Native Americans of the Southwest Cultural Area are generally divided between the Puebloan peoples and the Na-Dene (Athapaskan) speaking Navajo and Apache.

Following a route that took them from the Northwest Territories of Canada south along the eastern slopes of the Rocky mountains, the Na-Dene speaking Apache and Navajo Indians began their arrival in the southwest about 1100 AD.  By the fifteenth century, Na-Dene speaking peoples occupied large areas of the southwest, interacting in various ways with Puebloan groups who were already there.

The post Paleo-Indian (beginning 8000 BP) origins of these groups also generally fall within two different timelines, though their cultures and self histories share many similarities that, among other things, reflect cultural adaptations to the environment of the southwestern region of the United States.

Pre-history of the Puebloan cultures (Chichimecs):

Agriculture and the use of ceramics entered the southwest cultures from México about 2500 BP during the Late Archaic period.  Throughout their histories, the Puebloan cultures have been linked linguistically and environmentally with the Chichimecs of northern México and much of what has become the United States.

The early post-Archaic civilizations of the American southwest are divided between four distinct cultural groups that traded between themselves and regions far outside their regions.  There was considerable cultural and territorial overlapping between these different societies resulting in the development of numerous subgroups that at later periods became differentiated from the parent groups.  Moreover, these Native American groups followed common developmental patterns and trends that indicate periods of growth and complexities that waned by the sixth century and expanded once again soon afterward.

Between 1100 AD and 1250AD (probably coinciding with the influx of Na-Dene peoples) the various groups went into a period of decline once again, and for those groups that didn’t disappear, they enjoyed a cultural resurgence after 1350 AD until their encounters with Spanish Conquistadors.  The centuries spanning from 1250 to 1450 was one in which the modern non-Athapaskan peoples (Ácoma, Hopi, Pima, Taos, Zuñi, etc.) emerged.

Heavily influenced by the Native Americans of México (architecture and katsinám as extensions of Mesoamerican Tlaloc cult for examples), the ancestral groups of these modern peoples and their respective territories include the following:

1. Anasazi (ancestors of the Puebloan peoples, including those residing along the upper Rio Grande (Eastern Anasazi) and at Hopi (Western Anasazi)).
Anasazi/ Pueblo Time Sequences are as follow:

A. Basketmaker I: prior to 100 BC.

B. Basketmaker II: 100 BC – 400 AD.

C. Basketmaker III: 400 AD – 700 AD.

D. Pueblo I: 700 AD – 900 AD.

E. Pueblo II: 900 AD – 1100 AD.

F. Pueblo III: 1100 AD – 1300 AD.

G. Pueblo IV: 1300 to Spanish contact (1540).

H. Pueblo V: modern Pueblo peoples.

a. Range:

– West – Las Vegas, Nevada (Anasazi turquoise miners traveled as far as the Mojave Desert in California).

– North – Green River, Utah

– East – Cimarron, New Mexico (Anasazi buffalo hunters ranged east through the Colorado and western Kansas prairie lands.

– South – Socorro, New Mexico vicinity along the Rio Grande (Anasazi traders followed trade routes for the exchange of goods with ancient México – copper bells, live parrots, and rubber balls from México and Central America have been found at Anasazi sites).

b. Subgroups:

– Chaco
– Kayenta
– Little Colorado
– Mesa Verde
– Rio Grande
– Virgin River

c. Ball courts were used.

d. Subsistence:

– Domesticated foods:

- Hunting and gathering dominated subsistence patterns from about 12,000 BP until 2000 BP.  Agriculture dominated Anasazi food procurement after 800 AD.

- Around 1200 AD dams, garden terraces, irrigation ditches, field borders and grids emerged as parts of agricultural production among the Anasazi.

- Corn (maize): by 3000 BP domestic corn reached the Anasazi from México.  By 700 AD they grew many different local varieties of corn.

- Beans

- Squash

- Cotton

- Turkeys

– Wild foods:

- flora:

- bulbs (mariposa Lilly), seeds, acorns, walnuts, tunas, nopales, piñones, berries, sunflowers, etc.

- fauna: antelope, birds, bison, deer, elk, sheep, small mammals, fish.

e. Houses:

Early Basketmakers constructed pit houses.

Late Basketmaker and Pueblo I dwellings became clustered in communities that appeared to be like apartment complexes with hundreds of rooms; some of these were placed under overhanging cliff faces (“Cliff Dwellers”) between 1100 and 1275 for protection.

The only subterranean and semi-subterranean structures were male-oriented ceremonial (and utilitarian) kivas and great kivas.

f. Ceramics first appeared among the Anasazi about during the Basketmaker III period.

2. Hohokam (ancestors of the Pima/ Papago (Tohono O’odham), Yavapai, and other peoples) who migrated from northern México into the Southwest.

a. Range – Sonoran Desert:

– West – Salt River region west of present-day Phoenix, Arizona.

– North – Verde River Valley west of present-day Flagstaff, Arizona.

– East – Lower Gila River drainage to the present-day border between Arizona and New Mexico.

– South – present-day Tombstone, Arizona, south of the modern city of Tucson.

b. Subgroups (likely to have been separate and distinct cultures):

– Sinagua (west and south of present-day Williams, Arizona); these people dry-farmed the rich volcanic soil of the region.

– O’otam – these relatives of the Hohokam and Pima ranged from the Salt River, Arizona to the Rio Yaqui, Sonora.

c. Ceramics first appeared among the Hohokam between 500 and 300 BC.

d. Ball courts were used.

e. Houses were primarily wattle-and-daub and thatched structures, but multi-storied stone and mud (and caliche) apartment-like structures were also used during the Classic period.

f. Hohokam Time Sequences (named by 1930s archaeologists):

i. Pioneer – 500 BC to 550 AD

ii. Colonial – 550 AD to 900 AD

iii. Sedentary – 900 AD to 1100 AD

iv. Classic – 1100 AD to 1450 AD

3. Mogollon (probably related to the modern-day (non-Athapaskan) and Puebloan peoples of the middle Rio Grande area).  The Mogollon culture made the greatest contributions to the modern (post-fourteenth-century) Pueblo Indians.

g. Range:

– Mogollon Rim south through Silver City and Las Cruces at the lower Rio Grande of New Mexico into the present-day Mexican State of Chihuahua.

h. Subgroups:

– Mimbres

– Salado (Salt River Valley northeast of Tonto National Monument).  The Salado Horizon spanned the years 1300 – 1500 AD.

i. Subsistence:

– Domesticated foods:

- Corn (maize): by 3000 BP domestic corn reached the Mogollon people from México.  By 700 AD they grew many different local varieties of corn.

- Beans

- Squash

- Cotton

- Turkeys

– Wild foods:

- flora:

- bulbs (mariposa lily), seeds, acorns, walnuts, tunas, nopales, piñones, berries, sunflowers, etc.

- forty different genera of plants were used for food, medicines, and making clothing.

- fauna: antelope, birds, bison, deer, elk, sheep, small mammals, fish.

j. Houses:

– Mesa and ridge-top pit houses arranged so that the doors opened to the east and southeast were used from the earliest period (pit houses used for their insulative qualities apparently spread from northwestern Europe about 25,000 BP across northern Asia and into America).

– Pit houses changed over time to assume bean-shapes, D-shapes and rectangular shapes by 700–900 AD, later to evolve into above-ground rectangular buildings.

After 900 AD clusters of dwellings became constructed such that took on the appearance of apartment complexes with as many as 500 rooms; some of these were placed under overhanging cliff faces for protection.

The only subterranean and semi-subterranean structures were male-oriented ceremonial (and utilitarian) kivas.

k. Ceramics first appeared among the Mogollon about 300 AD.

l. The Mogollon assumed mostly Anasazi characteristics after 1250 AD such that there was little to distinguish between these two groups.

4. Hakatayan (also referred to as Patayan they were probably related to modern-day tribes of the lower Colorado River Valley and the Cohonino Plateau, and desert California and southern coastal tribes from present-day San Diego south to El Rosario, Baja California Norte).

a. Range:

– Lower Colorado from the Sea of Cortéz to present-day Lake Meade, including the desert regions west of the present-day Phoenix region and into California as described above.

b. Subgroups:

– Cohonina on the Cohonino Plateau northwest of the San Francisco Peaks and south of the Grand Canyon.

– Sinagua (west of Flagstaff, Arizona).

c. Ceramics and ball courts were used

d. Houses (circular and rectangular) were generally made of thatching which were often supported with stones at the base.  Stone pueblos were constructed Cohonina after 1050 AD.

The modern southwestern tribes were in their present places by 1450.  Despite the fact that they share similar material cultures and modes of material cultural expression, there is much linguistic variation between these groups. 

The languages spoken in the southwest include members of the following seven language families (emphasis and details are given the Puebloan groups in the following list):

1. Keresan (probably originating in the Great Basin region in ancient times).  There are seven varieties (named after their respective pueblos):

a. Ácoma
b. Cochití
c. Laguna
d. San Felipe
e. Santa Ana
f. Santo Domingo
g. Zía

2. Kiowa-Tanoan (originating in the Great Plains).  There is some evidence that indicates a very ancient connection between this family and Uto-Aztecan.  Examples:

a. Northern Tanoan (Tiwa):

- Taos
- Picuris

b. Southern Tanoan:

- Sandía
- Isleta

c. Piro (extinct)

d. Tewa:

- Arizona Tewa (at First Mesa, Hopi – though Hopi are not Tewa speakers)
- Rio Grande dialects: Nambe, Pojoaque, Santa Clara, San Juan, San Ildefonso, Tesuque.

e. Tiwa:

f. Towa:

- Jemez
- Pecos (extinct)

3. Seri

4. Southern Athapaskan (Na-Dene – related to languages including Haida and Tlingit)

5. Uto-Aztecan (this great language family has three subgroups):

a. Shoshonean

- Plateau
- Southern Californian (Coahuilla, Luiseño, Tataviam, Tongva, etc.,)
- Tubatalabal
- Hopi

m. Sonoran

- Cora-Huichol
- Piman
- Taracahitan (Mayo, Tarahumara, Yaqui, etc.)

n. Nahuatl

6. Yuman

7. Zuñi (related to Penutian, a Native American language family common throughout the California Central Valley region and elsewhere)

The first European contact with Southwest Indians consisted of four survivors of an ill-fated invasion of Florida under the direction of Panfilo de Narváez (1470–1528) in April 1528.  In their attempt to reach the safety of New Spain (México) later that year, these four men, Alvar Nuñez Cabeza de Vaca (1490-1557), a veteran of Spain’s wars in Europe, Alonso del Castillo Maldonado, Andrés Dorantes, and Estavanico found themselves shipwrecked on Mustang Island off the coast of present-day Corpus Christi, Texas.

After being discovered by Native Americans who took them in and healed them, they became captives of these Indians who made them slaves.  They eventually escaped their captors and fled from the coast into the interior, gaining great fame among the Indians as being healers (using Indian methods and chanting Catholic prayers).
Alternately becoming enslaved and escaping, or being released due to their great reputation as medicine men, they traveled far and wide (in the company of hoards of Indians), through present day New Mexico (he was the first European to visit the Pueblo Indians).  While in the area of present-day El Paso, Texas, these four men learned of the presence of rich agricultural settlements in the Upper Rio Grande region, so they veered from their southward course with the hope of gathering information that would lead to a rich conquest.

After touring through the New Mexico Pueblos, the party with their entourage in tow reached northern Arizona (and possibly southeastern California), before following a southward route of travel in 1536 that took them into southern Arizona.   Accompanied by over 600 Pima (Tohono O’odham) Indians the four foreigners reached present-day Tucson, and after meeting up with the Spanish slave hunter Nuñez de Guzman (who illegally traded in slaves – the practice was officially forbidden by the Spanish crown), the four castaways finally reached Culiacan (in present day Sinaloa) that same year.

In pursuit of the mythical “Seven Cities of Cibolá,” Estavanico later returned (1539) to the New Mexico Pueblo of Zuñi with Fray Marcos de Niza and Chichimeca Indian servants.  Estavanico boldly entered the Zuñi pueblo Hawikuh in advance of the party, whereby he was promptly slain by the Indians there for his intrusion.  Still in pursuit of these mythical gold cities, Francisco Vasquez de Coronado (1510–1554) entered the Southwestern Indian cultural area in 1540, with 300 men (plus six Franciscan priests), 1,000 horses (another estimate was 552) and 600 other pack animals.

It is from this expedition that horses first entered the western plains of North America for the first time in over 10,000 years (other entries into North America – de Soto in 1539 for example – brought 220 horses into the southeastern part of what has become the United States).  The de Soto expedition lost twelve horses.  Coronado lost about the same number as well as six that were deliberately loosed at the end of the expedition.  The union of these two small populations resulted in the first wild mustang of North America.

Having departed New Spain in late February 1540, the Coronado Expedition reached Hawikuh in early July of that year.  Despite the efforts of the Zuñi to defend their city from an unwanted intrusion, Coronado’s cavalry, infantry, and artillery made a successful assault on the city, capturing it on July 7, 1540.

To their deep disappointment, the Spaniards found no gold.  Receiving new information about additional cities, Coronado immediately dispatched a reconnaissance party under the direction of Pedro de Tovar to Hopi in northern Arizona.  Again, no gold, silver, or other treasures were found.  Having received information from “Chief Bigotes” (“mustached”) about supposed gold cities to the northeast, Coronado proceeded through the Rio Grande pueblos, where they spend a cold winter (1540–41).

Generally, the Pueblo peoples first greeted the foreign visitors to their lands with gifts of food and crafts items.  Nevertheless, when Europeans violated indigenous traditions of gift giving that required a circuit of reciprocal exchange, or when the made other insults to the Indians or molested them in some way, violence often resulted.

When Spanish soldiers raped several Tiwa Indian women, war broke out that went in the favor of Coronado’s forces.  To punish the Indians, the Spaniards waged a terrorist campaign and attacked the Indian towns of Arenal and Moho.  All the residents who survived the assaults were burned at the stake.   The fear-stricken Tiwa were thus forced to abandon their towns for other pueblos, leaving their own territory abandoned.

Having been directed by Pueblo Indians far onto the plains of western Kansas by the summer of 1541, Coronado abandoned his expedition after realizing that the gold kingdom of “Quivira” was not to be found, and return to New Spain to face charges for bringing about an unnecessary war against the Tiwa (the charges were dropped).  Two Franciscan priests who remained in New Mexico to convert the Puebloan people were executed by the Indians soon after the Spaniards’ departure from the Rio Grande Valley.

Conquest and Colonization of the Puebloan cultures:

The next contacts between the Pueblo Indians took place about forty years after Coronado when a small group of three Franciscan missionaries and nine Spanish soldiers under the command of Francisco Sánchez Chamuscado established a trail (following Indian routes) into the Rio Grande Valley from Chihuahua.  One of the friars was killed by Tano Indians in the general area of Coronado’s winter encampment, and after Chamuscado returned to New Spain the other two friars were slain by Tiwa Indians.

Antonio de Espejo was sent into New Mexico in 1582 to search of these two missionaries and upon learning of their deaths, he and his party decided to prospect for gold and other mineral ores in northern Arizona near Hopi. Meanwhile in 1590–91 Gaspar Castaño de Sosa entered the Pueblo area from the Pecos Valley where he beat the Keresan-speaking Indians at Santo Domingo into submission when they resisted his first attempt to establish a settlement there.  Castaño did not have a license from the crown for his venture, however, and his subsequent arrest and trial by Spanish authorities ended his hopes for establishing a colony.

Thus ended the hopes for the conquest of the New Mexico that had become a province of New Spain.  By 1600 conquest was outlawed, paving the way for colonization.  But the patterns of violent exchange that resulted in the forcible submission of the Pueblo Indians to Spanish demands formed a pattern that lasted through much of the colonial period in New Mexico.  Early in 1598 the wealthy criollo Juán de Oñate led an expedition of 400 colonists to establish a permanent community in New Mexico.

With license from the Viceroyalty, he founded his headquarters at San Juan, and formalized the province of New Mexico as a Franciscan mission.  Acting as the province’s first governor, Oñate assigned priests to each Indian pueblo.  In 1601 Oñate led an expedition to find Quivira which wound up near Wichita, Kansas (with the Wichita Indians whose primary village Coronado had earlier named “Quivira”).

In an effort to put aside the criticisms of discontented Spanish colonists, Oñate led another expedition in 1605 that, like the exploration of the southern plains, sought precious metals.  This second venture ended up at the mouth of the Colorado River at the Sea of Cortéz.  When expected riches went unfound, the discontented Spaniards demanded food and blankets as a form of tribute from the Indians.  Reports of abuses suffered by Indians spread among the pueblos resulting in sporadic rebellions that were generally short-lived and unsuccessful for the Native Americans.

One of the more significant actions against the Spanish in an effort to right the ill treatment of the Indians and gain indigenous autonomy came from Ácoma and two smaller pueblos under the leadership of Zutucapan of Ácoma.  Oñate’s men eventually subdued the Indians, but not before 15 Spanish soldiers (including Oñate’s nephew) were killed.  Ácoma’s punishment was the destruction of the city and the enslavement of over 500 of its residents, many of whom had one foot cut off.  Several years later, most of the Ácoma people escaped to return and rebuild their mesa-top city.  In 1607 the discontented Spanish colonists removed Oñate from his office as governor of New Mexico.  His replacement, Pedro de Peralta, who arrived in 1609, founded the new capital of the province at Santa Fé.

From 1609 until 1680, the Pueblo lived as virtual slaves to their Spanish overlords, who justified their actions with Biblical arguments while attempting to convert them to Christianity.  Such religious conversion, as part of an overall cultural conversion and colonization did not take place quickly.  When it did occur, it usually involved a blending of Indian and non-Indian themes, often as a way of passive resistance.  Nevertheless, cultural changes did take place among the peoples of the Pueblo cultural area.

For the Indians of the Upper Rio Grande area, post-conquest cultural changes can be seen in the interpretation of the European Jesus among the indigenous Pueblo people there.  For them Christ became the “new warlord, Christ, before whom even mighty kings humbled themselves and offered gifts.”  For the Pueblo Indians of the New Mexico province of New Spain there were great similarities between the European Jesus and the indigenous war gods.

For example, among the Pueblo cultures of the “Four Corners” region of the American Southwest, the twin war gods were born of a virgin (who became pregnant after eating two piñones – pine nuts).  These twin war gods were mischievous, and they possessed great natural power in the form of lighting and thunder.  Their father was “Father Sun.”  They were (and still are) personified by comets or the Morning Star (the Morning Star and Jesus are synonymous among many North American Indian groups today).

Jesus too, was born of a virgin, and his father was God (synonymous with “Father Sun”).  The Native Americans of the Southwest as well as much of Gran Chichimeca recognized that Jesus’ “warriors possessed lightning (gunpowder) and monsters (horses) ready to kill those who did not submit to Christ as their new lord.”  Santo Domingo and Jemez Pueblos still perform their war dances on Christmas day.

Christmas coincided with the Winter Solstice, a “male” time of the year, with many characteristics that appear contrary to everyday, predictable qualities in the world, including war symbolism.  Similarly, the Crucifixion resembled the Indian idea of sacrifice.  Moreover, Indians recognized the cross as being a part of their own mythologies.  The Native American interpretation of the crucifixion places the crucified Jesus on a column (axis mundi – “trail to the sky”), “just as a native war chief would have been offered in real or symbolic sacrifice in order to prove his majesty over the cosmic forces of the sky. . .”

This fusion of indigenous and Christian attributes and symbols reflects the blending of cultures that are obvious in a nineteenth-century “penitential song (which also reflects the blending of heaven and earth, male and female motifs):

     “Upon a column bound, Thou’lt find the King of Heaven, Wounded and
     red with  blood, And dragged along the ground.”

Nevertheless, the blending of Indian and non-Indian spiritual motifs did not happen easily.

Traditional medicine people often resisted the influx of new symbols and the power associated with these new images.  Historian Ramón Gutiérrez notes the rivalries that emerged between Catholic friars and traditional medicine people of the southwest Pueblos:  “The liturgy of Christ’s crucifixion became an intense rhetorical contest” between the Spanish priests and Native American medicine people in ways allowable through the relative tolerance of Catholic missionaries, as compared with Puritans and other Protestant sects in the British colonies.

In order to dramatize their (Christian) point of view, “Franciscan . . . [priests] proselytized like “madmen . . . ,” flogged their bodies to a crimson pulp, and dragged enormous crosses through the streets” to demonstrate their “immense sanctity and superior magical powers.”

For example, in 1630 the rivalry of Fray Alonzo de Benavides and the New Mexican Pueblo medicine man Chililí boiled over at a Good Friday ritual.  Chililí “jeered at the friar saying:

“You Christians are crazy; you desire and pretend that this pueblo shall also be crazy.”

In contrast the Spanish priests openly assumed such chieftain-like roles in their public displays, thereby disrespecting traditional societal roles and the status associated with such things.  Adding further aggravation to Native leaders the priests encouraged all willing Christian Indians to do likewise.  By engaging in and allowing for the general public’s participation in such activities, the padres directly threatened the authority of indigenous leaders: Most of all, the “crucifixion and the penitential flagellation . . .[and] bloodletting . . .[was] interpreted” by both the Indians and the Spaniards “as a rite of political authority.”  To that end, in 1660, Fray Salvador de Guerra, in his efforts to halt the performance of a katsina dance, stripped himself naked, whipped himself with a rope, donned a crown of thorns, and “crisscrossed the pueblo carrying an enormous cross.”  The penitent Indians ceased their activities, for fear that Spanish soldiers would soon arrive to punish them.  Native American spiritual practices were most often forced underground.  Practiced in secret, they could be perpetuated and preserved, at least for awhile.

Popé and the Pueblo Revolt of 1680:

Initiated on August 10, 1680, the Pueblo Revolt focused the pent-up hatred felt by the Pueblo Indians towards the Spaniards for decades of oppression and human rights abuses.  In this rebellion they successfully evicted New Mexico’s Spaniards from the province.  At Santa Fé the population consisted of 2,500 Spaniards and 25,000 Indians.  The leader of the rebellion in New Mexico was a chief and medicine man by the name of Popé who insisted on practicing his native spiritual beliefs and rituals and publicly asserting the need for Native American independence Spanish totalitarianism.

Because of Popé’s resistance, he tried and convicted for practicing witchcraft, whereby he was publicly flogged as punishment under direction of Governor Treviño in 1675.  Acting as a shrewd and effective diplomat, Popé carefully planned his rebellion in secret meetings of Pueblo warrior societies in their kivas.  Through these meetings, Popé successfully established brought about coordinated resistance effort through an alliance involving most of the Pueblo towns in the Rio Grande Valley as well as at Hopi.  In the planning stages of the rebellion, Popé shrewdly ferreted out Indian traitors who were then killed or used to convey incorrect information to Spanish colonial authorities.

Despite his forced appearance before Spanish tribunals that attempted to gather intelligence regarding a rumored uprising, Popé was able to bring about one of the most successful Native American revolts in history.  In the first round of the rebellion, 21 Franciscan missionaries and about 400 Spanish colonists were killed.  Pecos, Tano, and Tewa warriors laid siege on the city of Santa Fé that lasted for nine days before it fell.  The entire Spanish population fled the province of New Mexico, south of El Paso, where they remained for twelve years.  They left thousands of domestic animals behind, and this is most likely when the horse entered North America in great numbers.  Regarding the Pueblo Revolt of 1680, anthropologist Mark Simmons has noted:

“From a historical view, the Revolt delivered a severe blow to the prestige of the Spanish empire and stands as the most spectacular victory achieved by Indian arms within the present limits of the United States.”

Popé as leader of this effort, became a despotic ruler himself in the effort to prohibit the use of the Spanish language and worship in the Spanish churches, which by that time were destroyed.  In 1692, two years after the death of Popé and amidst increased Pueblo factionalism and attacks by Apaches (due to the absence of the Spanish military presence), the Spanish Reconquísta of New Mexico began that within a few years caused dramatic disruption and displacement.