Zuni, N.M. - While we may smile when we see a father carrying a child on his shoulders, the Zuni Pueblo tribe considers it bad luck.

That's one of the many Zuni beliefs we learned about when we visited the tribe last summer.

The Zuni believe that sleeping with your shoes on is bad luck, as is playing outside after dark. Although kids in the tribe live by these rules, they say they don't understand why.

Zunis are protective of their traditions, not revealing all details of customs and rituals to outsiders. They are afraid that people will misunderstand them or make their ideas something that they aren't.

For this reason, we couldn't get the whole story of the Zuni's different customs, but we were intrigued by what we did learn.

Living in two cultures

For members of this American Indian community on the New Mexico-Arizona border, customs that originated with their ancestors are still practiced today. What we would consider superstitions are, for them, ancient religious rituals. According to Feather Lewis and Melissa Quam, both 13, living under the traditional Zuni rules can be challenging.

Although both grew up in the area, Feather's family didn't observe many Zuni traditions. She has learned many of the customs from Melissa, who moved in with Feather's family.

One of the hardest to understand was that a pregnant woman cannot go through an open window or her baby will turn upside down. But Feather has gradually accepted these beliefs.

"I think it's true," she said. "I wouldn't call it a superstition because a few girls in the tribe, their babies have turned upside down."

Although these ideas seemed strange, the girls didn't seem all that different from us. We all were wearing jean shorts, T-shirts and sweatshirts.

"I like living here because you get to see the dancers and everything," said Feather of her town, which is home to about 5,500 Zunis.

"I like it because the people here make beautiful jewelry," she said. "I love to see their work in the jewelry store. I just like living here because it's small."

Communal ceremonies

About every three weeks at the pueblo, the communal village, the whole tribe gathers for a big religious ceremony. It is at these ceremonies that you see some of the things American Indians are known for doing.

"They dance for rain for our crops, because we grow different things," Feather explained. "It's kind of strange the way you can't do other things when they're dancing - especially you can't throw away anything. Sometimes they can't even eat any greasy food with grease on it."

During a week in the winter, the whole community comes together for a special ceremony to initiate new members of the tribe - kind of like confirmation for Catholics or a Bar Mitzvah for Jews.

"It's called initiation, where the little boys . . . do a religious thing and (men) whip them (symbolic whipping) with wicker sticks in the back. They do that and then the boys have to wear a feather in their head," Feather explained. "Then after they get initiated, they have the right to dance with the bigger dancers."

Girls are not excluded from the ritual, but they aren't allowed to dance. What they can do is bake. All females in the tribe have to bake a certain thing, such as cakes or Zuni bread, for the dancers to throw to the people to eat after the ceremony.

"(The people) really like what they do here," Feather said, "but whoever takes a picture of them dancing, even if it's a Zuni, they have to get punished. The police will take the camera away.

"Some dancers, they dance to release different things, and that's why we can't take pictures. It's just something that the earlier people thought of."

EDITED BY: Eric M. Augenstein, 15