Paper short abstract:

This paper considers Zuni concerns about controlling the reproduction of knowledge and the imitation of esoteric rites, as explored through the history of replicas of Zuni paraphernalia made in the 19th century by anthropologists.

Paper long abstract:

Zuni philosophy values repetition as verification of the accurate continuity of knowledge, thereby challenging Anglo-American notions of the 'copy' as a devaluation of the 'original'. Using examples from Zuni as well as scientific traditions in creating replicas, I question the extent to which Zuni and Anglo-American approaches to imitation and the reproduction of knowledge overlap or differ. In particular, I follow the story of the Zuni Ahayu:da or War God that was carefully crafted by the ethnologist, Frank Hamilton Cushing and presented to E. B. Tylor at the Pitt Rivers Museum and which now raises key questions about whose knowledge system was reproduced during its creation, and whose is at play now in regard to where this deity should reside. These transcultural encounters with and debates over the duplication of knowledge are used to reconsider the cross-cultural applicability of representational theories, as these are commonly based on ideas about of the instability of meaning between 'originals' and their imitations or 'copies'.