Western Knowledge

The clash that occurs when certain Pueblo information falls into the hands of outsiders is partly due to differing conceptualizations of knowledge between the Pueblos and Western world. Except for highly classified government and personal information protected by law, just about anything is available to know and share in the dominant world. One only needs time, money, and the desire to acquire it, and it takes less than a minute to Google today’s high-speed, fingertip-accessed information. Western knowledge is highly valued, and the monetary rewards and status it brings to academics are substantial. Every field of study has a research component, where the discovery of new information is expected to extend the knowledge base and the careers of those working within it. To deny information is to deny this opportunity, which goes against Western notions of success. Denying information creates suspicion of what people might be hiding or whether this behavior is even lawful and discriminatory toward non-Native enquirers. Herein lies the conflict over information sharing between Pueblos and the Western world.

Pueblo Knowledge

Knowledge is highly valued in the Pueblo world, and there is knowledge that everyone must have to be an effective member of their society. Basic core values and language skills are essential, without limitation on who can and must have it, including children. The sooner children learn core values and language, the better. Thereafter, specialized knowledge is something that not just anyone can access. Internal measures have been thoughtfully put in place to secure this knowledge because, in the wrong hands, it can be devastating. One must earn the right to acquire specific knowledge. Acquisition is based on maturity, gender, and commitment. All members must demonstrate that they are mature enough to learn certain information, make proper use of it, and protect it from “children,” referring to those not yet ready for it regardless of numerical age. Keeping religious information from outsiders falls into this category, too.

While men and women are considered equals, certain knowledge is gender based. Both females and males are essential for maintaining a healthy balance between the two energies needed in the world. As with maturity, knowing and applying gender-specific information for the welfare of the Pueblo are important (Martinez and Suina 2005). Knowing what the other gender knows is of little use, so why waste time? However, trust and respect for one another are key to a workable and smooth relationship, particularly between spouses. This matter is addressed with great care when a couple is receiving village prenuptial advice. Neither is to question the other about their knowledge, including when or where he or she is needed for a community obligation. They are reminded that trust is established and maintained by being where you are supposed to be and carrying out your duty. Once the privilege is earned, the mother or the father will take the lead in providing a gender-specific education for their children. They will get the novice up to speed as quickly as possible and make it crystal clear to the student that she or he is now a Knowledge Keeper and must refrain from sharing newly acquired information with anyone not yet prepared. Concealment is not a new concept, and keeping the information within the appropriate group is a responsibility taken seriously.

The highest level of knowledge is earned by agreeing to serve the Pueblo in a unique post of responsibility, a calling that only a small percentage of Pueblo members have. It is one that comes with considerable clout but also with of a lifetime of responsibility. Esoteric knowledge is especially protected, not just from outsiders but from the general Pueblo population, who has no business prying into these matters. To be too curious is said to be inviting something one is not destined for and will ultimately lead to disaster. Keeping this sacred information separate and away from ordinary citizens endows it with spiritual power that is only for the few who earn it through lengthy training and internship. But even this well-hidden domain was not safe from the peering eyes of the outside world. Knowledge and activities were targeted by the Spaniards and, later, the focal point of the cultural genocide campaign undertaken by the US government. Since the 1800s, photographers, scholars, and an assortment of curious outsiders have also caused considerable harm in their attempts to uncover this enticing, hidden information.

In the Pueblo, no one person—no matter how important—will know everything, and that is perfectly okay. Knowing comes with expectations and accountability. If a person fails to hold his or her knowledge responsibly, this violation may be pointed out by those with lesser status. A breach of this unwritten social agreement can lead to banishment from the tribe.

Spanish Colonialism

Concealment, as a normal part of Pueblo culture, intensified considerably during the Spanish Colonial Era in Pueblo country. Hand in hand, the military and missionaries sought riches for their majesty and souls for their God. Although the riches never materialized, Pueblo nations were ripe for religious conversion and labor extraction by the Spaniards. Practitioners of Native religions were beaten, and many paid the ultimate price for continued engagement in the forbidden. Pueblos were forced to build huge churches and convert to Catholicism under threat of death. Native religion was at the heart of Pueblo life, and to have it uprooted and replaced with a foreign belief was intolerable. Revolts were attempted without success, that is, not until a unified effort took place in 1680, after eighty-two years of religious suppression.

The iron fist of the military and the watchful eyes of the missionaries kept the Pueblos in line. However, the two could not be everywhere at all times. The Pueblos used this weakness to their advantage and found creative ways to preserve their precious lifeline to the spirit world. By pretending to be devout Catholics—baptizing babies, attending mass, and dancing on saints’ days—they avoided scrutiny and detection. They altered their ceremonial calendar ever so slightly to fit the Catholic calendar, which allowed continuation of approved dances and ceremonies. Forbidden rites and beliefs went underground, where they remain today. The result was unwavering as there was community solidarity around this concealment effort—the opposite of what the Spaniards intended.

Mexican Government

Spanish rule gave way to a short-lived Mexican government, which was succeeded by the United States. The 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo gave Mexican citizenship to the Pueblos and the right to sell lands held in common (Sando 1976). While citizenship was a step in the right direction, it took away Mexican government land protections and made them vulnerable to non-Indian squatters. Encroachment on Pueblo lands escalated when the United States took control. Pueblos did not have the same status and protections as did the rest of the tribes in the United States. It was not until 1913, a year after New Mexico’s statehood, when Pueblos were lawfully recognized as Indian tribes. Before that, they relied on their own resources to protect their people and property. While outside governments rose and fell, Pueblo governments and traditions continued to thrive under the protective watch of the Knowledge Keepers. However, by the mid-1800s, Pueblos faced renewed attacks on their culture and languages by the latest outside force, the United States government.

United States Government

In 1879, the Carlisle Indian Industrial School was established in Pennsylvania (figure 7.1). Tribal children from across the country, including the Pueblos, were removed from their homes and villages to undergo the Americanization process funded by the federal government (Connell-Szasz 1999).

The solution to the so-called Indian problem that the United States faced was conceived by Captain Richard Henry Pratt, an army officer and Indian fighter. His strategy to “Kill the Indian and save the man” (Adams 1995, 52) meant doing away with Indian cultures and languages and replacing them with that of the whites. Indian agents and the military scoured the lands for Indian children. The goal of federal Indian policy was to assimilate Indians into the dominant world after complete erasure of Tribalism.

Pratt used an old army installation and employed strict military regimentation to transform Indians into whites. Children as young as five were torn from their mothers’ arms and shipped off by train to unknown places. Distance and years of no contact with family and tribe were the solution to rub out what whites saw as Indian savagery, laziness, ignorance, and filth, and to prevent further contamination (Adams 1995). By 1901, tens of thousands of Indian students were enrolled in twenty-five boarding schools throughout the United States (figure 7.2). All were focused on obliterating Native culture, replacing it with white culture using military-style education.

Native traditions were major impediments. A sign at one boarding school well into the twentieth century read “Tradition is the Enemy of Progress.” Upon returning to their home communities, students “quickly returned to the blanket,” or readopted practices that were stripped at school. The government learned that culture is not a suit of clothing one removes and replaces with another; it had underestimated the power of Native communities to reclaim their stolen children.

But not all students returned home. Many died from contagious diseases that swept through overcrowded dorms. It is believed that some of the younger children died from heartache, hungering for the loving arms of their mothers. The graveyards in the back of the school buildings began to grow. Targeted areas of traditional culture in the Pueblo villages went even deeper undercover to prevent further removal of children. Indian animosity and resentment toward the US government deepened.

Religious Crimes Code

To step up the assimilation process, the government imposed the 1883 Religious Crimes Code, which denied Indians their first amendment rights for freedom of religion. It prohibited ceremonial practices that might be contrary to accepted Christian standards and implemented punitive measures against Tribal leaders who encouraged them (Dozier 1970). This law limited when and where Indian dances could occur. Five months out of the year were forbidden to all forms of ceremonial rites. Native people under fifty years of age were not allowed to participate, and public education was carried out on the evils of ceremonialism. The government went great lengths to turn the public against Indian traditions and targeted religious groups, women’s clubs, and similar organizations who tried to protect Native people from negative outside forces (including the US government) (James 1974). In 1923, the commissioner of Indian affairs, Charles H. Burke, used the same law to try to stop ceremonies aimed at the Sun Dance of the Plains Indians and the ceremonial activities of the Pueblos.

The Pueblos had no option but to take even greater caution in carrying out their religious obligations, like in the days of Spanish oppression. They kept a close surveillance over their own people. Those who gave information to outsiders were severely punished, and some were put to death. Pressure not to provide information from within, and pressure to do so from the outside, squeezed Pueblo citizens, who were caught in the middle. Hopi leaders, labeled “hostiles,” were incarcerated by the federal government for keeping a firm grip on traditions and refusing to send children to boarding schools (James 1974).

Termination Era

In the 1950s, the US government again decided that Indians were better off fully assimilated. In 1953, the official policy was introduced as Public Law 280, which gave the right to states to extend their jurisdiction over some nonterminated tribes (Wilkinson 2005). This policy, referred to as “Indian Termination,” stated that Indians could not achieve full American citizenship unless Tribalism was dismantled for all tribes. This meant no more traditional governments, no Indian lands, and the death of Tribal cultures that had been in existence since time immemorial. Termination meant total assimilation for some tribes immediately, and others, considered less prepared, were soon to follow. Apprehension and fear turned into panic in Indian communities throughout the country. This hit home for me personally. “My mom could not conceal her crying at midnight in response to something my dad was relaying. He just came home from a late-night council meeting. What I thought was a family argument, turned out to be about a list that our Pueblo was placed on, ‘for doing away with our way of life’, as he put it. Her hysterical questions, ‘What are we going to do, where are going to go live?’ still ring in my mind. As a child, I too became terrified not understanding what the government had in store us” (Suina, personal communication).

Coinciding with this initiative was the Indian Relocation Act of 1956 (also known as Public Law 959 and the Adult Vocational Training Program). It was designed to place Indian families in distant cities and enroll adults in a vocational program to learn a trade. Upon completion, they were provided with job placement assistance and housing in various cities across the US, including Oakland, Chicago, Dallas, Denver, and Phoenix. This program was something my parents never would have thought about doing. The Indian Relocation Act was yet another threat to a way of life that Indians had known since the beginning of time.

As with boarding schools, the training program was a failed experiment. Terminated tribes were soon begging to be reinstated (Wilkinson 2005), and many relocated families discovered they were not cut out for city life. Those who came home could not find jobs or utilize their trade. Those who stayed in urban areas encountered racism and other obstacles. Members from different tribes settled in less-than-desirable parts of cities, where they tried their best to re-create Indian culture.

Scholars and Photographers

Every Pueblo has been the focus of unauthorized publications that have included photographs and sketches never meant to be seen outside the village or out of the proper context of a ceremony. These works are by academics who should know better than most that such exposure is harmful to those for whom the information is sacred. Esoteric knowledge not to be shared with ordinary Pueblo citizens is laid bare for all to see. In some cases, the inside culprit was a trusted, but desperate, Tribal member who took a few dollars to satisfy an addiction. This violation undermines the integrity of the group, who is responsible for the knowledge in the eyes of the community. One elder referring to an incident of this nature stated, “We all have been cheapened” (Suina, personal communication, 2017). This harm remains an open wound for as long as these publications are out in the world.

Helpless Victim View

Throughout the course of American history, Indian tribes have been perceived as vulnerable to the whims of the government and to outsiders who wanted something from the Indians—be it their land, labor, souls, or their ancestors, remains. While the US recognized tribes as sovereign nations with legitimate governments and engaged in treaties with them, they were made wards of the government through the Indian Non-intercourse Act. Many in America felt that the extinction of Indians was inevitable and required government intervention. Providing government protections legitimized the placement of Indians on reservations and federal laws that severely curtailed Tribal sovereignty. With dislocation, loss of homelands, and loss of subsistence practices, the government “stepped in” with rations, increasing the dependency on Western food and the loss of self-sufficiency, self-protection, and self-respect. The government tried to erase all vestiges of Native culture and language through the painful process of removing children from home communities, disrupting the normal course of intergenerational life during the boarding school era.

The outside world assumed it knew best how to take care of, and deal with, the “Indian problem” and that the Indian was hopelessly caught in the eddy of the powerful current of American civilization with no moorings and sense of control. Yet Indians have successfully responded to the forces of the Western world for centuries in ingenious ways (Wilcox 2009).

Defiance as Defense

Concealment, deception, and adaptability were weapons against the erasure of Pueblo culture by Christianization and assimilation initiatives. Among the Rio Grande Pueblos, deception included shifting the Pueblo ceremonial calendar to coincide with the church calendar. Traditional winter animal dances were moved to Christmas Day and Three Kings Day. Complying with their proselytizers’ demands without compromise of their own religion was a motive of the Knowledge Keepers. Regardless of what colonists imposed, eastern Pueblos adapted. The Spanish created offices of the governors, the fiscals (church officers), and sacristans intended to control the Pueblos (positions still held in the church today).

The Spaniards had two views of Pueblo dances and ceremonies. They were out to destroy practices labeled as “pagan” and “devil worship,” and yet they approved and encouraged dances and rites for honoring saints, feast days, and memorials of the church. The Spanish assumed that Pueblo spiritual expressions would automatically transfer to Catholicism. Compartmentalization, according to Edward P. Dozier (1970), a Pueblo anthropologist, describes an eastern Pueblo tactic used to privately practice objectionable activities while in the presence of Spanish authorities. For people who did not understand the values and deeper meaning of Christianity, this was an effective tool for addressing behavior that was, to them, just another form of oppression (Dozier 1970). It allowed for the preservation of moiety leaders and involved village-wide activities in traditional rites designed to gain blessings for all people, as was practiced before Spanish contact.

Michael Wilcox (2009, 12) notes social boundaries are set “when a group enacts measures to protect resources, materials, and information from outsiders.” These measures create exclusive membership, insulate behaviors from outside influences, and consolidate power. He uses a modern-day plaza dance as an example. The Pueblo establishes a social boundary between the dancers and people of the village watching from the inner circle while the outsiders watch from the outer rim while having to conform to Pueblo rules as guests. Wilcox (2009) continues that on the outside, archaeology, a culture group of its own, enacts its social boundaries through its use of special language and knowledge that many Native people cannot interpret. Barriers, no matter how innocent or friendly, are established between the two.