Pueblo refers to the settlements and to the Native American tribes of the Pueblo peoples in the Southwestern United States, currently in New Mexico, Arizona, and Texas. The permanent communities, including some of the oldest continually occupied settlements in the United States, are called pueblos (lowercased).
Spanish explorers of northern New Spain used the term pueblo to refer to permanent Indigenous towns they found in the region, mainly in New Mexico and parts of Arizona, in the former province of Nuevo México. This term continued to be used to describe the communities housed in apartment structures built of stone, adobe, and other local material. [1] The structures were usually multi-storied buildings surrounding an open plaza, with rooms accessible only through ladders raised and lowered by the inhabitants, thus protecting them from break-ins and unwanted guests. Larger pueblos were occupied by hundreds to thousands of Puebloan people.
Several federally recognized tribes have traditionally resided in pueblos of such design. Later Pueblo Deco and modern Pueblo Revival architecture, which mixes elements of traditional Pueblo and Hispano design, has continued to be a popular architectural style in New Mexico.
The term is now part of the proper name of some historical sites, such as Pueblo of Acoma.
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The word pueblo is the Spanish word both for "town" or "village" and for "people". It comes from the Latin root word populus meaning "people". Spanish colonials applied the term to their own civic settlements, but to only those Native American settlements having fixed locations and permanent buildings. [2]
In the Rio Grande Valley of New Mexico, specifically in the region between Albuquerque, Santa Fe and Taos, the word "pueblo" defines a "distinct cultural group in the Southwestern United States" and their villages. The Holmes Museum of Anthropology defines this specific group as a "common culture with individual variances [that] connects them. [3]
Less-permanent native settlements (such as those found in California) were often referred to as rancherías, [4] however, the oldest area of Los Angeles was known as El Pueblo de Nuestra Señorala Reina de los Ángeles del Rio de Porciúncula or El Pueblo de Los Angeles for short. [5] [6]
On the central Spanish Meseta the unit of settlement was and is the pueblo; which is to say, the large nucleated village surrounded by its own fields, with no outlying farms, separated from its neighbors by some considerable distance, sometimes as much as ten miles [16 km] or so. The demands of agrarian routine and the need for defense, the simple desire for human society in the vast solitude of (rocky plains, or the desert), dictated that it should be so. Nowadays the pueblo might have a population running into thousands. Doubtless, they were much smaller in the early middle ages, but we should probably not be far wrong if we think of them as having had populations of some hundreds. [2]
Of the federally recognized Native American communities in the Southwest, those designated by the King of Spain as pueblo at the time Spain ceded territory to the United States, after the American Revolutionary War, are legally recognized as Pueblo by the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Some of the pueblos also came under the jurisdiction of the United States, in its view, by its treaty with Mexico, which had briefly gained rule over territory in the Southwest ceded by Spain after Mexican independence. There are 21 federally recognized Pueblos [7] that are home to Pueblo peoples. Their official federal names are as follows:
One unrecognized tribe, the Piro/Manso/Tiwa Indian Tribe of the Pueblo of San Juan Guadalupe is currently petitioning the US Department of the Interior for federal recognition. [9]
Each Pueblo is autonomous with its own governmental structure. Several organizations serve to unite the interests of difference Pueblos including the Albuquerque-based All Pueblo Council of Governors [10] who collectively negotiates for land and water rights and advocates for Pueblo interests with the state and federal government. The interests of Eight Northern Pueblos are served by the Eight Northern Indian Pueblos Council based in Ohkay Owingeh (formerly San Juan Pueblo). [10] Cochiti, Jemez, Sandia, Santa Ana, and Zia are served by the Five Sandoval Indian Pueblos, a nonprofit organization based in Rio Rancho. [10]
The Indian Pueblo Cultural Center, founded in 1976 in Albuquerque, educates the public about all Pueblos through art, dance, and educational experiences. [11] The center has a museum that presents Pueblo history and artifacts, and an interactive Pueblo House museum. An archive holds a collection of photographs, books, and tape recordings of oral histories. [12] It also has a café and a restaurant, [11] Indian Pueblo Kitchen, serving Indigenous cuisine. [13]
Pueblo | |
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Category | Federal Unit District IV [14] |
Created |
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Number | 19 in New Mexico [15] unknown amount in Arizona, Colorado, Utah or Mexico. 21 of them are federally recognized: 19 in New Mexico, 1 in Arizona, and 1 in Texas |
Government |
Pre-Columbian towns and villages in the Southwest, such as Acoma, were located in defensible positions, for example, on high steep mesas. Anthropologists and official documents often refer to ancient residents of the area as pueblo cultures. For example, the National Park Service states, "The Late Puebloan cultures built the large, integrated villages found by the Spaniards when they began to move into the area." [16] The people of some pueblos, such as Taos Pueblo, still inhabit centuries-old adobe pueblo buildings. [17]
Contemporary residents often maintain other homes outside the historic pueblos. [17] Adobe and light construction methods resembling adobe now dominate architecture at the many pueblos of the area, in nearby towns or cities, and in much of the American Southwest. [18]
In addition to contemporary pueblos, numerous ruins of archeological interest are located throughout the Southwest. Some are of relatively recent origin. Others are of prehistoric origin, such as the cliff dwellings and other habitations of the Ancestral Puebloans, who emerged as a people around the 12th century BCE and began to construct their pueblos about 750–900 CE. [19] [20]
Many pueblos participate in syncretism between Indigenous Pueblo religion and Roman Catholicism. The pueblos welcome outsiders to participate in feast days, in which the Pueblo communities hold seasonal ceremonial dances, and certain households volunteer to feed visitors meals. Photography is forbidden. [21] Visitors are advised to confirm events in advance with the Pueblos. [22]
Dances include the antelope, bow-and-arrow, Comanche, corn, basket, buffalo, deer, harvest, Matachines, and turtle dances. [21] [22]
The Puebloans, or Pueblo peoples, are Native Americans in the Southwestern United States who share common agricultural, material, and religious practices. Among the currently inhabited Pueblos, Taos, San Ildefonso, Acoma, Zuni, and Hopi are some of the most commonly known. Pueblo people speak languages from four different language families, and each Pueblo is further divided culturally by kinship systems and agricultural practices, although all cultivate varieties of corn (maize).
The Pueblo Revolt of 1680, also known as Popé's Rebellion or Po'pay's Rebellion, was an uprising of most of the indigenous Pueblo people against the Spanish colonizers in the province of Santa Fe de Nuevo México, larger than present-day New Mexico. Incidents of brutality and cruelty, coupled with persistent Spanish policies such as those that occurred in 1599 and resulted in The Ácoma Massacre, stoked animosity, gave rise to the eventual Revolt of 1680. The persecution and mistreatment of Pueblo people who adhered to traditional religious practices was the most despised of these. Scholars consider it the first Native American religious traditionalist revitalization movement. The Spaniards were resolved to abolish "pagan" forms of worship and replace them with Christianity. The Pueblo Revolt killed 400 Spaniards and drove the remaining 2,000 settlers out of the province. The Spaniards returned to New Mexico twelve years later.
Tanoan, also Kiowa–Tanoan or Tanoan–Kiowa, is a family of languages spoken by indigenous peoples in present-day New Mexico, Kansas, Oklahoma, and Texas.
The Tewa are a linguistic group of Pueblo Native Americans who speak the Tewa language and share the Pueblo culture. Their homelands are on or near the Rio Grande in New Mexico north of Santa Fe. They comprise the following communities:
Pueblo of Isleta is an unincorporated community and Tanoan pueblo in Bernalillo County, New Mexico, United States, originally established in the c. 14th century. The Southern Tiwa name of the pueblo is Shiewhibak (Shee-eh-whíb-bak) meaning "a knife laid on the ground to play whib", a traditional footrace. Its people are a federally recognized tribe.
The Eight Northern Pueblos of New Mexico are Taos, Picuris, Ohkay Owingeh, Santa Clara, San Ildefonso, Nambé, Pojoaque, and Tesuque.
Nambé Oweenge Pueblo is a federally recognized tribe of the Pueblo people in Santa Fe County, New Mexico. For statistical purposes, the United States Census Bureau has defined the community as a census-designated place (CDP).
The Albuquerque–Santa Fe–Los Alamos combined statistical area is made up of eight counties in north central New Mexico. The combined statistical area consists of the Albuquerque and Santa Fe metropolitan statistical areas, and the Las Vegas, Los Alamos, and Española micropolitan statistical areas. The 2013 delineations included the Grants micropolitan statistical area, but it was removed in the 2018 revisions. As of the 2020 census, the CSA had a population of 1,162,523. Roughly 56% of New Mexico's residents live in this area. Prior to the 2013 redefinitions, the CSA consisted only of the Santa Fe metropolitan statistical area and the Española micropolitan statistical area. The total land area of the Albuquerque–Santa Fe–Las Vegas combined statistical area in the 2013 definition is 26,421 sq mi (68,430 km2).
The following is an alphabetical list of articles related to the U.S. state of New Mexico.
The Pueblo linguistic area is a Sprachbund consisting of the languages spoken in and near North American Pueblo locations. There are also many shared cultural practices in this area. For example, these cultures share many ceremonial vocabulary terms meant for prayer or song.
The Poeh Museum is a museum in Pojoaque, New Mexico, U.S.A. The museum is located off U.S. Route 84. It is devoted to the arts and culture of the Puebloan peoples, especially the Tewas in the northern part of the state. It was founded by Pojoaque Pueblo in 1987, and is housed in the Poeh Center. The museum organizes changing exhibitions, and is a large repository of permanent artifacts and programs. The museum has run the Oral Histories Documentation, which is part of the museum's records, which involved participation of 38 Tewa elders providing stories about their lives; the information is available in both Tewa and English.
The Pueblo IV Period was the fourth period of ancient pueblo life in the American Southwest. At the end of prior Pueblo III Period, Ancestral Puebloans living in the Colorado and Utah regions abandoned their settlements and migrated south to the Pecos River and Rio Grande valleys. As a result, pueblos in those areas saw a significant increase in total population.
Northern Rio Grande National Heritage Area is a federally designated National Heritage Area in the U.S. state of New Mexico. The national heritage area includes a section of the upper Rio Grande Valley that has been inhabited by the Puebloan peoples since the early Pre-Columbian era.
The Keres people are one of the Pueblo peoples. They speak English, Keresan languages, and in one pueblo Keresan Sign Language.
The North Central Regional Transit District operates a network of several local and intercity bus routes in northern New Mexico, serving Santa Fe, Española, Taos, and many smaller communities along a network of 25 fixed routes and one demand-response route, one dial-a-ride and complementary Paratransit service in the Taos area. Routes operate Monday through Friday only, with the exceptions of the "Taos Express," which operates only on weekends, the Mountain Trail route to the Santa Fe National Forest and Ski Santa Fe, which operates daily, and seasonal daily service from the Town of Taos to Taos Ski Valley.
Mary Ellen Toya (1934–1990) was a Jemez Pueblo potter of the Water Clan. She was active ca. 1950–1990, and was known for creating some of the largest Storyteller figures.
The Indigenous peoples of the North American Southwest are those in the current states of Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico, Utah, and Nevada in the western United States, and the states of Sonora and Chihuahua in northern Mexico. An often quoted statement from Erik Reed (1666) defined the Greater Southwest culture area as extending north to south from Durango, Mexico to Durango, Colorado and east to west from Las Vegas, Nevada to Las Vegas, New Mexico. Other names sometimes used to define the region include "American Southwest", "Northern Mexico", "Chichimeca", and "Oasisamerica/Aridoamerica". This region has long been occupied by hunter-gatherers and agricultural people.
Pueblo pottery are ceramic objects made by the Indigenous Pueblo people and their antecedents, the Ancestral Puebloans and Mogollon cultures in the Southwestern United States and Northern Mexico. For centuries, pottery has been central to pueblo life as a feature of ceremonial and utilitarian usage. The clay is locally sourced, most frequently handmade, and fired traditionally in an earthen pit. These items take the form of storage jars, canteens, serving bowls, seed jars, and ladles. Some utility wares were undecorated except from simple corrugations or marks made with a stick or fingernail, however many examples for centuries were painted with abstract or representational motifs. Some pueblos made effigy vessels, fetishes or figurines. During modern times, pueblo pottery was produced specifically as an art form to serve an economic function. This role is not dissimilar to prehistoric times when pottery was traded throughout the Southwest, and in historic times after contact with the Spanish colonialists.
The All Pueblo Council of Governors is a non-profit Puebloan leadership organization and political entity. They represent the 20 modern Pueblos – 19 across New Mexico and one in Texas – on legislative, cultural and government issues. Some of the issues they fight for are the Pueblo Land Claims Act and the Indian Civil Rights Acts of 1968. They advocate for the sovereign rights of the Puebloan people and promote educational and economic advancement of the Pueblo nations. The council works to preserve the language, culture and traditions of the 20 pueblos.