Salinas Pueblo Missions National Monument: see National Parks and Monuments (table).

Pueblo, name given by the Spanish to the sedentary Native Americans who lived in stone or adobe communal houses in what is now the SW United States. The term pueblo is also used for the villages occupied by the Pueblo. Their prehistoric settlements, known as the Anasazi and Mogollon cultures, extended southward from S Utah and S Colorado into Arizona, New Mexico, and adjacent territory in Mexico. The transition from Archaic (see Americas, antiquity and prehistory of the) hunters and gatherers to sedentary agricultural populations occurred around the 1st cent. A.D., when corn, squash, and beans were widely adopted; the trio of foods is still used by the Pueblo. Although agriculture provided the bulk of the diet for these early populations, hunting and gathering was an important source of additional foodstuffs. Pottery manufacture began about A.D. 400 and was used for cooking and water storage. Clothing was woven from cotton, grown in warmer areas, and yucca fiber. Early houses among the Anasazi and Mogollon were pit houses, which were replaced by adobe and stone surface dwellings throughout the region by the end of the first millennium A.D.

Villages were variable in size and architectural content, but most included circular, often subterranean structures known as kivas (apparently a derivation of the pit house) and storage pits for grains. Prior to the 14th and 15th cent., densely settled villages were more the exception than the rule. Large pueblos were found at Chaco Canyon, dating to the 11th and early 12th cent., and at Mesa Verde, where multistoried cliff houses were inhabited in the 13th and 14th cent.; a great lunar observatory was built at Chimney Rock, S Colo., in the 11th cent. Changing climatic conditions forced the abandonment of much of the region by the early 14th cent., with populations migrating to their present-day locations in the Rio Grande valley and a few other isolated areas (e.g., the Hopi mesas).

Contact with the Spanish

Initial contact with European populations came in the 16th cent., when Spaniards entered the Rio Grande area. The seven Zuñi towns were reported by the Franciscan Marcos de Niza to be the fabulous Seven Cities of Cibola, leading to the first intensive contacts—a Spanish exploration party under Francisco Vásquez de Coronado in 1540. Due to increasing pressure on the existing food supplies, the initially friendly Pueblo became hostile and then revolted; their resistance ended in a mass execution of Native Americans by Coronado. In 1598 Juan de Oñate began full-scale missionary work and moved the provincial headquarters of the Spanish colonial government to Santa Fe. By 1630, 60,000 Pueblo had been converted to Christianity, and 90 villages had chapels, according to Father de Benavides.

Determined to put an end to the suffering caused by their Spanish oppressors, the Pueblo staged a successful revolt in 1680. Popé, a medicine man, led a band of Pueblo who killed 380 settlers and 31 missionaries and forced the remaining Spaniards to retreat to El Paso. However, the Pueblo lost 347 of their number in one attack on Santa Fe. Fearing Spanish reprisal, villages were abandoned for better fortified sites. In 1692 De Vargas, with the cooperation of some Pueblo leaders, reconquered the Pueblo in New Mexico. The Western Pueblo, however, including the Hopi, remained independent.

The Pueblo have the oldest settlements N of Mexico, dating back 700 years for the still-occupied Hopi, Zuñi, and Acoma pueblos. The Europeans who settled in the Southwest adopted the adobe structures and compact village plans of the Pueblo. The Pueblo, for their part, adopted many domestic animals and assorted crafts from the Old World, including blacksmithing and woodworking.

Language

The Pueblo speak languages of at least two different families. Languages of the Tanoan branch of the Aztec-Tanoan linguistic stock (see Native American languages) are spoken at 11 pueblos, including Taos, Isleta, Jemez, San Juan, San Ildefonso, and the Hopi pueblo of Hano. Languages of the Keresan branch of the Hokan-Siouan linguistic stock also are limited to Pueblo people—Western Keresan, spoken at Acoma and Laguna, and Eastern Keresan, at San Felipe, Santa Ana, Sia, Cochiti, and Santo Domingo. The Hopi language, which belongs to the Uto-Aztecan branch of the Aztec-Tanoan linguistic stock, is spoken at all Hopi pueblos except Hano. The Zuñi language may be connected with Tanoan, falling within the Aztec-Tanoan linguistic stock.

Social Structure

Among the modern Pueblo, men are the weavers and women make pottery and assist in house construction. The status of women among both the Western and the Eastern Pueblo is high, but there are differences related to the different social systems of each. The Western Pueblo, including the Hano, Zuñi, Acoma, Laguna, and, the best known, the Hopi, have exogamous clans with a matrilineal emphasis and matrilocal residence, and the houses and gardens are owned by women; the kachina cult emphasizes weather control, and the Pueblo who follow this cult are governed by a council of clan representatives. Among the Eastern Pueblo, there are bilateral extended families, patrilineal clans, and male-owned houses and land; warfare and hunting as well as healing and exorcism are more important than among the Western Pueblo.

The Spanish added new elements to the government in the form of civil officers, but the de facto government and ceremonial organization remained native. The Bureau of Indian Affairs introduced elected officials in Santa Clara, Laguna, Zuñi, and Isleta, and the Hopi have an elected council on the tribal level. The Kachina and other secret societies dealing with war, agriculture, and healing still carry out their complicated rituals and dances: for some occasions, the public is invited. In 1990 there were some 55,000 Pueblo in the United States, the largest groups being the Hopi, Zuñi, Laguna, and Acoma.

Pueblo, city (1990 pop. 98,640), seat of Pueblo co., S central Colo., on the Arkansas River in the foothills of the Rockies; inc. 1885. It is the center of shipping, retail, and industry for the irrigated Arkansas valley farm area. One of the country's largest steel plants is nearby, as are coal fields and abundant timber. Agricultural products include cattle, wheat, beans, corn, and sorghum. Traditionally a steelmaking center, Pueblo's economy diversified greatly in the 1990s. A trading post, called Pueblo, was established there in 1842, followed by a temporary Mormon settlement (1846-47). The city was laid out in 1860. After a 1921 flood, levees were constructed. The Pueblo Dam and Reservoir, part of a reclamation project serving the Arkansas and Fryingpan rivers, were completed in the 1980s. They are designed to provide irrigation, diversion, and power, as well as flood control. Pueblo is the seat of Colorado State Univ.-Pueblo and the headquarters for San Isabel National Forest. A large U.S. army ordnance depot is nearby.

(Spanish: “town”) Community of the Pueblo Indians of the southwestern U.S., consisting of multistoried apartment houses constructed of large adobe blocks beginning circa AD 1000. Freestanding structures up to five stories tall were built around a central court. Each floor is set back from the floor under it; the whole structure resembles a stepped pyramid, with terraces formed by the rooftops of the level below. Though rooms often have connecting doorways, movement between levels is by means of ladders through holes in the ceilings. Ground-floor rooms, used for storage, have no outside doors. Each pueblo has at least two kivas. Many of the pueblos are still occupied; Acoma pueblo is believed to be the oldest continuously inhabited place in the U.S. Some of the largest pueblos are at Taos, Isleta, Laguna, and Zuni. Seealso cliff dwelling.

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also called Anasazi

North American Indian civilization that developed from circa AD 100 to 1600, centring on the area where the present-day boundaries of the U.S. states of Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, and Utah intersect. Ancestral Pueblo is the term most commonly used to refer to the ancestors of contemporary Pueblo Indian peoples. Anasazi is the Navajo word for “Ancient Enemy”; the Hopi prefer the term Hisatsinom, meaning “Ancient People.” Ancestral Pueblo civilization is customarily divided into several periods: Late Basketmaker II (AD 100–500), Basketmaker III (500–750), Pueblo I (750–950), Pueblo II (950–1150), Pueblo III (1150–1300), and Pueblo IV (1300–1600). Evidence for a postulated Basketmaker I stage has not been found. As among present-day Pueblo peoples, religion in the Ancestral Pueblo culture was highly developed and centred on rites partly conducted in underground circular chambers called kivas. The best-known Ancestral Pueblo ruins are the cliff dwellings at Mesa Verde (Colo.) and Chaco Canyon (N.M.).

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