The Pueblo People

A petroglyph at Petroglyph National Monument.

Josie Seymour, Laguna Pueblo potter and a principal in GRAB, is handing me the pot that she made to give to someone who attended the Albuquerque screening of the movie "GRAB," which is a documentary about Grab Day, a traditional Laguna Pueblo celebration of sharing.
How lucky that at this showing of the movie she gave it to me!
http://www.Grabthemovie.com

For more insight about the movie and its makers and participants, go to
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bPUH3M8HrIg

For several months after I arrived in NM I was quite confused about the Pueblo people and other native Americans in the Southwest. Who are they? Why are there different Pueblos each with its own name? How are these Pueblos related? Are the Navajo also a Pueblo people? Were there other Native American groups who lived in the area? Why is there Catholic imagery associated with southwest Native American cultures but not with the northwest Native American cultures?

It's taken many months of asking questions, reading signs, and listening to people to form a picture of the place that Native Americans hold in New Mexico's rich history. What I write here is a brief and broad brush summary of my understanding today and purposely omits some of the more controversial and emotionally charged history. It will deepen as I learn more, and I don't want to claim any rigorous research - these are only impressions. Please let me know if you find errors or disagreements. No disrespect is meant. I'm including several websites to get you started on your own research.

To begin, the Southwest is famous for Anasazi Ruins - remnants of towns composed of dwellings and religious kivas dug high up the sides of desert cliffs.

Anasazi ruins - anonymous Internet photo

These civilizations date back thousands of years. A sign at the Petroglyph National Monument in Albuquerque explained that the term Anasazi was derived from two Navajo words meaning “enemy ancestors” or “ancient enemy.” Therefore, to many modern Pueblo people, the term Anasazi is culturally insensitive and inappropriate to use when referring to their ancestors. The Pueblo people prefer 'ancestral Puebloan' when referring to their ancestors. Nevertheless, from what I understand, it is not clear if there is any lineage between the 'Anasazi' people who left their aerial homes and today's Pueblo peoples.

The Pueblo people are so called because these groups of Native Americans created villages of adobe homes. Pueblo is Spanish for village or town. Their communities were sustained by dry farming (no irrigation). Surprisingly, even though Pueblo groups in New Mexico are geographically relatively close to each other, they are not culturally homogeneous.There is not a single group, but many groups with different languages, customs, and religions. Today there are 19 Pueblos, and I was surprised to learn that the 5 native languages that survive today are completely different in vocabulary and syntax, which implies that there was little contact early on between the groups.
http://www.indianpueblo.org/19pueblos/language.html

To learn more about the culture and the art we have visited The Indian Pueblo Cultural Center several times, and it's a must-see for anyone visiting Albuquerque.
www.indianpueblo.org/

We also attended a talk by an Anglo UNM anthropologist who had been raised in a Pueblo village. She said that historically the pueblo people living near Albuquerque suffered at the hands of both the Navajo and the Apache who warred with each other and who supported those raids into each other's territory by raiding Pueblo villages to replenish food supplies and to steal women and children.

However, the above account about the relationship of the Pueblos and the Navajo is at odds with the following quote form wikipedia:

"...the Navajo were hunters and gatherers. They adopted farming techniques and crops from the Pueblo people, growing mainly corn, beans, and squash. As a result of Spanish influence, they began herding sheep and goats, depending on them for food and trade. Navajo oral history also seems to indicate a long relationship with Pueblo people^[12] and a willingness to adapt foreign ideas into their own culture." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Navajo_people

For more information about current Navajo culture go to
http://navajopeople.org/

Although the Navajo and the Apache share the same language history - Athapascan - early on there was a split into what is now known as Navajo and Apache. One website I found explained that the Apache were composed of nomadic tribes that subsisted as hunters and gatherers. This source claimed that they only raided others for a living when food was scarce. However, the website also noted that these people were fierce and feared warriors and further states that the Apache and Pueblo tribes co-existed until the Spaniards arrived and began enslaving Native peoples to work in the mines.
http://www.impurplehawk.com/apache.html

I have seen Christian imagery in the art and celebrations of the Pueblo tribes, which I've learned is there because as Spanish explorers came north from Mexico to settle territory, they encountered the Native American people and tried, often fairly successfully, to convert them to Catholicism. The two cultures co-existed, but many native americans resented the early Spanish explorers because the Spanish presence depleted their resources, and the Spanish tried to quell the expression of indigenous religious beliefs and practices. In 1680, there was a well orchestrated and successful "Pueblo Revolt"
http://www.neh.gov/news/humanities/2002-11/pueblorevolt.html

The revolt resulted in the Spanish allowing the Pueblos to retain their religious cultural identities while at the same time retaining many Catholic traditions.

Today each pueblo hosts a "Feast Day" that is celebrated with traditional native american dances, but is held in honor of a particular Catholic Saint. The public is invited to these events and can attend free of charge.

It used to be that the families in the pueblo hosted outsiders at a meal, but today, the attendance is so high that this is not practical. Instead there are many food booths along with arts and craft vendors to serve the tourists who come to the pueblo during their feast day.

We attended a Feast Day at the Jimez (pronounced hay' mus) Pueblo and were amazed at the size of it. More than a thousand people attended to shop the booths and watch the dancers, who were arrayed in beautiful and elaborate costumes of white and turquoise accented with deep reds and browns. Each of the women dancers wore a large headdress and each adult male dancer wore an animal tail tucked into the back of his belt. I wasn't sure if the tail was fox or coyote.

It seemed the entire village joined into the dances because the participants took up several blocks and included dancers from the very young to those old enough to stand the rigor. The dance we saw was demanding in that the dancers were dancing in step with the beat of drums and they danced for quite a length of time. At 65, it would be a challenge for me to keep up with them.

We were also surprised at the number of vendors there, blocks and blocks of them, and the artists came from different pueblos to sell their art at this feast. The art was beautiful - everything from clothing, to jewelry, to clay ware, and most things were very reasonably priced. I wished I'd brought more cash as very few vendors accepted credit cards or checks.

Sadly no photos were allowed under threat of confiscating any photographing equipment including cell phones. I can't find any Internet photos either, so you will just have to attend one of the feast days for yourself.

The Jimez village we saw was made up of very modest single story adobe homes lining a maze of dirt roads. There was a large central town square which was actually a large rectangle that was 2 to 3 blocks in length. As we walked through the village, we saw at least two Kivas (places for ceremonial worship). They could be recognized because they were a couple of stories tall, had no windows and only a small unadorned door, and we could see smoke coming out of the top and hear the beating of a drum coming from the interior.

Lee astutely noted that there were no 'mansions' in the town. We do not know how the economic structure is set up in the pueblos or if there are taxes that support communal services such as utilities and roads. This will take more research.

One of the most famous Pueblos near Albuquerque is the ancient Acoma Pueblo built on the flat top of a high desert mesa. This pueblo is a must-see for any visitor in the Albuquerque area. To accommodate the many tourists who arrive each day, the Acoma people built a beautiful, modern visitor's center and they charge to take busloads of tourists to tour the pueblo.

They also sell a permit to take photos. However, no photography is allowed with your own camera. You must use only disposable cameras that can be purchased at the visitor's center. I don't know why this is because it's very easy to digitize those pictures (which I did).

It was explained to us that most Acoma Pueblo people no longer live at Acoma full time, but many maintain a home there to stay at for feast days and other occasions. The look of the Acoma pueblo was different than the Jimez pueblo that we visited in that some of the homes were built apartment-style and had two stories. However, in both pueblos the people left the natural dry look of the land without embellishment.

At the end of the tour at Acoma our guide offered to allow us to return to the visitor's center by walking down the old stairway that goes from the road below the mesa to the village above. As you will see in my photos, in places this stairway is very steep. There are handholds carved into the sides of the walls to hold onto and you need them! Our guide pointed out that for many years this stairway was the only way to get building materials, goods, and groceries up to the village. I was impressed because getting down them wasn't easy!!!

Finally, I want to add that visitors to New Mexico see photos like the ones here and get the idea that native people in the U.S. are different from other Americans, but this is not the case. The native people in NM came through the same school system that I did. For example, I was visiting a coffee shop in Santa Fe and the server/owner was clearly Native American. As I always do, I asked if they had nonfat milk for my latte. Just then someone from the shop came rushing in with a grocery bag of milk he had just bought at the store. I said, "Oh, I see the milkman cometh." The man behind the counter laughed loudly. It was a joke he got because he went to the same high school that I had where "The Iceman Cometh" is part of the curriculum. That being said, Native Americans throughout the U.S. are now reclaiming their languages and traditions, and we thank them for that. It enriches all our lives.

What follows are photos of the Acoma pueblo and the stairway we took.

This is NOT the Acoma mesa. It is much smaller, but it is a similar land form. These first two photos were taken as we entered Acoma lands and both are of the same structure.

Acoma Visitor's Center

View from the top of the Acoma Pueblo over the desert.

A view of the village.

An Acoma home on the edge of the village. The dome shaped structure behind the house is a horno, a wood fired oven for baking bread.

Stone work on an Acoma home.

Two-story Acoma homes with traditional ladders.

Another view of an Acoma street lined with homes.

There was an old church in the village which we were not allowed to photograph. The guide told us that this balcony at the side of the church was used by the priest for sermons and announcements. Note the beautiful wooden roof over the balcony.