Ancient Enigmas
IN THE 17TH CENTURY, the Four Corners region turned cruel. Chaco’s Ancestral Puebloan people had fled three centuries earlier, their elaborate social structure abandoned as the culture’s various…
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Category: Native American Culture
Cultural Vocabulary Lesson
Navajo people use the name Diné to describe themselves. The Bureau of Land Management area with Navajo defensive sites is called the Dinétah by archaeologists. In the Diné language, Dinétah refers…
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Explore Archaeology
THE CHACOAN PAST enthralls visitors to Chaco Culture National Historical Park, southwest of Nageezi; Aztec Ruins National Monument, in Aztec; and Salmon Ruins Museum, in Bloomfield, which also tells…
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Building on Sacred Traditions
FATHER ALBERT BRAUN SO LOVED the Mescalero Apache people that he dedicated decades of his life to creating a Romanesque church with rock walls that soar as high as 90 feet. The cornerstone was laid in…
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Celebrating Traditions at Acoma Pueblo
THE 2,000 LUMINARIAS, set and lit by hand, line the road up the mesa to Acoma Pueblo’s 370-foot-high Sky City. Inside the 1629 San Esteban del Rey Mission Church, tribal dancers pound their feet onto…
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Piecing Together Mimbres History
THE COW PASTURE’S RAIN-DAMPENED soil bucks and falls in irregular patterns, evidence of past archaeological digs on the NAN Ranch, near Silver City. Chest-high sacaton grass, interspersed with native…
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How Acoma Blue Corn Thrived Again
AARON LOWDEN HELD TWO POUNDS OF DARK BLUE SEEDS and felt in them the weight of everything he had inherited from his Acoma Pueblo ancestors—and everything he hoped to secure for his community’s future…
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Check Out These Books on Native Pottery
POLYCHROME, BLACK-ON-RED, polished blackware, Jeddito yellow ware … the types of Native pottery and their evolutionary arcs provide a rich field of study for art historians, archaeologists, and…
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The Story Behind a Jemez Storyteller
This essay is one of 70 by mostly Pueblo people—artists, writers, historians, scientists, and political leaders—collected for "Grounded in Clay: The Spirit of Pueblo Pottery," an exhibition that runs…
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A Badger Paw Claws Though Time
This essay is one of 70 by mostly Pueblo people—artists, writers, historians, scientists, and political leaders—collected for "Grounded in Clay: The Spirit of Pueblo Pottery," an exhibition that runs…
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