To Understand Zuni Religion We Need First to Understand Some of the Prehistory of the Southwest

Zuni Introduction

To understand Zuni religion we need first to understand some of the prehistory of the Southwest.

The important archaeological periods

I: 8,000 - 3000 BC: FLUCTUATING COOL-DRY, WARM-WET; HUNTING GATHERING GROUPS RANGING OVER SOUTHWEST AND BASIN-PLATEAU

II: 3,000 - 1000 BC: GREATER RAINFALL BEGINNING 3,000 BC. The area became occupied more intensively. There is the appearance of contracting stem points with strong similarities to TehucanValley in Mexico. This may represent the movement of people from the Mexican highlands where the climate was getting worse, to the Southwest where conditions were better.

III: 1,000 BC TO 500 AD: Climate changes as the area becomes drier beginning 1000 BC. It is during this protracted dry period that the cultivation of corn takes hold.

Corn: there was a transition from Chapalote to Maiz De Orocho which was adapted to drier conditions with large flowery kernals, easily milled, around 1200 BC that made possible the wide spread use of corn in the Southwest.

ANASAZI PERIODS

2000 - 1000 BC: COCHISE: ARCHAIC

Hunting – gathering, atlatl, camps along streams, dry rock shelters, woven material from wild fibers, stone slab matates for grinding corn. No permanent buildings, storage pits for corn.

Corn introduced 1200 BC.

BASKETMAKER I

1000 BC – 500 AD:

Basketmaker II

AD 500 – 700 AD : Pottery, early villages, pit houses, oval 16.4 ft across, 1.6 ft below ground, less work to heat and cooler in the summer. By AD 300 string of twons from Central Highlands of Mexico to New Mexico. Bison on Northern range hunting increases, citadel town maintain supply of turquoise, shells from Los Angeles area, copper bells from Mexico as well as obsidian and chert.

SIZES OF COMMUNITIES

Sizes of communities: before 1100 AD average 3 rooms, after 1100 average 10 rooms, more than half for storage.

10 – 15 people at each site.

1050 – 1300 AD RISE OF PUEBLO SOCIETY

Pit houses used throughout most of the Southwest until 700 AD. Then there was a change to multiroom buildings constructed of adobe clay or masonry and poles. People move out of pit houses to above ground pueblos, turned pit houses into Kivas.

CHACO: 900 - 1150

Roads, water control, 25,000 square miles, large well planned towns, trade, turquoise, copper bells, macaws, shells from the pacific.

Basis: regional integration. Why?

Climate: tree rings climate variable, unpredictable summer rain.

Early Penasco blanco, Pueblo Bonito, Una Vida, large multi-storied, at major drainages. Maybe a lot of rooms for food storage, combination of corn, wild grains, even game meat stored for later redistribution.

Also: in the canyon a dominate role in processing of turquoise.

Even at small sites: turquoise processing workshops, also human effigy vessels, pottery incense effigies, inlaid design work of turquoise on shell, in wood.

By 1050 Chaco canyon period: built many elaborate buildings. Population range: 2,000 to 10,000, Best estimate 5600 based on arable land around the canyon. Some favor a lower estimate arguing that great houses for visitors and that the permanent population was low.

Chaco great houses: average 216 rooms, up to four stories, nine larger settlements, all had great kiva.

Outlying settlements connected by roads, line of sight.

Tree rings: From 1050 80 years of good rainfall.

Peak between 1100 and 1130, then a collapse. A drought cycle begins lasting 50 years.

Collapse: people moved away from large sites to smaller sites.

Then Mesa Verde: 1050 – 1280. the Mesa Verde area begins to grow around 1050 leading eventually to the construction of Mesa Verde, cliff house, etc…. and then abandonment by 1280.

Zuni Pueblo

Initial settlement 400 AD. Agriculturalists living in pit houses.

1000 AD began constructing larger oriented around Chacoan style great houses and great circular kivas. The occupation spans were relatively brief. Many new villages over a wide area.

Lots of smaller settlements over a wider area led to a reduction in available sustaining areas, areas where non agricultural items were gathered.

Mid 1200s: major shift leading to fewer larger settlements, plaza oriented, more intensive agric. Was possible, in essence river drainages. Zuni river drainage 37 villages built like this from 1250 AD to 1540, with estimated 10,000 rooms. But even these were occupied for brief periods, 20 – 30 years, such that 8 – 12 large pueblo villages occupied at any one time.

Possible reasons: social organization problems, climatic fluctuations, or increase in warfare.

1450 AD series of communities established in lower ZuniRiver valley .

The Spanish showed up in 1540. Initial impact was diseases. The Zuni population declined from an estimated 8,000 to as low as 1200 from 1540 to 1650. This reduction in population led to a reorganization of Zuni society and land use. The Spanish also introduced sheep, horses, burros and cattle as well as wheat and peaches.

In 1692 there was a truce with the Spanish which resulted in the whole Zuni tribe resettling at what is not the Zuni pueblo, Halona:wa.

The adoption of sheep led to the use of outlying land for grazing and seasonal use of sheep camps.

Today some of these are still occupied seasonally, but almost all Zuni live in Zuni pueblo.