Introduction to Pueblo Indians
Pueblo Indians, a group of North American tribes living in New Mexico, Arizona, and Texas. They are an agricultural people who live in compactly built, permanent communities known as pueblos, the Spanish word for “towns” or “villages.” The older pueblos are made up of stone or adobe (sun-dried clay) multifamily dwellings of several stories, built in a distinctive terraced style. There are 19 inhabited pueblos; in addition, a number of outlying villages are occupied during the farming season. All are within Indian reservations. There are about 60,000 Pueblo Indians living on and near the reservations.
Branches of the Pueblo
The modern Pueblo Indians include the descendants of the prehistoric Anasazi Indians, who lived in pit houses, and the Cliff Dwellers of the 12th to the 15th century, who left ruins of their impressive cities mainly in the area where Utah, Colorado, New Mexico, and Arizona meet. The Pueblo were the first North American Indians to come under European domination; they were conquered by the Spaniard Francisco Coronado on his expedition from Mexico in 1540–42.
Despite of their similar pattern of living, the various Pueblo tribes are not all related but belong to four different linguistic branches. The four branches are:
the most westerly group, which occupies three mesas (steep-sided hills with flat tops) in northeastern Arizona. The Hopi are members of the Shoshonean division of the Uto-Aztecan language family. It is estimated that in 1680 they numbered 2,800. There are now about 7,000 Hopi on or near the reservation.
a branch living in western New Mexico on the upper Zuni River. Its language forms a separate linguistic family. In the 16th century, the Zuñi pueblos were known by hearsay to the Spanish as the Seven Cities of Cibola and reported to be full of gold and treasure. It was these cities that Coronado was seeking, and the Zuñi whom he first subdued. By the end of the 17th century the Zuñi, who numbered about 2,500, were concentrated in their present pueblo. The pueblo became a reservation in 1877. There are now about 6,000 Zuñi living on or near the reservation.
a branch with five pueblos on and near the Rio Grande west of Santa Fe and two on the Rio San Jose about 50 miles (80 km) west of Albuquerque. The two western Keres pueblos, Laguna and Acoma, are among the largest. There are more Pueblo Indians of Keresan linguistic stock than of any other. The eastern and western groups have different dialects. According to tribal tradition, their ancestors were the Cliff Dwellers. In 1760 there were about 7,000 Keresan.
a group of tribes of Kiowa-Tanoan language stock that are spread along the Rio Grande Valley in northern New Mexico. At the time of the Spanish conquest, they extended much farther south.
There were four language groups among the Tanoan.
of whom only the Jemez tribe remains, form one distinct language group of the Tanoan family. Jemez Pueblo, on the Jemez River just west of the Keresan, was settled after numerous conflicts with the Spanish, who had destroyed the other Towa pueblos. The extinct Pecos Indians, whose final settlement was about 30 miles (48 km) southeast of Santa Fe, decreased in number as they fought Apache and Comanche as well as the Spanish, and suffered also from epidemics. In 1838 the few survivors moved to Jemez. In 1680 the two tribes numbered about 4,500.
lived on the Rio Grande in the vicinity of Socorro. Loyal to the Spanish when other tribes were rebelling, they were moved south of the present Mexico-United States border. The Piro numbered perhaps 9,000 at the time of the Spanish conquest.
live in the Rio Grande Valley north of Santa Fe. A southern branch, known as the Tano (from whom the whole group takes its name), was almost wiped out by enemies before the Spanish came, and became extinct in the early 19th century. Some of the northern Tewa fled from the Spanish west to the Hopi and there established the pueblo of Hano, where they have remained. Of the six inhabited Tewa pueblos in New Mexico, Tesuque is the largest. The Tewa in 1680 numbered about 3,600.
(or Tigua), originally the largest Tanoan group, live around Taos, around Albuquerque, in El Paso, Texas, and in northern Mexico, where they were settled by the Spanish. The main pueblos are Isleta, near Albuquerque, and Taos, in northern New Mexico. It is estimated that in 1680 there were 12,000 Tiwa.
Traditional Pueblo Life
Religion was of great importance in Pueblo life, and it was in the exclusive control of the men. The sacred ceremonial chambers where the men met were called kivas. They were either round or square, built entirely or partially underground. A pueblo had as many kivas as it had secret religious societies, which might be a dozen or so. The supernatural beings believed to control the fate of the tribe were kachinas, mostly spirits of departed ancestors, who interceded with the gods on behalf of the Indians. At religious festivals men wearing grotesque masks represented the kachinas; children treasured small models of these figures as dolls.
Women built and owned the Pueblo homes, and a woman's entire family, including married daughters and their husbands, lived with her. Women ground the corn that the men raised, and they made the pottery. Men, however, did the weaving. Textiles were of cotton, which only the Pueblo among North American Indians cultivated, until the Spanish introduced sheep, and wool became available. Pueblo men could fight valiantly when attacked but rarely were the aggressors in war.
History
The predominant ancestors of the Pueblo were the Anasazi, or Basketmakers. The early Pueblo lived in small, sprawling villages on mesa tops and in valleys. Possibly attacks by warlike nomad tribes caused them to develop the large, compact pueblo composed of many-tiered apartment houses. The first story of their houses had blank walls; ladders provided access to the terraces. Some Pueblo groups, called Cliff Dwellers, built their towns in natural recesses and shallow caves on the sides of mesas and canyons.
Around the end of the 13th century, the Pueblo in the Four Corners region (where Utah, Arizona, New Mexico, and Colorado meet) moved south and east. They may have abandoned their cities because of a prolonged drought and enemy attacks. After Coronado's conquest. Christian missions were established among the Pueblo, and in 1598 the Spanish began colonizing New Mexico.
The Indians rebelled against Spanish rule occasionally. In 1680 Popé, a Tewa medicine man, persuaded most of the Pueblo Indians to act together to drive the Spaniards from the country. The revolt was entirely successful. Santa Fe, the Spanish capital, was taken, and 2,500 Spaniards, nearly a fifth of the white population, were slaughtered. The Spanish returned in 1692, and by 1696 had again conquered the country. Thereafter the Indians were generally kept submissive. As a result of disease and enemy attacks, their number declined for more than 200 years.
Acquisition of the Pueblo territory by the United States in 1848, as a result of the Mexican War, had little effect on the Pueblo Indians. Ownership of the land granted to them by the Spanish was confirmed, beginning in 1864, and the acreage later increased. As they had learned some things from the Spanish (for example, silversmithing, stock raising, and baking in beehive ovens), so they adopted some American customs. The traditional ways of living persisted in the main, however.
Gradually, after World War I, the Pueblo country and Pueblo handicrafts were discovered by tourists. The old arts of pottery, weaving, and silversmithing had a great revival. The Bureau of Indian Affairs helped improve agricultural methods, public health, and education. By the time of World War II, there was a noticeable increase in population.
World War II was a turning point for the Pueblo Indians. Industrialization came with the establishment of atomic-energy laboratories at Los Alamos and Albuquerque, and the mining of uranium and development of other valuable mineral resources. Indians finding employment in the new industries as well as those who served in the armed forces demanded new ways of life in the pueblos. Young married couples began living separately from their elders, in one-story bungalows, in spite of efforts to hold them to traditional patterns. Only the Hopi, on their remote mesas in Arizona, are relatively untouched by modern influences.
In the mid-1960's eight northern pueblos united in a community-based program for economic development of their reservations. By the early 1970's, six southern pueblos had done likewise. In 1976 the Indian Pueblo Cultural Center was opened in Albuquerque. In the 1980's and 1990's, the Pueblo Indians were involved in legal action to protect their land and water rights.
