Indian Pueblos Research Articles

Pueblo Nations: Eight Centuries of Pueblo Indian History.

Pueblo Nations is the story of a vital and creative culture, of a people sustained by ages-old traditions and beliefs, who have adapted to the radical challenges of the modern world. Written by a respected writer, educator, and elder of the Jemez Pueblo, this rare, insider's view of the history of the 19 Indian Pueblos of New Mexico illuminates Pueblo historical traditions dating from millennia before the arrival of Columbus and chronicles the events and changes of the European era from the perspective of those who experienced them. Drawing on both traditional oral history and written records, Sando describes the origin and development of Pueblo civilization, the Spanish conquest and occupation, the Pueblo Revolt of 1680, and the response of the pueblos to Mexican independence and conquest by the United States. Sando offers several portraits of notable Pueblo leaders whose contributions have helped shape the history of their people. He looks at internal developments in Pueblo government and presents a detailed account of the unremitting struggle to retain sovereignty, land, and water rights in the face of powerful outside pressures.

Coyote Tales from the Indian Pueblos

Coyote Tales from the Indian Pueblos

The First Amendment, Anglo-Conformity and American Indian Religious Freedom

National public policy to insure freedom of religious belief and practice for American Indians in the United States has been very difficult to establish. When the federal reservation system was established in the 19th century Christian missionaries with federal sanction were established on nearly every reservation. Native religion and religious practices were rigorously persecuted by the missionary groups with the active intervention of the Indian Service, through its employees, especially in the U.S. Indian police. The Indian Service as a federal agency had the power to request the army to intervene with military force when a reservation superintendent thought it necessary. The ideology of the organizations and individuals who have sought federal and state legislation and sanctions against indigenous religions could be classified under the broad category of the doctrine of Anglo-conformity. The term has the central assumptions of the desirability of maintaining Anglo-American institutions, the primacy of the English language, Anglo-American cultural patterns, Protestant Christian religious supremacy as dominant and standard in the United States, along with unquestioned white supremacy.1 When the more spectacular religious observances, such as the Sun Dance, were suppressed in the 1880s, less visible religions remained. T1wo of these were the peyote religion in the Plains and the religion of the Indian pueblos of the Southwest. The intent of the campaigns against the peyote religion and the religion of the Pueblos was to move around the First Amendment dictate that Congress shall make no law prohibiting the free exercise of religion. The campaign organizers decided to use a national public policy approach which for public beneficial secular reasons would (1) control a dangerous drug, peyote; and (2) prevent vicious sexual practices. The objective of controlling these religions then was disguised as being necessary for compelling national secular interests, not prejudicial denial of religious freedom.

Irrigation in the Bajío Region of Colonial Mexico by Michael E. Murphy

TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE Book Reviews 679 past who, without benefit of higher mathematics or computers or stress tests, nevertheless managed to solve some extraordinarily dif­ ficult problems, like how to erect a building of stone with largely glass walls, how to transfer the thrust of arches to buttresses, how to raise the huge blocks to construct the great pyramids. The book is to be recommended to all those wishing to grasp something of the sweep of building problems. Marjorie Nice Boyer Dr. Boyer is professor emerita of history, York College, City University of New York. She has published numerous articles on medieval French travel and a book, Medieval French Bridges: A History (Cambridge, Mass.: Medieval Academy of America, 1976). She is currently writing a book on medieval vehicles. Irrigation in the Bajío Region of Colonial Mexico. By Michael E. Murphy. Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1986. Pp. xii + 226; illustrations, notes, glossary, appendix, bibliography, index. $19.95 (paper). Michael Murphy brings a vast legal expertise, sophisticated geo­ graphic knowledge, skill and industry in archival research, and a firm grasp of the history of technology to this rich study of irrigation systems in four urban centers of the colonial Mexican Bajío region. The maps that accompany the text’s description of colonial water­ works and the detailed drawings of hydraulic technology and instru­ ments add yet another valuable dimension to this multifaceted book. Murphy interprets historical and legal data in the light of ecological and economic conditions to reconstruct the evolution of waterworks in each center. He examines their technology, the social formations they gave rise to, the political and juridical institutions they fostered, and the specialists they required. The book begins by raising the same questions Wittfogel addressed in Oriental Despotism: What are the linkages among the natural envi­ ronment, the presence and kinds of hydraulic systems found, cen­ tralized political administration, division of labor, and despotic rule? However, unlike the scholars who have attempted to test Wittfogel’s hypotheses by oversimplifying them, Murphy seeks answers to these questions in an immense corpus ofcarefully read and digested archival material, dating from the 16th to the 19th century, and in the ar­ chaeological remains of waterworks. The Bajío region was a semiarid, frontier society, which supplied the mines of Guanajuato with meat, hides, agricultural produce, and textiles. Querétaro, one of the urban centers, as a conduit to the Chichimec silver mines, became one of the largest colonial industrial cities in the world. Rural and urban population growth in the region gradually encouraged the development of irrigation systems and re­ liable urban water supplies. 680 Book Reviews TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE Although the crown controlled natural waterways in the colonies, the legal status of man-made irrigation systems remained ambiguous, and therefore water rights and easements were subject to continuous dispute. These conflicts over the construction of waterworks and the equitable allocation of water were played out in complex and varied fashion among private landholders, Indian pueblos, a burgeoning textile industry, and church orders and sodalities. Murphy shows that pragmatic accommodations were frequently reached without formal interference from central government authorities. Although legal ten­ ets could be and often were referred to in court proceedings, custom­ ary precedence more frequently determined resolutions to problems of water rights, and an active market in their sale and purchase soon developed. Murphy’s knowledge of European medieval and Enlightenment legal codes permits him to grasp the kinds of arguments different actors marshaled to defend their water rights, ranging from the prin­ ciples of use over “time immemorial” to “a year and a day” to “ten years” to the ironic decision that customary water rights of Indian groups (who had been resettled) took precedence over later water rights and usage. His findings also suggest that investments for build­ ing new waterworks mostly came from a few wealthy landowners in cooperation with one another, from a single church order, or even from a single individual, rather than from central state revenues. He finds at an early date that the polluting and heavy water-using urban textile industry at Querétaro was pressured by urban inhabitants to pay for building their potable water supply. Murphy is...

The Portal Case: Authenticity, Tourism, Traditions, and the Law

Factors outside a tradition often intervene in the process of that tradition. The assumptions, attitudes, and concerns of the public, the law, and the conservationists influence the manufacture, production, and sale of Southwest Indian jewelry. SANTA FE, NEW MEXICO, attracts hundreds of thousands of tourists each year because of its picturesque plaza, its historic role as a Spanish imperial capital, its nearby Indian pueblos, its wealth of museums, and its cultural events-and its ski slopes. It has an image as an Old World haven where one can meet the American Other, the unassimilated Native American culture. Perhaps the closest most visitors will get to real Indians is by strolling along the Portal of the Palace of the Governors, the oldest public building in the United States and now part of the Museum of New Mexico. Here, under this covered walkway spanning one side of the central plaza, the Indians display and sell their wares: jewelry, pottery, sand paintings, food, and occasionally other handicrafts. Sitting with their backs to the stuccoed adobe palace wall, they arrange their wares neatly on blankets in front of them. On a busy day 50 or so Indians and myriad tourists are crammed into this long corridor. The Indians, mostly from the nearby pueblos but also from the Navaho, Zuni, and Hopi reservations and further afield, are there every day in the summer. Many even brave the cold winter days and sit huddled in rugs. For the Indian, selling under the Portal is a financial necessity; for the visitors, the Portal provides comfortable surroundings to see and buy genuine Indian crafts from genuine Indian craftsmen, apparently without the distancing factor of middlemen.

ORAL CULTURES AND LITERATE RESEARCH

A young ethnologist named Frank Cushing in 1880 joined Major Powell's expedition to explore the canyons of the Colorado River. His assignment from the Smithsonian Institution was to drop off for three months to study one of the Indian Pueblos in the vicinity. Cushing walked into the Zuni Pueblo in Western New Mexico one evening, with considerable gall moved uninvited into the chiefs house, and stayed for a year. We owe a lot to this sickly, sheltered young man. His astonishment at the sophistication, the elegance and the lifestyle of his hosts led him to a series of discoveries. Their complex philosophy and thought patterns, beautiful symbolism and eloquent language persuaded him that the Zuni's way of life was superior to anything he had seen. He went native, in the words of anthropologists, adopted Zuni dress and language, and was initiated into the Priesthood of the Bow. Cushing was one of the ethnologists giving birth to the new science of cultural anthropology. He was one of the early discoverers of the principle of pluralism. He had believed that there was only one human culture, with various societies strung along a continuum of evolution into a civilized state. But the Zunis taught him that there were cultures (plural) that were on somewhat parallel tracks. We are still learning the lessons of this, and are scarcely a generation removed from efforts of church and government to drag primitive people into our cultural civilization. Cushing was one of the pioneers who showed us a better way. But so far as the Zunis were concerned, Cushing was a catastrophe. He violated their trust by publishing sacred legends and secret ceremonial practices. He also led them into a full century of constant scrutiny by anthropologists, and this wearily continues to this day. Cushing exemplifies the kind of scientist with whom

Continuity and Change in Morelos, Mexico

SCHOLARS who have occasion to use the relaciones geograficas and other regional documents drawn up by local magistrates and priests in both colonial and independent Mexico should have a clear idea of what the terms and units of measurement in them mean and of what area is covered. Something, though perhaps not enough, has been done to define terms and to produce usable equivalents.' In this article I shall discuss the relatively ill-explored matter of territorial boundaries, as they were affected by demographic change and other factors, concentrating on the small area now known as the state of Morelos, on the southern slope of the volcanic axis just south of Mexico City. When the Spaniards arrived in Mexico, they found the land divided in a number of ways. First, an obvious boundary separated farmers from nonfarmers. South of this line were the sedentary, politically sophisticated successors of the extinct classic civilizations, and north of it were primitive hunters and gatherers. The latter occupied subsistence territories, but as these people were driven northward in the Spanish advance, the pre-Conquest political geography of the Chichimeca disappeared and was replaced by arbitrary jurisdictional divisions set up at the convenience of the viceregal government. On the other hand, in central and southern Mexico various kinds of native political divisions survived during the colony and in some cases to the present day. As an example, one can trace the external boundaries of the Triple Alliance empire, with the addition of Michoacan and the Pacific coast kingdoms, in the early limits of New Spain. The extent of Tarascan hegemony is recognizable in several territorial units of the colony, and it is not too different from the modern state of Michoacan. The Huaxteca became the colonial province of Panuco; the old confederation of Metztitlan was about equal to the alcaldia mayor of that name; the empire of Tototepec had much the same limits as the partido of Xicayan. Perhaps the bestknown case of survival is that of Tlaxcala, where the military confederation that befriended Cortes kept its identity as a gobierno under the Spaniards and as a territory and state in independent Mexico. Alongside and within the empires and confederations were a great many autonomous little kingdoms or senorios, contiguous territorial and political units, each consisting of a number of calpultin or their equivalent ruled by a tlatoani or a calpixqui. The limits of these native states were mostly recognized and retained by the Spaniards and became the boundaries of the republicas de indios or Indian pueblos that were distributed in encomienda. After the great epidemic of 1545-1548, surviving native communities were consolidated in two ways. First, the scattered rural population within each pueblo was concentrated in villages (congregaciones), leaving unoc-

Photogrammetry of the Indian pueblos of New Mexico and Arizona

The most recent project of recording the Indian pueblos of New Mexico and Arizona, on which we have been engaged at The Ohio State University for the past three years, is particularly satisfying. This work is intended to record the pueblos in their present condition and from that record to gain geometrical control for analysis of historic glass plate photographs of the pueblos taken before 1900. From these it is possible to prepare restoration drawings of the pueblos as they were before this century. In the case of the pueblo of Tesuque these drawings will be available for present restoration work by the Indians.

Planning, Politics and Plunder: The Missions and Indian Pueblos of Hispanic California

Although the Franciscan missions ultimately made less of an impact in California than either the pueblos or the presidios, should not be forgotten that the effort to colonize was initially and predominantly the work of a religious order. Missions were essentially frontier institutions and as such, their existence was a temporary one by definition.1 In theory was assumed that a mission community was to have completed its task of evangelization, education and civilization within a specified period of time, initially ten years, after which its spiritual affairs would be handed over to secular clergy, its lands distributed among the Indians, and its municipal government would function in the manner set forth in the Recopilacion.2 However, these assumptions were based upon experience with the Indians of Meso-America who had attained a significantly higher level of civilization than those on the frontiers where a much longer period of instruction and supervision was required.3 As a result, was inevitable that some form of conflict over secularization would arise whose aftermath was to witness the plundering of the religious domain.4 Our concern with the California missions is in their urban organization and existence as towns in the years following their secularization. The idea of congregating Indians into towns dates back to the first decade of the sixteenth century. In a 1503 Instruccton to Nicolas de Ovando, the Catholic monarchs suggested that it is necessary that the Indians be gathered into towns in which they shall live together . . . and that each town shall have a Church and a Priest who will indoctrinate and instruct them in Our Holy Catholic Faith.5 Said towns were to be planned according to and like those of the people who live in Our realms.6 Charles V encouraged the development of villages for Indians in 1523 and eleven years later he made suggestions, rather oversimplified, concerning methods of congregating the dispersed Indians of Michoacan

Fishes from Archaeological Sites in Northern New Mexico

Lepisosteus osseus, Gila robusta elegans, and Cycleptus elongatus have been recovered from Pueblo Indian ruins iri Chaco Canyon, Aztec, and Bande- lier National Monument, respectively. All three species were probably utilized as food, but scales from Lepisosteus cf. osseus do not reveal the use to which they were put. Caudal vertebrae of Gila r. elegans and the urohyal bone of Cycleptus are diagnostic for these forms. Lepisosteus and Cycleptus are not presently known from northern New Mexico. Fish remains associated with abandoned Indian pueblos may not only provide information about the food or other habits of the aborig- ines, but also contribute to a better understanding of their environ- ment. For example, utilization of the huge Colorado squawfish, Ptycho- cheilus lucius Girard, by the Sobaipuri Indians of southern Arizona about two hundred years ago, supports the view that the San Pedro River was then a much larger and more stable stream than it was only three-quarters of a century ago (Miller, 1955; 1961). In addition, accurate identification of fish remains may enlarge our knowledge of zoogeography. Monuments, both in the San Juan River drainage (Colorado River system), San Juan County. We are especially grateful to Lyndon L. Hargrave and the Southwest Archeological Center, Globe, Arizona, for providing the specimens and provenance data, and permitting us to make this report. Volney H. Jones and Richard Yarnell supplied references and criticized parts of the manuscript. Paul A. Judge, Superintendent at Bandelier, gave information on present stream con- ditions there, and Gordon Vivian furnished additional data for the Bandelier and Chaco Canyon specimens. Clark Hubbs and William J. Koster replied to our inquiries concerning the present range of Cyclep- tus in Texas and New Mexico, respectively.

The Development of Taos Dance

T he pueblo of Taos, located about sixty-five miles north of Santa Fe, New Mexico, is the northernmost of the Rio Grande Indian pueblos. The pueblo is one of the major tourist attractions in the Southwest because of the unique four-story and five-story adobe apartment house dwelling units. Considered by anthropologists to be one of the most conservative Indian pueblos, Taos has no electricity and no running water, except the stream which divides the north and south sides of the village. Most of the twelve hundred inhabitants continue to farm the land which surrounds the

Cremation among the Indians of New Mexico

The discovery of cremations at the ruin of Pueblo Pardo in central New Mexico has added yet another to the multitude of problems concerning the Chupadera Mesa country to be answered by archaeology. Heretofore, most of the data available for this region have been based upon surface survey, and suffer from the inexactitude of that approach; some of the data, also, are based upon the incompletely published excavations at Abó, Quaraí and Gran Quivira National Monument. In the sites of Abó and Quaraí, which consist of important Mission ruins beside ruins of the Indian pueblos, attention has been concentrated upon the former structures almost to the exclusion of the latter. However, some work has been carried on in the pueblo ruins at both Quaraí and Gran Quivira, although, unfortunately, there appears to be little hope for the publication of any reports upon these excavations. The historian's analysis of the area has been ably handled by Scholes.