vault),
ca. 1275–1300, San Giovanni, Florence 243
89. Last Judgment and Biblical Scenes, detail, north vault, ca. 1275–1300,
San Giovanni, Florence 245
90. Last Judgment and Biblical Scenes, detail, northeast vault,
ca. 1275–1300, San Giovanni, Florence 246
91. Last Judgment and Biblical Scenes, detail, east vault, ca. 1275–1300, San
Giovanni, Florence 247
92. Last Judgment and Biblical Scenes, detail, southeast vault, ca.
1275–1300, San Giovanni, Florence 248
93. Last Judgment and Biblical Scenes, detail, south vault, ca. 1275–1300,
San Giovanni, Florence 249
94. Andrea Pisano, Scenes from the Life of John the Baptist, ca. 1336, San
Giovanni, Florence 251
95. Lorenzo Ghiberti, Baptism of Christ, ca. 1407–1424, San Giovanni,
Florence 256
96. Lorenzo Ghiberti, Scenes from Genesis (Gates of Paradise), ca.
1430–1452, San Giovanni, Florence 257
97. Santa Croce, nave and pulpit, Florence 259
98. Crucifixion, Noli me Tangere, Ascension, Santa Croce, Florence 260
99. Triumph of Death, ca. 1333, Camposanto, Pisa 261
100. Andrea di Cione, Hell, detail, earthquake, ca. 1345, Santa Croce,
Florence 262
101. Andrea di Cione, Hell, detail, eclipse, ca. 1345, Santa Croce, Florence 263
102. Andrea di Cione, Last Judgment, detail, beaked torturers, ca. 1345,
Santa Croce, Florence 264
103. Andrea di Cione, Last Judgment, detail, LU(SS)VRIA, ca. 1345, Santa
Croce, Florence 265
104. West side wall, with bay containing Trinity, Santa Maria Novella,
Florence. 279
105. Cemetery, east cloister, Santa Maria Novella, Florence 281
xii ILLUSTRATIONS

106. Giotto, Crucifix, ca. 1310–1312, Santa Maria Novella, Florence 283
107. Filippo Brunelleschi, Crucifix, ca. 1415, Santa Maria Novella,
Florence 284
108. Lamentation of Christ, ca. 1340, Santa Maria Novella, Florence 285
109. Nardo di Cione, Last Judgment, Christ, ca. 1357, Strozzi Chapel, Santa
Maria Novella, Florence 287
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

My interest in the art of the fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries was born
in Oberlin, Ohio, nurtured in Palo Alto, California, and cultivated in Florence,
Italy, during the longue durée of the Reagan administration. In those days, and
then through the 1990s, I came to think that the artistic traditions that drove
Tuscan painting had much more to do with the mentality of the Middle Ages
than it did with the early modern period. That belief led to and resulted in
my examination of the artistic environment in the Camaldolese monastery of
Santa Maria degli Angeli and the legacy of Lorenzo Monaco, its most famous
member. When that work reached its logical conclusion, I felt compelled to
turn away from the strictly controlled environment of the cloister and to think
instead about the messier, more complicated, and only vaguely understood
visual culture of the Florentine laity. Poor, undereducated, and largely disen-
franchised, these usually overlooked viewers presented an enormous challenge
for me: I had to teach myself a great deal about corners of society I’d only
paid marginal attention to in my earlier work, and I frequently reached out to
friends and colleagues for advice and guidance. The going was slow at times,
but it was always richly rewarding.
Fortunately, the friends and colleagues to whom I turned were more than
just enormously helpful. Without them, this project could have never reached
its conclusion. Judith Steinhoff, David Peterson, Areli Marina, Barbara Deim-
ling, Alick McLean, and Felicity Ratté engaged me critically at the early stages
of my research and helped me identify the good, address the bad, and beautify
the ugly throughout the process. Roger Crum and Perri Lee Roberts called
upon their vast understanding of the early Quattrocento to lead me in worthy
directions. Philip Earenfight, Megan Holmes, Kay Arthur, and William Levin
were generous with their time and unreasonably patient with me when I asked
them basic questions. Larry Kanter, Hayden Maginnis, Shelley Zuraw, John
Najemy, and Marvin Trachtenberg provided encouragement during encoun-
ters that they surely won’t remember as well as I do. Alessio Assonitis tenaciously
advocated on my behalf on an utterly crucial matter and at an utterly crucial
moment. Andrea Di Lorenzo was gracious with his time and his guidance.
And Gail Solberg repeatedly aided me in this endeavor with her thoughtful

xiii
xiv ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

commentary, her tremendous intellect, multiple shots of espresso, and her affa-
ble unwillingness to accept anything less than sound argumentation.
Anastasia Graf, Beatrice Rehl, and the staff at Cambridge University Press
showed great faith in this project and patiently helped guide it through to com-
pletion. The staffs at the Florentine State Archives, Biblioteca Nazionale Cen-
trale, Kunsthistorisches Library, the Società Dantesca, and the Polo Musei were
courteous, efficient, and enormously helpful at every turn. I was assisted greatly
by the generosity of the staffs at the National Gallery of Art in Washington,
D.C. and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Erica Garber at Art
Resource tracked down photographs for me that I feared were hopelessly lost
forever and advocated for me when others were difficult to obtain. Marcia Hall
kindly lent the two diagrams of Santa Croce’s tramezzo now accepted as the
most accurate representations of that lost architectural form. The two anony-
mous readers solicited by Cambridge who pointed out embarrassing errors in
the original manuscript made the final product infinitely better than it other-
wise would have been. The Millard Meiss fund administered by College Art
Association defrayed the cost of production in vital ways. And Lorri Olan and
Cathryn Harbor read portions of the text and helped me rewrite them with
an eye toward communicating my ideas clearly to actual human beings – a
marvelous concept indeed.
A variety of colleagues, students, and friends at Washington and Lee Uni-
versity have directly and indirectly influenced the contents of this book. The
late Pamela Simpson was a mentor and role model for me in more ways than
probably even I realize: I miss her greatly. Kathleen Olson-Janjic took over
for me as department chair at just the right moment, and that selfless act
enabled me to focus on matters at hand and finish this project in a timely
manner. Melissa Kerin, Elliott King, Andrea Lepage, and the late Joan O’Mara
heard the arguments contained within the following pages and improved them
through their observant and prescient suggestions. Hank Dobin, Suzanne Keen,
Tom Williams, Harlan Beckley, June Aprile, Robert Strong, Marc Conner, and
Daniel Wubah supported and funded this project from beginning to end. Mar-
tine Petite’s generosity humbled me greatly, and without the support of Mary
Hodapp and Betty Hickox, this study would not have been possible. And the
hundreds (thousands?) of students – some of whom have been hooded with
PhDs in the intervening years – who have listened, spoken, and even helped
research some of the topics in this book contributed to my thinking in vital
ways.
Long before I began this project, I was fortunate to have studied with
masterful and deeply influential teacher-scholars. Robert Neil, Marcia Colish,
Suzanne Lewis, Alessandro Nova, Judith Brown, Andrew Ladis, Marvin Eisen-
berg, and William Hood mentored me in my youth and nudged me forward
at those crucial moments when I did not have the confidence to do so on
my own: anything at all that is good in this book can be traced back to them.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS xv

With my adopted siblings in Italy – Carlo Zappia, Patrizia Lattarulo, Stefano

Sacchetti, and Anna Lami – I have shared a quarter-century’s worth of joyous
memories and a deep, abiding love and affection: their insights have influenced
me more than they can ever know. I send to Ruth Bent and to the late George
R. Bent II, whom I miss dearly, heartfelt thanks for close to six decades of
love and support. To William, Catalena, and Miles Bent I repeat what I have
said to them from the day each was born: no father has ever been prouder of
his children than I am of mine. And to Lorri Olan, who bridges my past and
my future, I dedicate this book by way of thanks for joining me on this grand
adventure of ours.
 E
18
N S

16

19

17
15 14

1 13

12
2 3 9

8
4 5
6
7

11

10

20
Map Key
1. Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore
2. Baptistery of San Giovanni
3. Bigallo/Confraternity of the Misericordia
4. Old Market/Mercato Vecchio
5. Oratory of Santa Maria della Tromba
6. City brothel
7. Headquarters of the Guild of Doctors and Apothecaries/Arte dei Medici
e Speziali
8. Headquarters of the Guild of the Wool Merchants/Arte della Lana
9. Church of Orsanmichele
10. Via del Sole
11. Piazza Santo Spirito
12. Headquarters of the Mint/Zecca
13. Palazzo della Signoria
14. Bargello/Palazzo del Podestà
15. Headquarters of the Guild of Judges and Notaries/Arte dei Giudici e
Notai
16. Prison/Stinche
17. Church of San Remigio
18. Church of Santa Croce
19. Hospital of Santa Maria Nuova
20. Church of Santa Maria Novella
Visit https://textbookfull.com
now to explore a rich
collection of eBooks, textbook
and enjoy exciting offers!
INTRODUCTION: PUBLIC PAINTING AND
VISUAL CULTURE IN EARLY REPUBLICAN
FLORENCE, 1282–1434

O n his way to the executioner’s block, the condemned criminal

in Florence ran a gauntlet of acrimony. After a particularly sleepless night
inside the Chapel of the Magdalene in the Palace of the Podestà, the prisoner
was led from his chamber by hooded members of the Confraternity of Santa
Maria alla Croce, down the steps of the government palace, and out into the
streets.1 With small paintings of the Crucifixion held before him by confrater-
nity members, he was led through the center of the city to the place where the
ancient crossroads of the cardus and decumanus met in the Mercato Vecchio.2
There, at the very navel of Florence, the prisoner was made to kneel before a
painting bearing the images of the Virgin, the Child, angels, the Baptist, and
Saint Luke, known as the Madonna della Tromba. He was urged (and maybe
required) to say a prayer – a Hail Mary, a Salve Regina, or anything else that
came to mind. Activity in that bustling mercantile zone came to a momentary
halt as vendors and clients alike took advantage of this opportunity to hurl
garbage, rotten food, and insults at the condemned man before he was lifted up
by his cloaked guardians and marched north and east through the Piazza San
Giovanni and the city cathedral. The procession continued up the Via Servi,
all the way to the ancient church of Santissima Annunziata, where the pris-
oner once again knelt before an image – this one the famous miracle-working
picture of the Virgin Annunciate – to pray for his own soul on this, his final
day on earth. Before long, he was uprooted from his position and processed

1
2 PUBLIC PAINTING AND VISUAL CULTURE IN EARLY REPUBLICAN FLORENCE

down a different route to the church of Sant’Ambrogio, on the east side of

town, and then through the Porta alla Croce to the killing fields of Florence.3
Again he heard the taunts of bystanders and felt the blows of fists and refuse as
they struck him, but all he could see was the Tavoletta of the Crucifixion held
only inches from his eyes by a member of the confraternity. The procession
stopped at its final destination, the oratory of the Tempio, owned and operated
by the confraternity and furnished to accommodate its members on occasions
such as these.4 The condemned was positioned before a crucifix and, by the
middle of the fifteenth century, the painting by Fra Angelico of the Deposition
of Christ, currently in the Museo San Marco, before which he murmured still
more prayers (Figure 1). A lengthy series of questions, answers, songs, and final
remarks were uttered by both the prisoner and his keepers before the retinue
exited the chapel for the gallows or the chopping block, whichever fate the
court had determined. At no point was the condemned left on his own during
this process, and at no point was he deprived of an image. Indeed, the route was
specifically chosen to position the condemned before public paintings, one in
the heart of the commercial district, others situated in churches and respected
for their healing powers, and still others at the end of his journey toward death.
The city was littered with public pictures for common people, and these pic-
tures took on a variety of different forms depending on their location, intended
message, and expected audience.

THE EARLY REPUBLICAN CITY

Fourteenth-century Florence was a large and bustling city, as pristinely beau-

tiful in its most prosperous neighborhoods as it was dirty and disease-ridden
in its poorest. Different groups and classes rubbed elbows in most of them,
with the city’s wealthiest captains of industry living literally next door to the
local cobbler, baker, or mason. Men and women lived separate lives, but often
encountered each other at market, in church, and sometimes even in guildhalls.
The landed aristocracy, banished from holding public office as “magnates” with
a violent past, lived off rental incomes and avoided the humbling prospect of
entering trades or professions, which they feared would reduce their social
status. Merchants recognized a pecking order, too, with bankers and silk man-
ufacturers vying for power with wool merchants, while grocers, armorers, and
linen weavers brought up the rear in the annual civic processions of the guilds.
Most boys and many girls attended school until they were twelve or thirteen,
which helped create a fairly well educated population: there they learned to
read and write, calculate figures, and even acquire a smattering of Latin to
prepare them for the education awaiting them as apprentices in workshops (if
boys) and newly wedded young women (if girls). Some of the quicker studies
might advance to university with an eye toward garnering a career in the clergy
INTRODUCTION 3

1. Fra Angelico, Deposition of Christ, 1435, Museo San Marco, Florence. Photograph courtesy
Nimatallah/Art Resource, New York.

or courts of law, but if they did so they knew they would be sentenced to years
of studying canon or civil law, medicine, or theology.
And then there were the poor, the unenfranchised, and tens of thousands
of manual laborers who worked in the dangerously unsafe workshops of the
wool industry as dyers, carders, and weavers. Many of these sottoposti – literally
“underlings” unable to join the guilds reserved for wealthier merchants – were
immigrants from small towns in Tuscany, second or third sons, either alone or
with their wives and children, who needed work once their father’s inheri-
tance had been officially handed over to the eldest brother. Some came from
Italian regions beyond the Apennines, speaking in accents that made them dif-
ficult to understand and lacking the social connections they needed to help
them find the work they sought. The most vulnerable of the city’s residents
came from places where the entire Italian language, let alone the Florentine
dialect, was completely and utterly foreign. These foreigners packed into ten-
ements cheek to jowl, shared beds and clothes and food and bacteria, and –
if they were lucky – held some of the very worst jobs imaginable. The most
destitute of them turned to crime and vice, as Florence had its fair share of
petty larceny, prostitution, and even occasional outbreaks of violence. The city
crawled with these day laborers and hand-to-mouth wretches, and they were
the most impressionable and most frequent viewers of public pictures in early
Republican Florence.
4 PUBLIC PAINTING AND VISUAL CULTURE IN EARLY REPUBLICAN FLORENCE

When we speak of audiences, we need to remember that the vast dispari-

ties of income and education and family connectivity made for as eclectic a
viewership as any artist would ever be forced to accommodate. In a city that
promoted its communally based republic, only about three thousand men, or
roughly 3 percent of the population, were actually eligible to hold office. These
men constituted an elite class of merchants, and they enjoyed certain privileges
unknown to their social, political, and economic inferiors. Among these were
the right to purchase the rights to burial chapels already situated inside local
churches and monasteries, the right to decorate those spaces as they saw fit, and
the right to visit those spaces should the occasion arise. At the same time, we
must also acknowledge the probability that many of these people had little
interest in the images they had already paid for. Money does not necessarily
buy culture, and the hobbies and interests of wealthy merchants and aristocrats
of early Republican Florence were just as eclectic as those of their twenty-first-
century descendants today. Some people just don’t care very much for imagery,
and it is no exaggeration to assert that the very best paintings produced in the
city during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries were intended for a very
small percentage of the city’s population, and were seen with any frequency by
an even smaller one.
By contrast, a much larger number of people daily sought out pictures in the
public realm, like the Madonna of Orsanmichele (Plate VII). They passed by fres-
coes in piazzas and panels in tabernacles at all hours of the day and night. They
knew which pictures worked miracles and which ones didn’t. They looked at
paintings tucked into niches in the walls of staircases that wound up from the
shop on the ground floor of the Wool Guild to the Sala d’Udienza upstairs,
and then they stared at the fresco of Junius Brutus fending off threats from
angry men in fancy clothes (Plate XXIV). They saw images on the sides of
the exterior walls when they walked by the jail and the office of the podestà,
inside communal offices operated by the state, and on the piers of churches
when they flirted with giovani during the sermons they were supposed to be
listening to (Plates XVI, XVII, XVIII, and XXXVI). Hundreds, maybe even
thousands of people saw these public pictures every single day of every sin-
gle week of every single year during the early Republican period. The artist
who wished to burnish his reputation among the people of Florence was wise
to accept a commission that would allow him to install his work on a street
corner normally filled with immigrant prostitutes. The few common people
who actually commented on images in their written chronicles or memoirs
always and without exception named as the greatest examples of Florentine
workmanship those objects on view in the public domain. Giotto’s frescoes in
the depths of Santa Croce were never hailed as the city’s best art objects: that
honor went to Andrea di Cione for his monumental tabernacle that contained
the Madonna in the semipublic guild church of Orsanmichele (Figure 21).5
INTRODUCTION 5

Despite the disadvantages that came with being of the “wrong” class, gen-
der, or social status, common viewers in Florence got to see and contemplate
an abundance of works of art in the city. True, they probably did not have
the opportunity to see liturgical pictures like Andrea di Cione’s Strozzi Altar-
piece in the locked chapel of Santa Maria Novella or Giotto’s Coronation of the
Virgin behind its drawn curtain in Santa Croce, and their exposure to the more
elaborate and imaginative fresco cycles that presented narrative illustrations
of saintly lives in the burial chapels of their social betters was probably quite
limited. Despite the fact that common people did not see these images, they
did receive some visual instructions on proper devotional methods. Churches
placed pictures of important heroic saints on the piers and columns on the
congregation’s side of the nave with some frequency (Plates XXV, XXVI, and
XXVII). Devotional pictures based on the altarpiece design graced confrater-
nity halls and governmental offices (Plates XVIII, XIX, and XX). Guilds pro-
moted the celestial advocates who interceded on their behalf (Plate XXIV).
If they wanted to, common people could see representations of all sorts of
images, and of a variety that actually surpassed that aimed at their wealthier
and better-positioned contemporaries in the transepts and choirs of strictly
maintained ecclesiastical spaces.
One such example of liturgical art for the common man was Giottino’s
famous Lamentation of Christ, now in the Uffizi Galleries (Plate I). Giorgio
Vasari first noticed the picture on the right side of the tramezzo in the modest-
sized church of San Remigio, but his imprecise description of its placement
there makes its original orientation unclear: we do not know whether the
image faced the congregation occupying the front half of the church’s nave
or the clergy on the other side of the ponte.6 At first the panel seems to fea-
ture a single event, the mourning of Christ’s body after his deposition from the
cross. But closer inspection reveals that Giottino painted two separate moments
onto this otherwise unified field. The vertical crucifix forming the central
axis effectively splits the scene into two discrete parts: to the right, mourn-
ers anoint Christ’s body, discuss the injustice he has suffered, and (according
to Vasari’s description) express their profound grief with tears and subtle ges-
tures of tenderness. This narrative representation of the Passion stands sep-
arately from the more contemporary fourteenth-century mystical apparition
on the other side, to the left. Here, an ascetically dressed nun and a much
more luxuriously depicted laywoman – perhaps sisters, with the more glam-
orous of the girls being the older of the two – kneel together, facing the
group to our right. Depicted rather stoically, these young women strike sub-
tly different reverential attitudes, with the nun pressing her hands together in
prayer and the older woman crossing her hands over her chest. Joining them
stand two contemporary male patrons, the first dressed as an ascetic reformer
abbot – Benedict, Bernard, or perhaps even Romuald – and the second
Random documents with unrelated
content Scribd suggests to you:
part of the ritual celebrations of Indian people that it has been no
little surprise and perplexity to find not a single allusion to such
altar-pictures at Ácoma. It is true that they are always within a kiva,
and since we have no description of any kiva interior at Ácoma, the
conclusion can be only that sand mosaics are regarded as too sacred
for alien eyes to behold.[135]
To-day there is a colony of about five hundred Indians resident
upon the lofty peñol. The rich heritage of migration tradition, of folk-
lore concerning the adventures of their prehistoric ancestors, no less
than the more tangible evidence of a hardy and adventurous tribe
within the period of historic record, furnishes plenty of material for
the interested student. From the shadowy north by way of legendary
halting-places to Wukoki on the Little Colorado and so to the very
solid, glowing mass of Katzímo and on to Ácoma itself we have
followed their pilgrimage. Long labor would be sweet if only some
one might gain the coöperation of their own wise men to put within
our grasp this history of a vanishing culture.
 Chapter XI
THE TRADITION OF KATZÍMO AND ÁCOMA

Katzímo—a towering isolated mesa with vertical sides several hundred

feet in height and utterly inaccessible. It is one of the most imposing
cliffs in that portion of the Southwest and it is claimed by the Ácoma
Indians that while the top of the mesa is to-day utterly beyond
reach, it was accessible many centuries ago by an easy trail, and
that their forefathers had built a pueblo on it after the manner of
their present village.—Bandelier.

Of all the features of the great lonely stretches of country that one
passes under the burning sky of the Southwest, most characteristic
are the mesas, those level-topped tables that rise abruptly from the
sandy plains, many-colored, and of irregular outline, catching the
late afternoon sunlight in such fashion as to bring into view
mysterious caverns that often were the early homes of cliff-dwellers.
None, of all the mesas, is more striking than Katzímo, rising isolated
and abrupt four hundred and thirty feet from a waste of sand. Here,
says the long-revered tradition of the Ácomas, their ancestors dwelt
after their slow progress from the north[136] until driven forth by
disaster, whence comes the appellation of the “Enchanted” Mesa, to
build a final home upon the great white rock where we find them to-
day.
 THE CLIFFS OF ÁCOMA
Katzímo in Distance; Small Reservoir on Right
Bolton

The first impression of Katzímo as one approaches it by the sandy

road is of its extraordinary beauty of color. Buff blended with rose is
delicately veiled by the haze which almost everywhere softens
severe outlines in the desert, so that the gazer from afar finds one
more reason for its baptism of the Enchanted. Nearly circular in
form, Katzímo seems to be composed of sheer perpendicular walls
fantastically pinnacled and turreted, but on nearer scrutiny a sort of
amphitheatre or cave hollowed out by long erosion is found both on
the northern and on the western sides; yet so glassy are the walls
that there is little encouragement to attempt their conquest.
The legend of Katzímo relates that then as now the inhabitants
were an agricultural people, cultivating their crops in the plain below.
Once, in the timeless yesterday of their race when the season of
planting had arrived, the Sun Priest issued a proclamation that all
the people must descend the mesa to their fields.[137] There were
left on the top only three women, too ill for the work, and one boy
to care for them. At night he was directed to stand watch, lest the
dreaded Apaches might raid the pueblo in the absence of its
warriors. A fearful storm of rain and thunder such as had never been
known made his task dangerous the second night, but he stayed at
his post till called by his mother, upon whom a portion of her house
had fallen. She told him to go down and bring back some of the men
to help.... The boy with infinite peril reached the plain and started
for the fields.

Suddenly [says Lummis] he felt the ground quiver beneath

his feet. A strange rushing sound filled his ears; and whirling
about, he saw the great Ladder Rock rear, throw its head out
from the cliff, reel there an instant in mid-air, and then go
toppling out into the plain like some wounded Titan. As
thousands of tons of rock smote upon the solid earth with a
hideous roar, a great cloud went up, and the valley seemed to
rock to and fro. From the face of the cliff three miles away,
great rocks came leaping and thundering down, and the tall
pines swayed and bowed as before a hurricane. A-chi-te was
thrown headlong by the shock, and lay stunned. The Ladder
Rock had fallen—the unprecedented flood had undermined its
sandy bed.[138]

Thus are we led to think that some portentous convulsion of

nature had toppled off the pueblo, destroyed the ladder trail, and
left the colony homeless. No effort is recorded of any attempt to
save the hapless women, and the chapter is abruptly closed. It was
apparently after this terrible disaster that the mesa was called
Katzímo, the “accursed” or “enchanted,” and many is the spot that
has earned such title for less cause. How the mesa top looked before
it was accursed we can never know, but a few piñons and cedars on
its top suggest the probability of its having been sparsely wooded.
This is a land of tempestuous thunder-storms and heavy rains, when
the water falls in cataracts over the mesa summit, carrying fresh
detritus to the heaps of talus below. Since this has been going on for
centuries, it is of course almost hopeless to find much genuine
record on the cliff itself of the origin and development of its people.
Nevertheless a few faint traces do exist, and because the legends
and the folk-lore of Katzímo and of Ácoma are so closely intertwined,
we cannot envisage the story of Ácoma without including Katzímo,
however slight the hope of disentangling solid fact from poetic
legend.
We have good reason to believe that there are still shrines in the
recesses of Katzímo, and that in all probability there takes place
either in these clefts or on the summit periodic performance of
rituals by the Ácoma people. One clue to such use of the mesa is
given by Miss McLain of the Indian Service. She reported that an
Indian family told her that, when an Ácoma youth is being instructed
in the kiva into the mysteries of the faith, the last step in his
initiatory discipline before giving him full freedom as a man, is to
blindfold him and send him to the top of the Mesa Encantada for a
night’s lonely vigil, bearing a jar of water as oblation to the spirits. It
was explained to her that a boy could climb blindfolded where he
could not go open-eyed, “a fact all mountain engineers will
substantiate.”[139] There is also reason to think that these novices as
well as the worshippers at other ceremonies on Katzímo have their
own undivulged means of reaching the summit.
The desire to solve the mystery of Katzímo has impelled several
students of ethnology to scale its fearful cliffs and to gather
whatever fragmentary tales the Indians of the tribe can be induced
to impart. Here it may be well to note certain things that it is
necessary to have in mind when questioning an Indian. He is more
likely to tell you the facts or the legends of some other tribe than of
his own, and even when he does not exactly prevaricate, he is
willing to embroider upon the truth in the hope that he may mislead
the foreign visitor, whose questions seem to him an unwarranted
intrusion upon his own particular preserves. Very little from any
source is to be learned of Katzímo. Bandelier, the distinguished
student of the history of the Southwest, has only this to say:

It is certain that its appearance and the amount of detritus

accumulated around its base give some color to the legend.
Together with other tales it indicates that the Ácomas
successively occupied several villages between San Mateo and
their present location.

The men who have written the most about Ácoma and Katzímo
are Bandelier, Lummis, Hodge, and James. They all lived for
considerable periods among the Indians of this region, winning their
friendship and confidence, so that if any Indian traditions are
trustworthy it would seem that this must be so. But the fact is that
the Ácomas are more secretive to-day, probably, than any other
Indian tribe.
Although the mesa is called inaccessible, Lummis made its ascent
in 1883, the earliest by a white man in our time. He published his
account in 1885. A decade later (1895) Hodge, then of the Bureau of
Ethnology in Washington, attempted the ascent but was stopped
sixty feet below the actual top by a sheer wall of rock. He did,
however, examine the talus, piled high at the southwestern corner,
and found many fragments of very ancient pottery, which it is easy
to distinguish from the modern ware because decorated with a
vitreous glaze, an art no longer practised by the pueblo potters.
Hodge also found unmistakable toe and finger holes in the walls of
the cliffs by which he climbed, which apparently justified the
tradition that it was up this part of the mesa that the ancient trail
had gone. A verbal account of the tradition was given Hodge at this
time by Tsiki, a chief and famous medicine man, of Ácoma.
In July, 1897, Professor William Libbey, of Princeton University,
made the ascent of the mesa with what he describes as almost
superhuman effort. He remained for two hours on the summit and
was of the opinion that there was “not the slightest indication that
the top of the Mesa had ever been the prehistoric home of the
Ácomas or had ever been inhabited at all,” since no bits of pottery or
traces of construction of any sort were visible. Consequently he
named it “The Disenchanted Mesa.”[140] Libbey admitted, however,
that he made no exploration of the southwest cove up which the
ancient trail was reputed to have passed, nor of the talus at its foot.
As soon as Libbey published his account a new interest was aroused
in its history, and the Bureau of Ethnology requested Hodge, who
was at work in Arizona, to go to Katzímo and see what he could find.
Accordingly, in September of that year Hodge made his second
ascent, and since then George Wharton James has made further
explorations. Setting aside, then, the slight allusions of Bandelier and
Libbey, let us look at the experiences of the other three, who, on the
whole, agree in their deductions, though with some inevitable minor
variations of detail.
James says very reasonably that, if the whole Katzímo tradition is
discredited, all Indian tradition is discredited and more obstacles
added to the unravelling of the obscurities of prehistoric Indian life.
But he also makes the good point that evidences of human presence
and of human occupation of any place are quite separate and
diverse things.
 THE ASCENT OF THE GREAT CLEFT OF KATZÍMO
1897
Reprinted from the Century Magazine by permission of the Century Co.

Hodge’s first experience had taught him that light extension

ladders and some half-inch rope would suffice to enable him to scale
the sixty feet of cliff which unaided he had been obliged to forego in
1895. Accordingly, when he reached Laguna, he secured as
companions a United States surveyor of long residence in the region,
Major G. H. Pradt, A. C. Vroman, a well-known photographer of
Pasadena, Mr. H. C. Hayt of Chicago, and two Laguna Indian boys.
They made their camp in some cedars at the base of the cleft on the
southwest, and while the ladder and other equipment were got into
position for the climb, Major Pradt determined “that the elevation of
the foot of the talus is 33 feet above the plain; the apex of the talus
224 feet, and the top of the highest pinnacle on the summit of the
mesa overlooking the great cleft is 431 feet above the same level.”
[141]

Their climb, achieved with heroic effort and some danger,

convinced them that the toe and finger holes, without question
originally chipped out by human hands, had lost their first form by
reason of the erosion during the long lapse of years. Near the place
where Hodge had been stopped two years before was a great
boulder in the corner of a terrace, to which their ropes were now
secured. Just below it ran a long crack through the thirty-foot wall,
and while resting on the boulder Hodge suddenly saw four oak sticks
about two and a half feet long and one inch thick, pointed at both
ends by some sharp tool. Soon afterward a potsherd of modern
make and an unfeathered prayer-stick were discovered, and by
digging in the sand the rest of the broken jar was found—evident
proof of some recent sacrificial offering. A few moments’ search on
the summit revealed a potsherd of very ancient type. A rude stone
“monument” was examined which Libbey had dismissed as being a
natural phenomenon, but which Hodge regards as indubitably a
work of man. A slab thirty inches long of vertical stratification is held
erect by smaller slabs or boulders of horizontal stratification—a
variation that could hardly be fantastic erosion.
Next morning the party was surprised by the appearance of three
Ácoma Indians, who had seen the fire built by the explorers for
warmth on the summit, and who were at first in no friendly mood.
These men were two principales and a medicine man of their tribe.
They had threatened the Laguna Indians left in the camp below with
cutting the ladder-rope and compelling the descent of the invading
white man. They were soon pacified when told the visitors were only
searching for curios and not prospecting for territory. Luciano, the
lieutenant-governor, said their “Ancients” had once occupied the
mesa, but that the destructive storms, to which the region is subject,
would prevent any relics of their time ever being found. Then the
ancient potsherd was produced and the Indians showed excitement
about it, as well as great “surprise” at the cairn, which they did not
explain. Whether or not their attitude might have come from a
desire to conceal their sacred treasures, Hodge does not intimate. At
all events, they helped in the search for more potsherds, and a
number were found in the scattered débris, as well as portions of a
shell bracelet and a blade-end of a white stone axe. This seemed
important, as the upper side was bleached by exposure, while the
lower was soiled and damp.
After they had all descended the mesa, one of these Indians
showed Hodge another axe-blade notched similarly to the one they
had found on top, and admitted it had come from the ledge just
below the summit and that he was keeping it for ceremonial
purposes. Thus the proofs of human occupation of Katzímo seem
well established, but whether permanent or only periodic may
perhaps never be known. In a personal letter to the writer in
February, 1922, Dr. J. W. Fewkes says:

I have always had more or less doubt as to the use of the

name Enchanted Mesa for Katzímo and was glad to see that
you use the Indian word for it.... I have come to the
conclusion that those who hold that the Pueblo once existed
on its top have not made their point, archaeologically
speaking. That they visited the top goes without saying, but
to my mind the evidence is more mythical than scientific, that
any considerable number lived on Katzímo in prehistoric
times. The same story is also told by the Navajo of the
settlement upon the top of Ship Rock and I believe is one of
those legends which are not based wholly upon facts, or at
any rate cannot be proven.
 Chapter XII
SOCIAL ORGANIZATION

That the present town-building tribes are the descendants of the ancient
peoples is indicated by tradition, by skeletal evidence, and by
material culture. The past connects with the present without
perceptible break and the implements and utensils of to-day are,
save for the intrusive elements of white civilization, those of the
past.—W. H. Holmes.

The Southwest is more remarkable for its puzzles than for its positive
data. The problems presented by its social organization are of
supreme interest but our knowledge of the data is exceedingly
imperfect.—Goldenweiser.

By reason of their geographic position, the pueblos were the

natural channel through which passed the culture from the south to
more northern areas. This culture, of whatever sort, they
transmuted by their own endowment into something distinctive and
characteristic of themselves. Kroeber puts it happily:

Throughout, it was a flow of things of the mind, not a drift of

the bodies of men: of culture, not of populations. The
radiation was ever northward, counter to the drifts of the
migrations which had begun thousands of years before and
which, in part, seem to have continued to crowd southward
even during the period of northward spread of civilization.
[142]

If we must feel that the Southwest learned from Mexico “how to

grow and weave cotton, to irrigate, to build in stone, to obey
priests,” we are at the same time impressed by an intrinsic difference
in its development and practice from that of Mexico, as we see it in
the Pueblo civilization.

THE ILLIMITABLE DESERT

Bolton

Each pueblo is a tribal unit formed of few or many clans, as the

case may be, always matrilinear in descent. Each is wholly
independent of every other and all have had a republican form of
government from the earliest times. Under very great stress of
emergency, tribes have been known to combine for a brief period,
but ordinarily they crossed one another’s path in peaceful times only
for purposes of trade, or as Bandelier puts it, “It may be said that no
two tribes were ever so hostile as never to trade, or so intimate as
never to fight each other.” The designation of titles and of official
duties in these self-governing villages varies more or less from tribe
to tribe, but in essentials the recent investigations of scholars incline
them to believe in a fundamental similarity.
There has been much discussion as to the priority of clan or of
kinship in the up-building of the economic fabric of pueblo society.
The position of Kroeber seems the most simple and natural. He
contends that clan functions are too vague and remote to allow
them precedence over the normal and inherent relations of every
created being. Quoting him: “To blood ties they are blindly loyal and
instinctively affectionate. Outside all are but associates.” If further
intercourse cements esteem, any one, of whatever race, “even a
Navajo,” may be held more dear and less hostile than one of their
own tribe. Again Kroeber says,

What is clear is, that there is in the Pueblo mind and has
been for centuries past, a concept of a definite and
characteristic scheme of clan organization which belongs to
no one nation but is common to all. The whole nature of the
existing clans in the Southwest is that of an organ in a body.
[143]

One remarkable and characteristic feature that prevails in the clan

system is the grouping of clans in pairs. It is very prominent in Hopi,
and though not directly established for Keresan Pueblos, it appears
probable because the same pairs frequently occur in that nation.
Kroeber differentiates the family and clan as follows. The clan is a
ceremonial institution, whereas the family is the foundation of
society and is centred in the house as a basic concept. The house
belongs to the women of the family, not merely as they are living to-
day, but from the long past in successive generations. “There they
have come into the world, pass their lives, and within its walls they
die.” True, the clan is maternal and totemically named, and also the
same terms of relationship are applied to its members as to those of
blood kindred. While this is an undoubted source of confusion to
strangers and to the student of its culture, there never is the
slightest ambiguity in the native mind between the two.

Clans give color, variety, and interest to the life of the tribe,
[but are] not thought of in ordinary personal relations. They
 are only an ornamental excrescence upon society, whose
warp is the family of actual blood relations and whose woof is
the house.... House-life, house-ownership, economic status,
matrilinear reckoning, clan-organization and functions, the
type of marriage and divorce, are all in direct conflict with
both theory and practice of corresponding Spanish, Mexican,
English and Catholic institutions, and yet maintain themselves
to-day,

from which he concludes that European contact had no important

influence upon Zuñi kinship, or, by inference, upon any other Pueblo
community.
The children belong to the mother’s clan, and marriage within that
clan is forbidden. Though permitted within the clan of the father, it is
disapproved. A reason for this as given to Dr. Parsons was that the
children born of such union are never as strong as when diverse
clans are mingled. The family organization among all Pueblos tends
toward a compound type, consisting of as many as three
generations. The young children are much in the care of the old
people, especially of grandparents, by which division of labor the
parents are released for their active toil in the fields or at their
crafts. One sees in such a village as Ácoma quite little girls carrying
far too heavy babies in a blanket on their backs, but one is told that
there the men frequently carry the little children, which is not a
usual pueblo custom.
There are no terms in Keresan for son or daughter, the words
child, boy, girl, being used instead. Ácoma distinguishes according to
sex but not according to age in expressing relationships between
brother and sister. There is no specific terminology for relatives by
marriage, but such exists for “cross-cousins,” that is, the children of
a blood brother and sister. Dr. Parsons says that “Ácoma kinship
terms correspond closely to Laguna,” but that brother-and-sister
terms are applied in Ácoma to all cousins, which is not the common
usage, though it is done at Zuñi. She has compiled elaborate tables
for kin- and clanship at Laguna, in which Ácoma is frequently alluded
to, and has included one long table of Ácoma terms.[144] Kroeber
likewise gives a table of Ácoma-Laguna kinship-terms, compiled by
himself, some of which he considers “not only not European, but far
more extreme than Zuñi,” although the “generic resemblance of
Keres to Hano and Zuñi is preserved.”
The next important question is the relation of the clan to the
fraternities. Kroeber says that the one is social, and the other
religious. Certain fraternities are widely distributed, and he has
established for Zuñi, as Mrs. Stevenson did for Sía, that membership
is voluntary, not clan-controlled, but follows blood or marriage
connection. It is apparently true that in “certain cases succession to
office in fraternities does depend on clanship.”[145] This is rather
different from the situation in the Hopi pueblos, where the
fraternities are at least definitely associated in the native mind with
the clans of the same name. The function of the fraternities consists
mainly in medicine-giving and in jugglery; though they take part in
some of the communal ceremonies, they have no masked
representations of deities, nor do they exercise their powers
primarily for the bringing of rain. They have no right to the kivas,
their meeting-place being in the front rooms of houses; they have
official heads, but no priests.
At Sía and presumably at Ácoma, the Koshare and the Cuiranná
form one fraternity whose duty it is to guide and attend the K’at’sina
in their masked dances. At Zuñi the clan is then a body of

mildly social type, with prevailing if not important ritualistic

functions,—those being exercised by individuals in virtue of
their clan-membership, and never by the clan as a body....
Clans, fraternities, priesthoods, kivas, gaming-parties, are all
dividing agencies, but by countering each other they cause
segmentations which produce marvellous complexity, but
never break national entity apart.[146]
Certain other complexities of strain have arisen through the coming
in to the pueblo of women from other nations. One Zuñi governor
married a woman from the Cherokee Wolf clan, and as a matter of
course she was received into their Coyote clan. In two or three
generations it will be forgotten that her descendants were ever
anything but Zuñi. Our author admits that the social fabric of Zuñi
may be more closely knit than some others, but is of the opinion
that all Southwestern tribes are so intimate that what is true of one
may be predicated of the rest.
At bottom, all Pueblo government is theocratic. Civil officers are
chosen and may be deposed by certain priesthoods which are clan-
associated. However great the divergence of opinion during the
choice of candidates, no decision may be announced until a
complete unanimity is agreed upon. The civil government is chiefly
concerned with property, and equities in material things, individual
or communal. The governor and lieutenant-governor must be of
different clans, and, theoretically at any rate, so also are their aids.
Certain officials serve only one year at a time, and as there is a
general disposition to give equal representation in public affairs to
each clan, such diffusion of power tends toward a community
thoroughly welded together.
According to Kroeber,

The source of all Zuñi authority, sacred or profane [and of all

other Pueblos as well?] lies in certain priesthoods, and since
these receive their origin, venerability, permanence, and even
name from the ettowe (fetishes) with which they are
associated, the depth to which these fetishes underlie all Zuñi
life becomes apparent.

The fetishes are preserved in certain houses and are normally kept
in jars of special design, fed at appointed times, but handled and
exposed only on occasions of extreme ritualistic importance. The
true understanding of Zuñi life other than its purely practical
operations can be had only as we centre it about the ettowe.
When a family abandons a house, the room where the ettowe
usually lies is kept in repair, and its priests continue to go in watto
(to pray) there.[147] Each clan possesses its ettowe, and probably
each set of priests is more or less clan-associated.

Around these priesthoods, fraternities, clan-organization, as

well as most esoteric thinking and sacred tradition, group
themselves, while in turn kivas, dances, and acts of public
worship can be construed as but the outward means of
expression of inward activities that radiate around the nucleus
of the physical fetishes and the ideas attached to them.[148]

The visitor to any particular pueblo, if forearmed with some such

general ideas of its policy, will assuredly gain a little better
understanding of even the superficial occupations that he may
chance to observe. We were consequently keen to learn how many
of the old customs survive in this conservative community of Ácoma.
It was not difficult to realize the deeply intimate family relationship
of three generations of women of the Eagle clan with whom we
associated. We also visited a more modern house of the Sun clan
and we got some confirmatory impressions of many of the civil
functions of its male population. In Ácoma, then, as in most Pueblo
settlements, the family life is a mutually supporting partnership.
Everything within the house belongs to the woman, even if brought
there by her husband. Although the man goes forth to the hunt,
once he has laid within the threshold a rabbit or a deer, he may not
thereafter touch it if his wife objects, and all domestic animals, like
sheep and chickens, belong to her and may not be sold without her
permission. However, the man has his own prerogatives. To the man
belong his blankets and his weapons, his horses and burros, his farm
implements and all other tools. The right to hold office in the pueblo,
to attain to priesthood in the fraternities, and to frequent the kivas
(ceremonial chambers) are alone open to the men. From this fact it
is evident that in spite of this semblance of a matriarchate the
women have no voice in government. Further, it is true that so long
as a man is a legitimate member of a household he is ruler of its
affairs. The curious anomaly is seen (at Zuñi) in the contrasting fact
that if a man divorces his wife even for the most flagrant immorality,
it is he who leaves the house to her use, though, as sometimes
happens, he has rebuilt it, and he does this without the faintest
feeling of any injustice done to himself.
The Ácomas use the Catholic form of sponsorship at marriage, and
no divorce is permitted. The parents of either one of the bridal pair
choose a man and his wife to be the “best man” and “best woman,”
and these two take the couple directly home from the ceremony to
their house, wash their heads, and give them advice. The man
speaks first and gives a present to the groom; then his wife does
likewise with the bride. The bridegroom also gives his bride a
present, perhaps a dress.
Although at Ácoma divorce is said to be unknown, it is very likely
that here, as in most pueblos, the simple device of putting beyond
the doorway all the man’s personal belongings is all the information
he needs that his wife no longer wishes him to live with her.
Similarly, if a man throws his blanket over his shoulder in a certain
way and departs, his wife is notified of his intention to separate from
her.
A definite idea was certainly given us at Ácoma in 1922 that the
government there is fundamentally theocratic. I am, however,
indebted to Dr. Parsons for the details of its organization as she
understood it in 1918.
The officials of Ácoma are a cacique (ti-á-moni, arch-ruler), a
governor with purely administrative functions, two lieutenant-
governors (tenientes), three war chiefs (tsatichucha), and their two
cooks (cocineros). There are besides, ten principales, who, like the
cacique, are chosen for life, whereas all other officials serve but one
year at a time.
 A chief duty of the cacique[149] is to act as penitent for the sins of
his tribe; and when he goes out into the wilderness by untrodden
paths to fast for an uncertain length of days, the whole pueblo is in
solemn mood, and the chance visitor is not made welcome.[150]
Contrary to the custom in most pueblos, at Ácoma the cacique has
no subordinates; neither does he have to be a cheani (medicine
man) himself, although he is always appointed by the cheani. The
true character of the cacique’s position has never been clearly
defined for us, since he will not reveal the secrets of his office to
anyone, unless to the man he looks upon as his successor. Although
his title is that of “Arch-ruler,” he is evidently not all-powerful, for the
war captain (hócheni)[151] is his warden, with power to punish him if
he becomes arrogant or remiss in his duties.
Upon every important occasion the cacique must fast, either
having only one meagre meal in a day, or sometimes none for four
days; consequently the office is not a very popular honor. It
demands a long, severe tutelage in physical endurance as well as in
the deeper mysteries of the esoteric orders. During all fasts and
ceremonies, unbroken continence is exacted, for the cacique is
Watcher of the Sun. Moreover, he has to help the war captains to
look after the Katsina, or masked impersonators of the gods which
“function for rain, crops, animals, and the sick.” In times of war he is
both surgeon and nurse for the wounded. Nevertheless the cacique
has certain perquisites; for, although the people do not plant for him
they do bring in to him his harvests. Also, each year they hold four
rabbit hunts for him, one in each of the cardinal directions. This hunt
comes “after the war chiefs say they have been fasting for four days
and it is time to have a hunt.” A little later comes a general hunt in
which women may join.[152]
The ten principales, who are always of the Antelope clan, and who
enjoy a life tenure, seem to act as a higher court. They may be quite
young, and they instruct the cacique if he is old, as to what is going
on, and what he must do. The principales control the land
distributions, agricultural land being allotted to individuals and
grazing fields being held in common.
“The war chiefs[153] have undoubtedly sacerdotal as well as
military functions. They are said to pray morning and night and at
ceremonials for the people, for their animals, for crops and for rain.”
But of these rites Dr. Parsons[154] learned nothing definite. The
present writer saw three of the war chiefs going forth about six in
the morning, gorgeously blanketed and bedecked with many and
various pendant ornaments, but too far away to be distinguished.
Bandelier[155] says that the war captain occupies among the Keres
a position of peculiar distinction. He is the military leader and sheriff.
His supremacy over both governor and cacique arises from an old
belief that he is representative of Ma-se-ua, one of the two sons of
the Sun Father and Moon Mother. The other son, Oyo-ya-ya, is
represented by the war captain’s lieutenant, who bears his name.
These two brothers, equivalent no doubt to the Twins in Zuñi
myths, are held in almost greater reverence than the sun and moon,
and one of the chief public dances of the Keres is given in their
honor, whereas formerly it was addressed to the sun.
Although different informants gave Dr. Parsons no clear statement
as to whether or not there is definite ranking of the clans, she
concluded that it is the Antelope clan (Kuüts Hanoch) that governs,
and that it has undoubtedly ceremonial prerogatives.[156] Its
members choose the Kasik, who is the spiritual, and nominally the
temporal, head of the pueblo, and is almost invariably a man
distinguished for uprightness and wisdom.
On the first of the two brief visits made to Ácoma in the summer
of 1922, I was told by a man who spoke English readily that the
cacique is “always Antelope,” and that, though his duties are chiefly
sacerdotal, it is he who names the officers for the ensuing year at
the election in December. On the second visit the same informant
referred for the first time to the cacique as his “uncle,” adding, “He is
very old and nearly blind.” There was no question that the man with
most authority in 1922 was the hócheni or war captain, a situation
due very possibly to the physical disability of the cacique.
The annual election of officers forms an important part of the
winter solstice ceremonies. After a week of commingled pagan and
Christian festivities, the installation takes place either on December
30 or January 1, which is known as “King Day.” To inform the pueblo
when and where this function will take place, the town crier (kahera)
makes the circuit of the several roadways (as is the custom at
Ácoma) calling out his instructions. When the men have assembled
in the long-house (Komanira) near the church, the nominations
made by the cacique are announced by the outgoing war chiefs;
after this a general vote is taken, though a pure formality, for even if
a nominee demurs he cannot help himself. We are told of cases
when men ran away to avoid office, but were forced to return and
serve as chosen. In installing officers, says Dr. Parsons, those going
out “kneel on both knees, make the sign of the Cross, say the prayer
beginning, ‘Padre santo-spirito. Amen,’ and pass the cane of office to
their successors. All present kneel, of course removing their hats.
Bandas are not removed.”[157] The election festivities continue
through January 10, dances being performed in different houses in
honor of the newly elected officers. The governor told Dr. Parsons
that the people would stay on for ten days or so: “They have to, we
have not given them the rules yet,” he said.[158]
One writer[159] describes a ceremony at Ácoma that I have found
mentioned nowhere else. He witnessed it on a spring morning in
1864. He describes the “single steep, narrow, winding path” from
the plain to the top of the mesa, which “near the top narrows and is
flanked on each side by a tall much-worn pillar of the sandstone-
rock formation of the mesa, requiring no very vivid imagination to
portray them as sentinels keeping watch over the approaches to this
citadel.” A dance of purification for a recent victory over the Navajos
was to be celebrated that day. The visitors noticed that one of these
two stone pillars “appeared to be an object of especial regard;
ribbons were hung on it; heads of corn and pieces of cake were
flung up with an effort to lodge them on its flattened or concave
summit.” The Alcalde of the pueblo joined the Americans and told
the story of the pillar, in substance as follows:
Many long years ago the peace of the Indian country was
threatened by a great force of Spaniards coming from Mexico.
Warning was given by runners from pueblo to pueblo in order that a
concerted resistance might be made to stop the “ruin and desolation
that marked the Spaniard’s path in this cruel warfare. Soon these
warnings ceased.” But because there was plenty of evidence that the
invaders were still despoiling the land, the young men of Ácoma
agreed among themselves to keep a vigilant watch from the summits
of one of these stone pillars. Many days passed and all was quiet.
The pillar top was well stocked with provisions for the watcher. And
then one night, after rain and wind had made the darkness
unwontedly thick, he was startled as the dawn came, to see the
Spaniards actually scaling the steep. They were, in fact, so close that
he could not leave his post to give the alarm. All he could do was to
blow his “loud-sounding horn-note of imminent danger to his
friends” and try as best he could to keep the enemy at bay for the
few precious moments before help could reach him. He was well
equipped “with bow and arrows, shield and spear. Without
descending from his post, the narrow path, whose width only
admitted of one person passing at a time, was soon blocked with the
disabled foe.” Wounded, the sentinel hero fell back on his lofty
perch, but not till the village men had hurried to his aid, and these,
fresh and strong, were more than a match for those Spaniards who
gained the top of the cliff. A short, impetuous fight brought victory
to the Ácomas, and the long dread was vanquished, but the hero of
the pillar was dead at his post. “And for this,” said the Alcalde, “we
every year have our rejoicings near the foot of the pillar and by our
joy and praises thank the spirit of the hero who so bravely sacrificed
himself to save his people.”
This story was confirmed during my second visit to the mesa.
Although we saw no such weather-worn pillars on the summit of
Ácoma, I hazard the guess that they may have stood at the top of
the so-called “Runners,” or “Deadman’s trail,” which our informant
told me had been out of use for many years but which once had
served to preserve the pueblo from the Spaniards. At that time I
thought he was trying to persuade me that the Ácomas won the
famous fight of Zaldívar, but he probably knew the tradition of this
other invasion by the Spaniards, for he was very positive in his
statement that the white men were all killed or driven off in a fierce
encounter at that point, and that the second name was given to that
particular trail because of this event.
Another noteworthy remark of Gwyther’s is that the Ácomas were
somewhat surly until they found that the visitors were all Americans;
it was only toward Mexicans that they cherished any ill-will, and
thereafter the visitors were treated with entire cordiality.
Who will go to Ácoma and become by slow degrees a familiar and
trusted dweller among the people, even as Cushing did at Zuñi? That
person alone, I am convinced, talking their language, eating their
food, observing quietly their customs, will avail to penetrate the
heart of the Ácoma secret.
 Chapter XIII
FOLK-TALES OF ÁCOMA

What does the name imply? The ‘lore of the Folk.’ But the ‘folk’ are the
backward people among ourselves, and from their unwritten sagas
and stories, their customs and beliefs, we find an unmistakable
record of the clash of opposing races, but of a time long antecedent
to history.—Alfred Cort Haddon.

Three types of the survivals of inherited traditions regarding the

supernatural, and its relation to human beings, are the religious
beliefs, the great myths, and the folk-tales, which may be regarded
as myths in their infancy. Folk-tales are the happenings of more
recent times than those that are concerned with the origin of the
race and the heroic demi-gods.
Story-telling by the old men of any semi-civilized society is the
pastime of their leisure hours, and is all the literature of the tribe.
With the American Indian there were songs and tales for every
adventure in their tribal history. Imagination is so vital an element of
all that the Indian believes, entering into all he says and does in
daily life, that it must never be out of mind in any study of his
culture.
All unexplained phenomena belong to the world of necromancy,
and every Indian language has its own name for this magic power
residing in such phenomena. Throughout the Indian world the song
of birds is deemed a magic spell. When, therefore, human beings
sing, they too are weaving magic, over the grinding, over the
planting, over the painting of jars, to bring the favor of those above
upon that especial occupation. Hence, singing is a universal
accompaniment of Indian life and Indian worship.
 In the book of Indian music by Natalie Curtis Burlin[160] there are
three songs given from Ácoma, belonging to the Corn-people,
Gátsina (K’at’sina), those mythological beings impersonated by
masked dancers in the ceremonials. Only two words appear in these
songs, shiwanna, meaning cloud, and hawilana, meaning growing
corn. For the remainder, vocables only are used. It is further stated
that these songs are sung in other villages, such as Laguna and
Zuñi, and therefore they may not be distinctively native to Ácoma. In
folk-tales, just as in the myths, we are warned against too much
reliance upon explanatory significances. A single tale may involve ten
or a dozen interpretations. Waterman points out that a most
interesting fact in American folk-lore is the enormous distance,
sometimes thousands of miles, to which a tale can travel from what
it is fair to consider as its original home. Naturally the explanation
will vary with local conditions, for primitive man is even more
interested in and occupied by his immediate environment than are
we of a later age, and we are by no means emancipated from that
limited outlook upon the world about us.
Waterman says very happily that

if any one fact becomes clear from an acquaintance with

Indian society, it is this, that the satisfaction which Indian
audiences get out of the recital of a tale is not an intellectual
but an emotional one. He genuinely loves to listen to a good
story. The absorbing interest which primitive people take in
stories as stories is one of the picturesque features of
primitive life.... Explanations are decidedly less important than
the novelistic elements of the plot.[161]

Ácoma on its craggy height, haughtily indifferent or inimical to its

neighbors, has imparted little of itself to outsiders even in the way of
folk-lore or of music. Espinosa considers that the “Pueblo Indians
have given very little to the great traditional treasure of Spanish folk-
lore of New Mexico.... But some of them have absorbed a
considerable amount of Spanish folk-lore material.” He contributes
two tales and about fifty short anecdotes or fables, collected at the
farm colony of Acomita by one of his students, all of which show
European ancestry.
I wish here to express my thanks to Mrs. N. V. Sanchez for her
translation of the following selection from this group of tales. That
called “San Pascual” is apparently a satire upon the Christian ritual.
To the ignorant lad the figure of the Lord on the cross means only
that he must be a criminal; when later He creates a feast from
nothing tangible it could only be through sorcery. The Indian
everywhere attributed diseases that followed the coming of the
Spaniards to their sprinkling of the neophytes with holy water. Only
with these three things in mind does the story of San Pascual
become intelligible.
The same student collected fifty fables, from which I have chosen
four, one of which bears a certain likeness to that of Æsop called
“The Fox and the Crow.”[162]
Two stories given below were told to Dr. Parsons by the cacique of
Ácoma and written down by her in English. In one of these, for the
first time we gain faint hints of a tradition of an earlier settlement at
the foot of the rock which, if confirmed, would seem to ally the
movements of this Keresan tribe more closely to those of other mesa
pueblos than has heretofore been evident.
The brief form of “Borrowed Feathers” is added because of its
allusion to Katzímo, and also because there is little question that in it
we have a tale of purely Indian origin.
One significant allusion to Ácoma may be read in a volume of tales
collected by Cushing at Zuñi.[163] In the one called “The Maiden and
the Sun,” an Ácoma spectator takes part at a Zuñi festival, and runs
away with the body of the maiden’s mother. Later the scene moves
to Ácoma itself in an attempt to get from the dance-priestess there
the magic-working bones of the deceased woman. Here we have a
striking proof of certain inter-relationships of tradition and of custom
between Ácoma and Zuñi, about which ordinarily we hear emphatic
denial rather than confirmation.

Borrowed Feathers: Don’t Look Up: Back to Life

Informant, cacique (hócheni) of Ácoma, about 75 years of age
Long ago at Hanishoku[164] the pigeons (houk) were flying about.
They gave Coyote some of their feathers to fly with. Coyote (chuski)
was heavy and lagged behind. The pigeons said, “Let us fly up to
the water-hole on top of the mesa! Let us fly on ahead of Coyote.
He has a dirty mouth.” They flew on to the water-hole, Coyote after
them. When they had finished drinking, they took their feathers
away from Coyote and left him there crying. As he was crying, the
spider below heard him. Spider said, “Somebody is crying.” Spider
went up, and saw that it was Coyote. Coyote said, “Will you take me
down?” Spider said, “Yes. Wait here until I get my basket. I will
lower you down in it.” Spider went down and got his basket. He said
to Coyote, “Get in, but as you descend do not look up. If you look
up, I shall drop you.” When the basket was half way down Coyote
began to say to himself, “I wonder why Spider does not want me to
look up!” Then he looked up. Spider let go of the basket, and Coyote
dashed down into pieces.
Another coyote passed by, and saw the pieces. “I wonder who
died here!” said he. “I had better see.” He gathered together the
bones, and covered them over with a cloth. On the north side he
began to sing,

“Tsaiu tsaiu akuhato

Nia ako nia ako.”

On the west side he sang,

“Tsaiu tsaiu akuhato

Nia ako nia ako.”
On the south side he sang,

“Tsaiu tsaiu akuhato

Nia ako nia ako.”

On the east side he sang,

“Tsaiu tsaiu akuhato

Nia ako nia ako.”

The coyote said, “I wish to see who is underneath. Arise!” Out came
Coyote. “Is it you?” “Yes.” “Who killed you?” “I was on top of the
mesa, and Spider threw me down.” “Where do you live?” “I live far
over on the south side.” “Well, go home.” That is all (tomesau).—Pp.
220, 221.

Forgetting the Song: Inside the Lizard

Informant, cacique of Ácoma
A long time ago (tsikinomaha) at Kaiaushitsa there was a lizard (?)
(tapinosk) singing. He sang,

“Heto uma tima

matiu ti mu.”

There came up a coyote (chuski) and listened. Lizard sang again,

“Heto uma tima

matiu ti mu.”

Coyote said, “I think it was over there to the west.” He came closer.
He said, “Friend (saukin), are you here?” Lizard said, “Yes.” Coyote
said, “You have fine sound. I want you to sing for me. I want to
learn it.” Lizard said, “Very well.” He sang,

“Heto uma tima

 matiu ti mu.”
“Did you learn it, my sound?” asked Lizard. “Yes.” “Sing it.” Coyote
sang (in a lower key and ponderously),

“Heto uma tima

matiu ti mu.”

“I see you have learned my sound,” said Lizard. Coyote said, “I am

going.” He went to the east. As he approached a cedar tree, singing
his song, a rabbit sitting under the tree heard him. The rabbit
jumped up and ran into a prairie-dog hole. Coyote ran after the
rabbit, and began to dig in the hole. He dug, dug, dug, until his nails
were worn off. Then he tried to sing his song, and could only say,
“Mati, mati.” The rest he had forgotten. He said, “I had better go
back and ask my friend.” He went back to Lizard, and said, “Friend,
sing for me.” Lizard only looked at him, saying nothing. “Friend, sing
your song for me. I am going to ask you four times. Then, if you
don’t sing, I shall swallow you down. Now, sing for me.” Lizard said
nothing. “Sing for me.” Lizard said nothing. “Sing for me.” Lizard said
nothing. Then he swallowed him down. Inside of Coyote, Lizard
sang,

“Heto uma tiuma

matiu ti mu.”

Coyote said, “Where are you?” “I am inside.” “Very well, friend; but
don’t cut my throat or my stomach. Just sing.” But Lizard did cut his
throat and his stomach, and Coyote fell down dead.[165]

Borrowed Feathers
Informant, Getsitsa of Laguna, about 60 years of age
Long ago (hamaha), the bluebirds (?) (kaihadanish) were
grinding. Coyote (chuski) began to grind too. The bluebirds said,
“Let us all go get a drink on top of Katzímo! But what shall we do