Frank Hamilton Cushing / Jesse Green (ed.) — Zuni. Selected Writings of Frank Hamilton Cushing.

Lincoln and London University of Nebraska Press 1981 Paperback, 447pp., 13.5x20.5cm., ills. in b/w., in good condition (covers with light traces of use). This book presents a carefully selected collection of writings by the nineteenth?century ethnologist Frank Hamilton Cushing, drawn from his immersive fieldwork among the Zuni people of New Mexico between 1879 and 1884. In these essays and observational accounts Cushing explores a wide array of topics: his personal experiences of living within the Zuni community, their social organisation, religious beliefs and ritual practices, myth?structures and creation narratives, pottery origins, shamanism, and everyday artefacts of Pueblo life. With language drawn from firsthand engagement, he gives insight into Zuni cosmology, clan and priesthood structures, ceremonial drama and material culture. Through the editing and introduction by Jesse Green the volume situates Cushing historically and analytically, offering modern readers both the immediacy of field?notes and reflections, and a scholarly apparatus that frames his achievements and limitations. As such it serves both as a classic ethnographic document and as a foundation for later anthropological work on the Southwest Native American Pueblo peoples. Frank Hamilton Cushing (1857?1900) was an American ethnologist affiliated with the Smithsonian Institution and is particularly famous for his pioneering use of participant?observation among the Zuni Pueblo. He lived among the Zuni from 1879 to 1884, mastered their language, was adopted into their tribal council and priesthood, and produced seminal writings on their culture, social structure and material life. Wikipedia +1 Jesse Green (born 1928) is the editor and introducer of this volume: he compiled Cushing?s writings, provided an extensive introduction and notes, and helped bring this work to a wider audience. His editorial scholarship has made accessible one of the foundational texts of Southwestern ethnology.