without the presence of living
water very few things grow in his desert land. During many a drought
chronicled in his oral annals, plants, animals, and men have died as
of a contagious scourge. Naturally, therefore, he has come to regard
water as the milk of adults, to speak of it as such, and as the
all-sufficient nourishment which the earth (in his conception of it as
the mother of men) yields. In the times when his was a race of cliff
and mesa dwellers, the most common vessel appertaining to his daily
life was the flat-bellied canteen or water-carrier. (See Fig. 547.)
This was suspended by a band across the forehead, so as to hang
against the back, thus leaving the hands as well as the feet free for
assistance in climbing. It now survives only for use on long journeys
or at camps distant from water. The original suggestion of its form
seems to have been that of the human mammary gland, or perhaps its
peculiar form may have suggested a relationship between the two.
(Compare Figs. 548, 549.) At any rate, its name in Zuni is _me' he ton
ne_, while _me' ha na_ is the name of the human mammary gland. _Me' he
ton ne_ is from _me' ha na_, mamma, _e' ton nai e_, containing within,
and _to'm me_. From _me' ha na_ comes _wo' ha na_, hanging or placed
against anything, obviously because the mammaries hang or are placed
against the breast; or, possibly, _me ha na_ may be derived from _wo
ha na_ by a reversal of reasoning, which view does not affect the
argument in question. It is probable that the _me' he ton_ was at
first left open at the apex (Fig. 549._a_) instead of at the top (Fig.
549._b_); but, being found liable to leak when furnished with the
aperture so low, this was closed. A surviving superstition inclines me
to this view. When a Zuni woman has completed the _me' he ton_ nearly
to the apex, by the coiling-process, and before she has inserted the
nozzle (Fig. 549._b_), she prepares a little wedge of clay, and, as
she closes the apex with it, she turns her eyes away. If you ask her
why she does this, she will tell you that it is _a'k ta ni_ (fearful)
to look at the vessel while closing it at this point; that, if she
look at it during this operation, she will be liable to become barren;
or that, if children be born to her, they will die during infancy; or
that she maybe stricken with blindness; or those who drink from the
vessel will be afflicted with disease and wasting away! My impression
is that, reasoning from analo