Southwest Tribes Cultural Area
The Southwest Culture Area is a culturally diverse area. Geographically it covers all of Arizona and New Mexico and includes parts of Colorado, Nevada, Utah, and Texas as well as parts of the Mexican states of Sonora and Chihuahua.
Much of this area is semi-arid; part of it is true desert (southern Arizona); and part of it has upland and mountain ranges which support conifers. Culturally, the area can be divided into four basic cultural traditions: Pueblo, Athabascan, Piman, and Yuman.
In northern Arizona and New Mexico there are several Indian tribes who have traditionally lived in compact villages. The Spanish used the word pueblo which means “town” in referring to these people. The Pueblo people are not a single cultural tradition, but are in fact several distinct cultures. They share some features – farming, housing – and are very different in others.
Around 1400 CE a new group of people began to enter the Southwest. These Athabascan-speaking people – the Navajo and the Apache – migrated from the area north of Edmonton, Alberta.
The Sonoran desert of Arizona and Sonora is the home of a number of Piman-speaking groups, primarily the Tohono O’odham (Papago) and Akimel O’odham (Pima.
The area along the Colorado and Gila Rivers was the traditional home to a number of Yuman-speaking tribes.
Pottery
The pottery traditions of the Southwestern Pueblos are well-known to museums, art collectors, and others. For many centuries, Pueblo people have made and used a wide variety of pottery containers, including bowls, jars, cups, ladles, and canteens. Pueblo pottery is traditionally formed with a coil technique in which coils of clay are circled around the base of the pot to form the walls of the vessel.Perhaps the best known Pueblo potter is María Martínez of San Ildelfonso Pueblo.
Basketry
All of the Indian nations in the Southwest produced basketry.
Carvings
During the past century, the carving of katsina “dolls” has become a major art form which is well-recognized in the art world. These are carved by relatives of little Indian girls and presented to these children at Katsina dances to teach the children the features and meaning of the Katsinas. Traditional carvers feel that those who carve the katsina “dolls” should be able to speak Hopi because knowledge of the language is required to truly participate in Hopi ceremonies. Without full participation in Hopi ceremonies, the carvers cannot know the true spiritual intent of the katsina.While the term “kachina” is more commonly used, the tribe prefers the designation “katsina.”
Southwest Tribes
Location: Arizona | Nevada | New Mexico | Parts of Utah and Colorado
Terrain: Arid Desert, Mountains, Plateaus
Acoma
Ak Chin, Arizona
Apachean
Chiricahua
Jicarilla
Mescalero
Navajo (Navaho, Diné) Arizona, New Mexico
Western Apache (Coyotero Apache), Arizona
Apaches, Arizona, New Mexico, Oklahoma
Aranama (aka Hanáma, Hanáme, Chaimamé, Charinames, Xaranames, Taranames)
Coahuiltecan, Texas, northern Mexico
Cochimi, Baja California
Cochiti
Cocopa, Arizona
Comecrudo, Texas, northern Mexico
Cotoname (aka Carrizo de Camargo)
Genízaro, Arizona, New Mexico
Halchidhoma
Hano
Hualapai
Havasupai, Arizona
Hohokam, Arizona
Hopi Arizona
Isleta
Isleta del Sur
Jemez
Jumano
Karankawa
Kavelchadhom
Keres
Laguna
Los Luceros
Mamulique, Texas, northern Mexico
Maricopa
Mohave
Nambe
Pecos
Picuris
Pima, Arizona
Pima Bajo
Piro
Pueblo People, New Mexico
Qahatika
Quechan, Arizona
Quems
Sandia (Nafiat was the name for the Bernalillo pueblo)
San Carlos Apache
San Felipe
San Idelfonso
San Juan
Santa Ana
Santa Clara
Santo Domingo
Solano
Suma
Taos
Tesuque
Tewa
Tigua
Tamique
Toboso
Tohono O’odham (Papago), Arizona
Ubate
Walapai
Yaqui
Yavapai, (Mojave-Apache) see Yavapai-Apache Nation, Yavapai-Prescott Tribe, Arizona (often confused with Tonto Apache and Mojave)
Yuma (Quechan)
Zia
Zuni
Southwest Tribes
Acoma
Ak Chin Arizona
Apache Arizona, New Mexico, Oklahoma
Chiricahua Apache
Cochimi Baja California
Cochiti
Cocopa Arizona
Halchidhoma
Hano
Hualapai
Havasupai Arizona
Hohokam Arizona
Hopi Arizona
Isleta
Isleta del Sur
Jemez
Jicarilla Apache
Jumano
Karankawa
Kavelchadhom
Keres
Laguna
Los Luceros
Maricopa
Mescalero Apache
Mohave
Nambe
Navaho Arizona, New Mexico
Opata
Pecos
Pericu Baja California
Picuris
Pima Arizona
Pima Bajo
Piro
Pueblo people New Mexico
Qahatika
Quechan Arizona
Sandia (Nafiat was the name for the Bernalillo pueblo)
San Carlos
San Felipe
San Idelfonso
San Juan
Santa Ana
Santa Clara
Santo Domingo
Seri
Suma
Taos
Tesuque
Tewa
Tigua
Toboso
Tohono O’odham (Papago) Arizona
Northern Tonto
Southern Tonto
Waicuri (Guaicura) Baja California
Walapai
Western Apache
White Mountain
Yavapai see Yavapai-Apache Nation, Yavapai-Prescott Tribe Arizona
Yuma (Quechan)
Zia
Zuni
Arctic
California
Northeast
Great Basin
Great Plains
NW Coast
Plateau
Southeast
Southwest
Sub Arctic
At the start of the Mexican-American War in 1846, many Apache bands promised U.S. soldiers safe passage through their land. When the U.S. claimed the former frontier territories of Mexico in 1848, Mangas Coloradas signed a peace treaty, respecting them as conquerors of the Mexicans’ land.
August 10, 2015, marked the 335th anniversary of the Pueblo Indian uprising, during which they expelled the Spanish usurpers and tormentors from New Mexico. Modern Pueblo Indians call August 10 Independence Day. While the Spaniards returned and re-subjugated the Puebloans 12 years later, they were able to re-establish and keep their religion and culture, which have endured to this day. No other Native American uprising as successful as the Pueblo Revolt happened before or after.
The Hualapai Tribe of northwestern Arizona is among many of the forgotten tribes. Most likely if at any event among non-Indians we will be asked if you are Navajo. Why? Well of course they have the largest reservation and are just everywhere, they are better known. It is sad to say that most of the population of the United States will not know who we are or where we come from.
The Southwest Indian Wars included the Navajo Wars, Yuma War, Mohave War, Apache wars, Black Hawk War (1865–1872) and Apache-Mexico Wars.
The 19 pueblo tribes never signed treaties, and with that came decades of a dual existence. On one hand, they didn’t fit the mold the government had established for native people. Still, they were Indian enough to be subjected to policies that called for them to trade in their native languages and send their children to boarding school.
For the first time, the pueblos have come together to offer their own historical perspective on the effects of 100 years of state and federal policy as part of an exhibit at the Indian Pueblo Cultural Center in Albuquerque.
Many of the historical names of Apache groups that were recorded by non-Apache are difficult to match to modern-day tribes or their subgroups. Over the centuries, many Spanish, French and/or English-speaking authors did not differentiate between Apache and other seminomadic non-Apache peoples who might pass through the same area. Most commonly, Europeans learned to identify the tribes by translating their exonym, what another group whom the Europeans encountered first called the Apachean peoples. Europeans often did not learn what the peoples called themselves, referred to as their autonyms.
While anthropologists agree on some traditional major subgrouping of Apaches, they have often used different criteria to name finer divisions, and these do not always match modern Apache groupings. Some scholars do not consider groups residing in what is now Mexico to be Apache. In addition, an Apache individual has different ways of identification with a group, such as a band or clan, as well as the larger tribe or language grouping, which can add to the difficulties in an outsider comprehending the distinctions.
Navajo Technical College faculty members Tom Davis and Mark Trebian are working on a major feat: providing Internet access to communities on the Navajo Nation, some of which don’t even have running water.
The great grandson of Geronimo says he wants to know whether Skull and Bones secret society at Yale University has the remains of the famous Apache chief and shaman. He’s filed a lawsuit to find out.
Mesa Verde National Park, in Colorado’s southwest corner, offers visitors a look at the life of the Ancestral Pueblo people. The park is home to 600 cliff dwellings, where Ancestral Puebloans lived for more than 700 years. Chaco’s main draw is Pueblo Bonito, one of the most extensively excavated and studied sites in North America. Center of the Chacoan world and occupied from the mid-800s to 1200s, it was a four-story masonry “great house” with more than 600 rooms and 40 kivas.
The ancient pueblo of Acoma is aptly nicknamed. Known as the Sky City, it commands the most exotic location of any inhabited place in the United States — the top of a 370-foot-high mesa in New Mexico, a natural citadel of golden rock, an island in the sky. It’s also amazingly well-disguised.
AUTHORS: Mark Shaffer and Betty Reid An accord has been reached between the Navajo and Hopi tribes to end a bitter 40-year struggle over Hopi religious sites on more than 700,000 acres of the western Navajo Reservation.
AUTHOR: George Hardeen Despite the expected loss of revenue from the closure of the 35-year-old Black Mesa Mine on Saturday, Navajo Nation President Joe Shirley Jr. is optimistic about millions of dollars of new revenue that could be available beginning in 2006 and beyond.
Hopi kachinas or katsinas.. KEYWORDS: hopi kachina hopi katsina kachinas hopi ceremonial dolls hopi spirit dolls hopi religious dolls kachina dance Hopi kachinas (or katsinas as the Hopi people call them) are supernatural beings who live among the evergreens of the San Francisco Peaks south of the Hopi Mesas, and at the Spring of the […]
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KEYWORDS: Hopi petroglyphs ancient Indian tribes Wind Mountain petroglyphs at Three Rivers Hopi tribes of New Mexico and Arizona ancient site of Casas Grandes in Mexico Joe Ben Sanders sacred Hopi lands archeology of New Mexico Jornada Mogollon Hopi Tularosa Basin Hopi oral traditions Bear Clan Coyote Clan Parrot Clan Kachina Clan clan clans three-rivers […]
The family of a deaf Laguna Pueblo woman was forced to hold two burial ceremonies for her because of a state oversight.
Alicia Waseta, 21, was dragged to death last September as she was crossing a street near the New Mexico School for the Deaf in Santa Fe, from where she had recently graduated.
Jeff Smith, along with his brother Clint, was captured by Indians on Sunday, March 3, 1869 by ten Lipan and 15 Comanches. Jeff was sold to an apache named Geronimo (also called Jerome by the Mexicans), a Bedonkohe Apache. His Apache name was Goyathlay, which means One Who Yawns. This article has permanently moved to […]
Source: As told by GERONIMO, Public Domain Document My grandfather, Maco, had been our chief. I never saw him, but my father often told me of the great size, strength, and sagacity of this old warrior. The Apache’s principal wars had been with the Mexicans. They had some wars with other tribes of Indians also, […]
Source: As told by Geronimo, Public Domain Document Apache celebrations To celebrate each noted event a feast and dance would be given. Perhaps only our own people, perhaps neighboring tribes, would be invited. These festivities usually lasted for about four days. By day we feasted, by night under the direction of some chief we danced. […]
Source: As Told By Geronimo, Public Domain Document The Apache Indians are divided into six sub tribes.To one of these, the Be-don-ko-he, I belong. Our tribe inhabited that region of mountainouscountry which lies west from the east line ofArizona, and south from the head waters of theGila River. This article has permanently moved to our […]
The Hualapai Tribe of northwestern Arizona is among many of the forgotten tribes. Most likely if at any event among non-indians you will be asked if you are Navajo. Why? Well of course they have the largest reservation and are just everywhere, they are better known. It is sad to say that most of the […]
AUTHOR:Jim Snyder The (Farmington) Daily Times BLOOMFIELD, N.M. — He’s in the winter of his life. Time is the only thing that marches now for Navajo Code Talker David W. Tsosie, 78, of Bloomfield. The Navajo Nation and the Marine Corps bypassed the Purple Heart-awarded World War II veteran for a Congressional Silver Medal for […]
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