Pueblo refers to the settlements and to theNative American tribes of thePueblo peoples in theSouthwestern United States, currently inNew Mexico,Arizona, andTexas. The permanent communities, including some of the oldest continually occupied settlements in the United States, are called pueblos (lowercased).
Spanish explorers of northernNew Spain used the termpueblo to refer to permanent Indigenous towns they found in the region, mainly inNew Mexico and parts ofArizona, in the former province ofNuevo 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 ofPuebloan people.
Severalfederally recognized tribes have traditionally resided in pueblos of such design. LaterPueblo Deco and modernPueblo Revival architecture, which mixes elements of traditional Pueblo andHispano design, has continued to be a popular architectural style inNew Mexico.
The term is now part of the proper name of some historical sites, such asPueblo of Acoma.
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The wordpueblo is the Spanish word both for "town" or "village" and for "people". It comes from the Latin root wordpopulus 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 theRio 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 asrancherías,[4] however, the oldest area ofLos Angeles was known asEl Pueblo de Nuestra Señorala Reina de los Ángeles del Rio de Porciúncula orEl Pueblo de Los Angeles for short.[5][6]
On the central SpanishMeseta the unit of settlement was and is thepueblo; which is to say, the largenucleated 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 earlymiddle 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 theKing of Spain as pueblo at the time Spainceded territory to the United States, after the American Revolutionary War, are legally recognized as Pueblo by theBureau of Indian Affairs. Some of the pueblos also came under the jurisdiction of the United States, in its view, by its treaty withMexico, 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 toPueblo peoples. Their official federal names are as follows:
Oneunrecognized tribe, thePiro/Manso/Tiwa Indian Tribe of the Pueblo of San Juan Guadalupe is currently petitioning the US Department of the Interior for federal recognition.[9]
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Each Pueblo is autonomous with its own governmental structure. Several organizations serve to unite the interests of difference Pueblos including the Albuquerque-basedAll 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 ofEight 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]
TheIndian 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, servingIndigenous cuisine.[13]
| Pueblo | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Category | Federal Unit District IV[14] |
| Created |
|
| 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 | |
_(Native_American)._Kachina_Doll_(Paiyatemu)%2c_late_19th_century.jpg)
Pre-Columbian towns and villages in the Southwest, such asAcoma, were located in defensible positions, for example, on high steepmesas.Anthropologists and official documents often refer to ancient residents of the area as pueblo cultures. For example, theNational 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 asTaos 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 theAmerican Southwest.[18]
In addition to contemporary pueblos, numerousruins ofarcheological interest are located throughout the Southwest. Some are of relatively recent origin. Others are of prehistoric origin, such as thecliff dwellings and otherhabitations of theAncestral 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 insyncretism 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]
