Zuni Pueblo

“ Of these, the Pueblo of Zuñi has been celebrated for honesty and hospitality. The inhabitants mostly profess the Catholic faith, but have now no curate. They cultivate the soil, manufacture, and possess considerable quantities of stock. Their village is over 150 miles west of the Rio del Norte, on the waters of the Colorado of the West, and is believed to contain between 1,000 and 1,500 souls. ”

“ The Zuni language is much like that of other Pueblo Indians, but the words are, apparently, rather indefinite, requiring much facial contortion and bodily gesticulation to make their sentences perfectly intelligible. They have no schools. Their hieroglyphical writings may be seen in many places, while all along the Cañons de Choca and de Chelle are traces of the ancient march of this people. ”

“ The pueblo of Zuñi is built upon a small knoll on the north bank of the Zuñi River, about three miles west of the conspicuous mesa of Tâaaiyalana. It is the successor of all the original “Seven Cities of Cibola” of the Spaniards, and is the largest of the modern pueblos. As before stated, the remains of Halona, one of the “seven cities,” as identified by Mr. Cushing, have served as a nucleus for the construction of the modern pueblo, and have been incorporated into the most densely clustered portions, represented on the plan (Pl. LXXVI) by numbers 1 and 4. ”

“ Certain other complexities of strain have arisen through the coming in to the pueblo of women from other nations. One Zuñi governor married a woman from the Cherokee Wolf clan, and as a matter of course she was received into their Coyote clan. In two or three generations it will be forgotten that her descendants were ever anything but Zuñi. Our author admits that the social fabric of Zuñi may be [182] more closely knit than some others, but is of the opinion that all Southwestern tribes are so intimate that what is true of one may be predicated of the rest. ”

“ The traditions of the Zuni are few and simple. They say their people came from the northwest on their march southward; that all Pueblo Indians belong to a common race, and are all members of the large families called Aztecs, or Montezumas; that some of their forefathers remained behind in the great migration of the nation, while the large body pursued a southerly course, ultimately forming the mighty empire of Mexico, as found by Cortez after its conquest; that, long before the white man came, their people inhabited the mesa south of their town. ”

“ Many of the tales rest upon historical foundations, and the history is clothed as with the drapery of a wonderful landscape. The high mesa of Zuñi, called in the language of the tribe “To-yo-a-la-na,” or Thunder-mountain, is four miles at the northern end, six miles at the southern end, from the pueblo; then it bends around to the east and turns back to the north. The red sandstone rocks rise nearly everywhere perpendicularly from the plain. The summit is a plateau, overgrown with junipers, piñons, and cactus, and with scanty grass. On it are the ruins of six small pueblos. ”

“ In Zuñi, where, at the present day, each individual feels himself identified with some part of the body of a quadruped, his clan totem, the conception of the state as “a living animal,” is an actual reality. Their pueblo moreover represents a 6+1=7, or a “seven in one,” the miniature counterpart of the far distant Ooraon village of Chota Nagpore and of the ancient archaic kingdoms of India, Persia, Babylonia, Egypt, Greece, Rome, etc. Anciently the Zuñis called themselves the Ashiwi, a name remarkably like that of the Ashvins, derived from the Akkadian ash=six. ”

“ This has resulted in some adherence on the part of the Tusayan to the village plans of their ancestors, while at Zuni the great house clusters, forming the largest pueblo occupied in modern times, show a wide departure from the primitive types. In both provinces the architecture is distinguished from that of other portions of the pueblo region by greater irregularity of plan and by less skillfully executed constructional details; each group, however, happens to contain a notable exception to this general carelessness. ”

“ Cushing, Mr. Cushing at Zuñi. of the Bureau of Ethnology, in the Zuñi pueblo, has already thrown a flood of light upon many points in American archæology. [89] As in the case of American aborigines generally, the social life of these people is closely connected with their architecture, and the pueblos which are still inhabited seem to furnish us with the key to the interpretation of those that we find deserted or in ruins, whether in Arizona or in Guatemala.
Pueblo Hungo Pavie. Chaco Cañon N. M.
In the architecture of the pueblos one typical form is reproduced with sundry variations in detail. ”

“ A careful study of these ruins, made during the last twenty years, abundantly demonstrates that the pueblo culture began with rude structures of stone and brush, and gradually developed, until at the time of the exploration of the country by the Spaniards, beginning about 1540, it had reached its highest phase. Zuni [in New Mexico] has been built since, and it is among the largest and best villages ever established within the territory of the United States without the aid of ideas derived from civilized men. ”

“ In this paper he maintains, with a large amount of linguistic evidence, that the Zuñi culture is mainly autochthonous, and that its growth, especially the growth of architectural, agricultural, ceramic, and other arts and industries pertaining to it, has been largely accomplished within the desert areas of America which still form the habitat of the Pueblo Indians, and probably, also, within a period more limited than has usually been supposed essential to such development. ”

“ As rich and as romantic a field as is the study of the Pueblo of Zuni for the ethnologist, the group of Moquian Pueblos are, in many particulars, even still more so. Their system of agriculture is exceedingly interesting, as are their peculiar notions of architecture, and all the habits of these remarkable people. ”

“ It is often the practice in the modern pueblos to seal up the windows of a house with masonry, and sometimes the doors also during the temporary absence of the occupant, which absence often takes place at the seasons of planting and harvesting. At such times many Zuñi families occupy outlying farming pueblos, such as Nutria and Pescado, and the 199 Tusayans, in a like manner, live in rude summer shelters close to their fields. Such absence from the home pueblo often lasts for a month or more at a time. ”

“ In the year 1880 Frank Hamilton Cushing, commissioned by the Bureau of Ethnology at Washington, went to the pueblo of Zuñi, in order, for{157} the first time in the annals of science, to subject a tribe of men who stood on a lower plane of civilization than ours to a thorough study by completely identifying himself temporarily with their condition. ”

“ Modern archeologists have discovered data about the Pueblo (Anasazi) Indians that were unknown to the Spaniards. For one thing, population in general was declining in the 16th century, but towns were growing because survivors were congregating in them, perhaps as a defense against raiding nomads. One major population center was the six, 67 not seven, pueblos of the area now known as the Zuñi reservation, then called Cíbola. ”

“ It is never carried from place to place as the teepee and wigwam are by other tribes.
Wig′ wam. A circular tent-like house made of birch bark or other bark by the New England tribes and others. It is easily rolled and carried from place to place.
Zuñi (Zoon′ ye) . A semi-civilized Pueblo tribe, perhaps the best known of any of the Village Indians of the United States. They have a governor and lieutenant-governor of their own; good laws, good farms, and are a remarkable people. Very few of them can understand English. ”

“ The cultural distinctions between the Pueblo Indians and neighboring tribes gradually become less clearly defined as investigation progresses. Mr. Cushing’s study of the Zuñi social, political, and religious systems has clearly established their essential identity in grade of culture with those of other tribes. In many of the arts, too, such as weaving, ceramics, etc., these people in no degree surpass many tribes who build ruder dwellings. ”

“ The ratio of rooms to inhabitants in the present pueblos would give a population for this village of about 450 persons. Zuñi, the largest inhabited pueblo, covering an area of about 5 acres, has a population of 1,600. ”

“ The builders of large valley pueblos must frequently have been forced to resort hastily to defensive sites on finding that the valley towns were unfitted to withstand attack. This seems to have been the case with the Tusayan; but that the Zuñi have adhered to their valley pueblo through great difficulties is clearly attested by the internal evidence of the architecture itself, even were other testimony altogether wanting. ”

“ The collections from this pueblo, though not embracing a great variety of objects, will illustrate nearly all the phases of the arts and industrial pursuits of these Indians.
Another section of Mr. Stevenson's party, under his own supervision and with the important assistance of Mrs. Stevenson, was employed in making collections and studies at Zuñi. The collection from there is much larger than any heretofore obtained and includes many objects relating to the outdoor ceremonies of the Zuñi. Specimens of these were secured from their sacred springs, caves, and shrines. ”

“ In the 19 pueblos named there are now estimated to be 8,400 people, the most populous being Zuñi, with some 1,500 souls, and the least, Pojuaque, numbering only some 30 or 40 persons. Were recognized as citizens under Mexican rule, but since the admission of New Mexico the matter has been left in doubt. In 1858, Government confirmed to them the old Spanish grants of the land the Pueblos cultivate, averaging about twelve square leagues to each pueblo. They retain their own form of government, each village electing a governor, and a council consisting of three old men. ”

“ The purer the present aboriginal culture, the greater worth will it have 306in our approximation to a true conception of the primitive pueblo culture. Many of the Pueblos practice a religious system which may be rightly called aboriginal, but in some it has been modified by outside influences. I think no one, for instance, would say that the present Zuñi custom of burial in a churchyard was not due in part to the influence of Catholic priests, for Spanish narratives of three and a half centuries ago are quite explicit in their statement that the Zuñi burned their dead. ”

“ A STUDY OF PUEBLO POTTERY AS ILLUSTRATIVE OF ZUÑI CULTURE-GROWTH. BY FRANK H. CUSHING. HABITATIONS AFFECTED BY ENVIRONMENT.
It is conceded that the peculiarities of a culture-status are due chiefly to the necessities encountered during its development. In this sense the Pueblo phase of life was, like the Egyptian, the product of a desert environment. Given that a tribe or stock of people is weak, they will be encroached upon by neighboring stronger tribes, and driven to new surroundings if not subdued. ”

“ Modern influences have reached the Zuñi, and mother-right seems to have begun its inevitable decay.” [63]
The Hopis, another Pueblo tribe, are more conservative, and with them the women own all the property except the horses and donkeys, which belong to the men. Among the Pueblos the women commonly have control over the granary, and they are very provident about the future. Ordinarily they try to have one year’s provisions on hand. It is only when two years of scarcity succeed each other that the community suffers hunger. Like the Zuñis, the Hopis are monogamists. ”

“ Zuñi, Fig. 23, is the largest occupied pueblo in New Mexico at the present time. It probably once contained five thousand inhabitants, but in 1851 the number was reduced to fifteen hundred The village consists of several structures, most of them accessible to each from their roof terraces. They are constructed of adobe brick, and of stone embedded in adobe mortar, and plastered over. ”

“ Everything, in fact, to be learned of the round-ruin people points quite unmistakably to their descent in a twofold sense from the cliff-dwelling people; and it remains necessary, therefore, only to account for their change of habitat and to set forth their supposed relationship finally to the modern Zuñi pueblos. ”

“ Industrious and self-sustaining, they are temperate and quiet; though receiving but little aid from the General Government, they are well to do, and particularly in the line of farming.
As evening drew near, we prepared to bid adieu to Zuni town and its inhabitants. On leaving, the governor, with his cacique and the prominent men of his tribe, followed us to the outskirts of the village, when, with uplifted hands, he gave us his benediction, imploring the God of the Zuni to give us safe return to our camp, and, at the close of the field season, to our homes and kindred in the distant East. ”

“ In addition to the above-mentioned uses of stone and earth in the masonry of house walls, the pueblo builders have employed both these materials in a more primitive manner in building the walls of corrals and gardens, and for other purposes. The small terraced gardens of Zuñi, located on the borders of the village on the southwest and southeast sides, close to the river bank, are each surrounded by walls 21⁄2 or 3 feet high, of very light construction, the average thickness not exceeding 6 or 8 inches. ”