*** ethnic clothing and costume: North American Native American cultural areas Southwest tribes







North American Native American Cultural Areas: Southwestern Area Tribes

Apache
A Figure 1.--Here we see a Native American mother and her three young children taken in Ganado Apache County about 1910. It is a dry glass plate negative taken by Howard Clinton Tibbitts (1863-1937). He was a San Francisco-based photographer. The Southern Pacific Railroad hired him (1892). He worked for them for 40 years, photographing extensively in the American West, Canada, and Mexico, documenting landscapes, towns, industry, agriculture, parks, public buildings, and other local scenes to help promote Southern Pacific's passenger service. His work was showcased in the Railroad's magazine Sunset starting with its first publication (1989). Source: Howard Clinton Tibbitts, Negative #2031.

The Southwestern peoples comprise two distinct cultural groups, destinguished by the type of villages in which they lived--pueblo and non-pueblo, as well as other cultural characteristics. The historic (more recent) tribes of the southwestern cultural area comprise the true Pueblos, such as the Hopi, Zuņi, Taos, and Navaho, Apache, Walapai, Mohave, Yuma, and Pima as well as other tribes in northern Mexico. The largest tribe in the United States was the Navajo. The most war-like and difficult to control was the Apache. The pueblo peoples beside the destintive villages shared te use of the kiva (ceremonial house), kachina dances, altars, and sacred corn meal. tilling of the field and weaving of cloth by men rather than women, a clan system and ceremonies, and domestication of the turkey. The Hopi are one of the best known pueblo peoples and practice a distinctive dance, the snake dress, not practiced by other pueblo people. The non-pueblo tribes are much less uniform in culture. The main non-pueblo tribes, the Navaho, Apache, and Pima, were more nomadic than the pueblos, but all cultivated fields to varying degrees--the Apache the least and the Pima the most. The Apache began caring for sheep. Great variations were reported in baskert weaving and pottery. The social and political organization of the non-pueblos was much simplier and less sophisticated than the Pueblos, more like the plains tribes. The Yuman were an important Southwestern language group. Several tribes composed the Yuman group including the Hualapai and Yuma tribes. The largest tribe was the Navajo centered in the Four Corners region and relatively recent arrivals. The Hopi are one of the best known pueblo peoples and practice a distinctive dance, the snake dress, not practiced by other pueblo people. The non-pueblo tribes are much less uniform in culture. The main non-pueblo tribes, the Navaho, Apache, and Pima, were more nomadic than the pueblos, but all cultivated fields to varying degrees--the Apache the least and the Pima the most. The Apache began caring for sheep. Great variations were reported in baskert weaving and pottery. The social and political organization of the non-pueblos was much simplier and less sophisticated than the pueblos, more like the plains tribes. The Yuman were an important Southwestern language group.

Pueblo People

The Hopi are one of the best known pueblo peoples. he Hopi at their peak inhabited virtually all of northern Arizona, including areas of southwestern California and southern Nevada. The Hopis have a reservation in Black Mesa, Arizona near the famed Painted Desert and Petrified Forest National Park. The Hopi speak a Shoshonean language, which is one of the Uto-Aztecan languages branches of the Aztec-Tanoan linguistic stock. An exception is the Hano Pueblo where the people speak a language which belongs to the Tanoan branch of the Aztec-Tanoan linguistic stock. The Hopi or Moki/Moqui are one of the principal Pueblo tribal groups. The Hopi were a pre-literate people. Researchers have been avle to develop some basic history of the Hopi through archeology, anthropology, and linguistic studies. DNA studies may be avle to tell us more. The written record, however, only begins with the European discovery and exploration of the America. Within only decades of Columbus' voyages, Spanish Conquistadores reached the Hopi nd other Pueblo peoples (1540). The Hopi began involved in a fight for their existence with both the Spanish and Navajo. Their response was to move into more remote areas and build better protected pueblos. Spanish missionaries built missions, but they were destroyed in the Hopi Revolt. The remote inhospital lands and the small Spanish population was their best protection. The same was true after Mexican independence. The expanding United States reached the the Hopi after the Civil War. American authorities moved the Hopi on to the Black Nesa Reservation. The Hopi are best known for their agricultural skills. They practice a distinctive dance, the snake dress, not practiced by other pueblo people. The non-pueblo tribes are much less uniform in culture.

Non-Pueblo Tribes

The main non-pueblo tribes, the Navaho, Apache, and Pima, were more nomadic than the pueblos, but all cultivated fields to varying degrees--the Apache the least and the Pima the most. The social and political organization of the non-pueblos was much simplier and less sophisticated than the pueblos, more like the plains tribes. The Apche and Navajo are related tribes and relatively recent arrivals in the Soouthwest.

Apache

The Apache along with the related Navajo migrated south from wehat is now Canada. They werewere in cotact with h Oueblom people, but did not adaopt farming to the same extent as the Navajo. In modern times after the arrivsl of the Europeans, they began caring for sheep. Great variations were reported in baskert weaving and pottery. The Apache are today perhaps the best known American Native American people This is not because they were the largest are most important. Tt probably reflects their war-like nature and the fact they were the last tribe the U.S. Calvalry succeeded in pacifying. Their fierce resistance at a time in which other tribes had been driven into reservations made them dramatic subjects for both books and movie depictions. Their charasmatic leader, Geronimo, ws another factor.

Navajo

The Navajo were the most important Narive American tribe in the Southwest. Thery are grouped as part of the Apachean peoples. The Navaho refer to themselves as the Dine--the People. As with all Native American tribes there is no early written history. As a result scholars using the archeological evidence disagree as to just when the Navajo reached the Southwest. The predominant assessment at this time is that the Navajos migrated south from Canada along with other Apachean peoples. A common bond is linquistics--Athapaskan languages. Before the development of DNA, linguistics was a principal tool in Narive American studies. Scholars speculate that the northern groups and those emarking on southern migrations separated (about 1000 AD). There is no reference to a northern origin or a long southern migration in the Navajo oral tradition, but rather a belief in travels through the underworld before emerging in the Southwest--specifically the La Plata Mountain of southwestern Colorado. Some believe that the Navajo displaced the Anasazi in the Four Corners area (14th century). Navajo lore has been accounts of interactions between the Navajo and Anasazi, so we know that the two groups encountered earch other. There is general agreement that the Navajo were well established in the Four Corners (15th century). The division between the Apache and Navajo seems to have occurred after they reached the Southwest. The Apache and Navajo are beliedved to have separated in fairly modern times (16th-17th century).

Paiute

There were many small Southwestern tribes, including the Paiute.

Pima


Qahatika

The Qahatika is amother small tribe.

Yaqui

The Yaqui or Yoeme people inhabited the Yaqui River Valley in the Mexican state of Sonora. Today the Yaquir still live there as well as Sinloa and the United States, primarily Arizona, drive their by the final phase of the Yaqui wars and dreadful supression of the Yaqui people by the Mexicn Government during after the Mexican Revolution. A Yaqi historian describes his tribes preColombian culture, The "... Yaquis were living in family groups along the Yaqui River (Yoem Vatwe) north to the Gila River, where they gathered wild desert foods, hunted game and cultivated corn, beans, and squash. Yaquis traded native foods, furs, shells, salt, and other goods with many indigenous groups of central North America. Among these groups are the Shoshone, the Comanche, the Pueblos, the Pimas, the Aztecs, and the Toltec. Yaquis roamed extensively in pre-Columbian times and sometimes settled among other native groups like the Zunis." [Quiroga Sandoval] The first contact with the Spanish occured about a decade after Cortez and his Conquistadores conquered the Aztecs in the Central Valley and gradually expaned their control of what is now Mexico. A Spanish slaving expedition enqountered a Yaqui village. In the ensuing engagement the spanish claimed victory and killed many Yaquis, but were forced withdraw. It was the beginning of the four century Yaqui Wars--the longest of the Latin American Indin Wars. In the history of freedom, perhaps no people have struggled so valiantly for freedom or paid such a terible price. The Spanish attempting to eradicate Native American resistance sent further military expedutions. The Yaqui struggled to hold their land and preserve their way of life. While an essentially peaceful farming people, the Yaqui resisted repeated Spanish expeditions.

Yumam

The Yuman were an important Southwestern language group, including the Hualapai and Yuma tribes.







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Created: 6:50 PM 8/21/2015
Last updated: 6:50 PM 8/21/2015