The Zuni People and Their Plants

In 1915 the U.S. Government Printing Office published the Thirteenth Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, 1908-1909. Pages 31 to 102 were written by Matilda Coxe Stevenson; they were about the Zuni People and their uses of plants.

In her introduction, she writes, "The Zuni live with their plants - the latter are a part of themselves. The initiated can talk with their plants, and the plants can talk with them. Plants are scared to the Zuni, for some of them were dropped to the earth by the Star People; some were human beings before they became plants; others are the property of the gods, and all, even those from the heavens, are the offspring of the Earth Mother, for it was she who gave the plants to the Star People before they left this world and became celestial beings. The Zuni love their plants."

Wow. No wonder they resisted the white man's religion; that is too gorgeous to discard, and, in their own words, they could not abide two religions: "...one could not have two religions and be a man." But more than that, they included plants in their cosmology. Now that's a belief system I can get on board with. (Remember, I majored in astronomy in college, and was once declared the premier Perseid meteor shower observer in the U.S. The stars are near and dear to my leathery ol' heart.)

Of paramount importance to the Zuni was that the earth provide its people sustenance: "May the rain-makers water the Earth Mother that she may be made beautiful to look upon. May the rain-makers water the Earth Mother that she may become fruitful and give to her children and to all the world the fruits of her being, that we may have food in abundance. May the Sun Father embrace our Earth Mother that she may become fruitful, that food may be bountiful, and that our children may live the span of life, not die, but sleep to awake with their gods."

Again, wow. We have become so jaded in our garden gnomed, lawn sprinkled, herbicided world. My own love of nature pales in comparison to such lofty, spiritual and poetic regard for the natural world.

As far as healing, granted, there was a lot of shamanism going on, but as Matilda noted, "...they had many legitimate plant medicines, among which was a narcotic..."

She goes on to point out, "...plants are (also) employed by the Zuni in

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