Native American culture of the Southwest

Geographic and temporal setting: the Pueblo desert

The Southwest region expanded through Arizona and New Mexico and into Colorado, Texas, Utah, and Mexico, and was the home to a large variety of indigenous groups and cultural practices. We collectively call a several groups, the Pueblo people. The Spanish gave these tribes the name (meaning “town” or “village”) because they lived in towns or villages of permanent stone-and-mud buildings with thatched roofs. The three main groups of the Pueblo were the Mogollon, Hohokam, and Anasazi

Anasazis, who are also referred to as Ancestral Pueblos lived in the Four Corners region; the Mogollon lived mostly in southwestern New Mexico; the Hohokam dominated the desert of southern Arizona

These groups have been estimated to reign over the region from approximately 200-1500 CE, and either dissolved or evolved into the Pueblos, whom the Spanish encountered and still reside in modern New Mexico. They also have transformed into the Zuni and Hopi tribes. The Apache and Navajo tribes arrived in the Pueblo region around 1200 CE from the Pacific Northwest and remained distinct from the Pueblo people living in the region

Common food practices: introduction of agriculture

Today, we credit the Anasazis, Mogollons, and Hohokams as the first farmers in America. Corn, the first crop the Ancestral Pueblos cultivated, permeates many creation stories of the Pueblo people. They viewed the harvest of corn not only as a nutritional necessity, but also as a spiritual gift. Even though agriculture seemed to represent how the society advanced, there is more evidence leaning to the Ancestral Pueblos having a much healthier diet when they hunted and gathered

In the arid climate of the Southwest, they developed complex irrigation systems, which maintained crops even in the hot sun. Hohokams had created one of the largest irrigation systems to date, which covered almost all of present-day Arizona. This allowed them to begin planting beans and squash in addition to corn

These elaborate systems enabled agriculture to flourish, which allowed new forms of production and societal development. The women of these tribes made ceramic pots to hold the surplus of corn, squash, and beans, and large vessels to grind the corn. They also wove baskets which was used to collect the harvest

Despite all of this, Navajos and Apaches arrived from the Pacific Northwest in about 1200 CE and retained the dominant food practice of their home region, hunting and gathering

Societal organization: villages and pueblos

Agriculture dictated the way the Ancestral Pueblo people lived. They became more sedentary, living in stone and adobe houses. Regarded as highly developed for their time, tended to live in larger towns with thousands of people and intricate dwellings

Chaco Canyon, a center for the Anasazi people, was a trade hub and home to over 12 thousand people. The Chacoans (branch of the Anasazi people), created over four hundred miles of roads that connected the town to other villages in the region. They mostly traded turquoise, traveling west for seashells from California, south for exotic birds from Central American, and north for mineral and ores from the Rocky Mountains

The Navajos and Apaches were the nomadic tribes of this region. Their homes were much less permanent than pueblos. Navajos fashioned their iconic eastward-facing round houses, known as hogans, out of materials like mud and bark

Social and religious norms: the spirit of the crop

They believed that farming was a more reliable way to ensure their society’s sustenance than hunting and gathering. This was soon proved false in the face of natural disaster. A persistent drought lasting from about 1130-1180 CE, decimated Anasazis’ crops, while a major flood in 1358 destroyed the Hohokam irrigation system

These disasters that occured led the Ancestral Pueblos to hold spiritual ceremonies, praying to their gods for a bountiful harvest and good weather. They prayed to plants and animals, for agricultural, hunting, and personal success. These religious ceremonies brought together lots of people to create larger religious communities than social units like the family

The extended family, both men and women, participated in the agricultural processes. Men did more farming because of the less hunting. Women also raised children and performed household tasks, while male heads of households would participate in an informal council to make community, or band, decisions

Ultimately, most of the Ancestral Pueblos fled the area, probably due to drought. The Spanish encountered a hodgepodge of remaining descendants of the Ancestral Pueblos in the mid-1550s, whom they named the Pueblos