October 11, 1997
The word "Pueblo" comes from the Spanish word for village. When the Spanish explorers saw them in the 16th century, they called their community houses pueblos. They lived in large dwellings, like apartment houses, made of stone and adobe (sun-dried clay). A whole village, or community, lived in one of these huge houses. Each family had only one room. Early ancestors of the Pueblo tribes set their buildings in caves high in canyon walls or on the ledges of cliffs and so they have been called Cliff Dwellers. Later the Pueblos built these houses in the valleys and on the mesas. Pueblo populations divided into clans: the Corn Clan, Turkey Clan, Turquoise Clan, and many others. These clans reflected what they honored. Two primary linguistic languages were spoken: Keresan or Tanoan, as well as English and Spanish.
The Pueblo Indians lived in the southwest of the United States. The land was high, dry, and cut by mountains and canyons. They had little rain, but it came mostly in summer when it could help plants grow. Snow fell on the mountains in winter and supplied water for streams, springs, and water holes. They learned to irrigate their fields and to find moist spots for dry farming. Their major crop was corn. Living together in villages, the Pueblo Indians improved their skills. One of the main advantages of living in a settled agricultural society is being able to develop skills that would be difficult to perfect in a nomadic existence. Nomads prefer to travel light, but this is not a consideration when a tribe is fixed in one location.
They made items for the household, clothing, and decorative objects. They also had to make the tools with which to create other objects. The women made beautiful, strong pottery, basketry, weaving with looms to make belts and other narrow pieces and a blanket loom for wide strips, jewelry, leather work, and other crafts.
The men did the work of tanning and making moccasins and other leather goods. They made the bows and arrows, stone knives, and tools. They drilled and polished turquoise and other stones to make beads. After the Mexicans taught them silver work, they created silver jewelry set with these stones.
The Pueblo Indians made their own cloths for special ceremonials. The woman´s dress was a long strip of dark cloth, wrapped across the body from left to right and fastened on the right shoulder. Her left shoulder and arm were bare. A colorful, fringed belt held the garment at the waist. Her high boots were made from soft, white buckskin. Her wedding robe, or shawl, of pure white cotton was woven by the men of her husbandıs family as a gift.
The man wore a breechcloth of white cotton cloth and a short woven kilt with a colorful border. In most pueblos, the high moccasins reached halfway up the calf of the leg. They had a hard sole turned up over the edge of the upper. The Pueblo Indians who lived near the plains wore ankle-height moccasins like those of Plains hunters.
At planting time relatives and neighbors came to watch and help each planter. They set up prayer sticks decorated with turkey or eagle feathers to bring rain. The planter used a tough, sharp digging stick, hardened by fire. It sometimes had a branch on one side to serve as a footrest. He drove the stick 18 or 20 inches into the ground. Then he dropped in 20 kernels of corn to be sure a few sprouted. The seeds sent their roots deep to seek out the moisture. The stalks grew in a bunch that would resist the hot desert winds. The farmer scraped off the tops of the weeds with a sword-shaped wooden hoe. Pueblo corn was grown in many kinds and colors (yellow, red, blue, white, purplish, and mixed). Summer rain was needed for growth of the corn. Many of the religious ceremonials, therefore, were prayers to the gods for rain. After a storm the water gushed down dry stream beds, tearing away the soil. The farmers made dams of brush to check and spread the water over the land. In some places they made ditches from stream to field. The girls and women spent three or four hours a day grinding it on the stone metates. To make the thin wafer bread, called piki, they spread a thin batter on an oiled stone set on stone props. A fire under the stone cooked the thin sheets quickly. Pueblo cooks also made dumplings, stews, and hominy dishes. A gruel of toasted meal, called pinole, was the chief beverage.
The men often held village hunts. If they were lucky, they brought in deer, antelope, or rabbit for stew. The Pueblo Indians were a very advanced cultural among others. Their technology was far superior than other tribes of their time and they were very skilled in many crafts and harvested many crops.