ZUNI

ZUNI. People in the Zuni region of western New Mexico organized into settled communities in pueblos between A.D. 950 and A.D. 1150. The Zuni or Ashiwi people speak a unique language called Zunian and trace their ancestry to both the Anasazis, who used to reside in the area, and the Mogollon people from the south, who joined the Zuni's ancestors between 1350 and 1540. They were hunters, farmers, and traders, connected to extensive trade routes. Their religion is enmeshed in their social order, where clans are crosscut by memberships in religious societies, a system that mutes rivalries and contributes to the consensus some anthropologists have seen as a distinctive feature of Zuni culture. Zuni religion centers on kachina gods and dances, a tradition found among many of the pueblos in the Southwest. The Spanish encountered the six villages of Zuni when an expedition seeking the legendary Seven Cities of Cíbola reached the pueblo in 1539. A military expedition returned in 1540, and Zunis came under nominal Spanish control. The Zunis took part in the Pueblo Revolt against the Spanish in 1680, but suffered less than other pueblos from the cruelties of the reconquest. The region became part of Mexico when it won independence from Spain in 1821, and then became part of the United States in 1848, following the Mexican War. In 1879, the Zunis were visited by the first of many anthropologists. At times in the decades that followed, Zunis engaged in confrontations with the U.S. government in defense of its sovereignty and tribal lands. It entered the consciousness of Americans through such works as Frank Hamilton Cushing's Century magazine series "My Adventures in Zuni" (1882–1883), Ruth Benedict's Patterns of Culture (1934), and Aldous Huxley's Brave New World (1934). With the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934, Zunis adopted government by an elected tribal council advised by religious leaders. The Zuni population expanded during the twentieth century, from fewer than 1,700 to more than 9,000. At the beginning of the twenty-first century, the pueblo was relatively prosperous, with an economy that rested in part on production of jewelry and distinctive Zuni fetishes, and in part on work for state and federal government agencies.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Ferguson, T. J., and E. Richard Hart. A Zuni Atlas. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1985.

Peynetsa, Andrew. Finding the Center: Narrative Poetry of the Zuni Indians. Translated by Dennis Tedlock. New York: Dial Press, 1972.

Roscoe, Will, The Zuni Man-Woman. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1991.

Eliza McFeely

See also Ancestral Pueblo (Anasazi); Tribes: Southwestern.