Gabby Brezovsky The Power of the Spoken Word

We have discussed the power of the word, both written and spoken. For the Zuni people the word is most powerful when it is spoken out loud. In Sam Gill’s piece “Nonliterate Traditions and Holy Books: Toward a New Model” he questions the definition of scripture as a “holy book.” One of the most effective examples he uses to make his point deals with the Zuni Native American tribe of New Mexico. In 1879 ethnologist Frank Hamilton Cushing immersed himself in the traditions and practices of the Zuni people. “Cushing became fluent in Zuni language. He was initiated into religious societies. He lived like and claimed to think like a Zuni, yet there remained differences, at least from the Zuni point of view” (Gill, 225).
While Cushing used his reading and writing abilities to learn the religious practices of this Native American tribe, the Zuni people themselves have no written scriptural text. Their songs of worship are passed down orally through time. The Zuni did not seem to look up to Cushing because of his “power of literacy.” On the contrary, the Zuni “see their religion as being of the heart, not of the head. They see their religion as performed and lived, not written and read” (Gill, 226).