The Zuni Enigma: A Native American People's Possible Japanese Connection

by Nancy Yaw Davis

Overview

"A stunning and carefully supported argument that should stir useful discussion.... [An] exciting, groundbreaking work."—Booklist

Did a group of thirteenth-century Japanese merge with the people, language, and religion of the Zuni tribe? For many years, anthropologists have understood the Zuni in the American Southwest to occupy a special place in Native American culture and ethnography. Their language, religion, and blood type are startlingly different from all other tribes. Most puzzling, the Zuni appear to have much in common with the people of Japan. In a book with groundbreaking implications, Dr. Nancy Yaw Davis examines the evidence underscoring the Zuni enigma and suggests the circumstances that may have led Japanese on a religious quest—searching for the legendary "middle world" of Buddhism—across the Pacific to the American Southwest more than seven hundred years ago.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780393322309
Publisher:	Norton, W. W. & Company, Inc.
Publication date:	11/17/2001
Pages:	350
Product dimensions:	5.60(w) x 8.30(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Nancy Yaw Davis holds an M.A. from the University of Chicago and a Ph.D. in anthropology from the University of Washington. She lives in Anchorage, Alaska.

Read an Excerpt

Chapter One

PORTRAIT OF A PUEBLO

Centered in a broad, arid but colorful valley between mesas in northern New Mexico lies what the A:shiwi people call Itiwanna, "the Middle of the World," place of the Pueblo of Zuni.

    Colors are everywhere: reds and whites in horizontal stripes of sandstone, layered into high, flat mesas, unevenly exposed by millennia of erosion. Various intensities of green in pine trees, cedars, piñions, and junipers splay along the thinly forested mountain sides. In autumn the yellow of blooming rabbit brush pops out in patches across the broad valley. The blues and whites of the sky and clouds cut sharply through the clarity of six thousand feet above sea level. Brilliant colors often gently merge, consolidate, and separate into rainbows, arched over the mesas. All seem magnified further during startling sunrises and lingering sunsets.

    The Native Americans who live here associate colors with directions: yellow for North, blue for West, red for South, white for East, black for nadir (below), and many colored for zenith (above) and for middle. These colors and directions are also linked with seasons, elements, animals, trees, birds, corn, beans, clans, and religious groups. Directions especially provide an organizational theme to life, centered and balanced at the middle, Itiwanna.

    The black and white strip of asphalt of Highway 53 cuts across Zuni reservation lands leading through the Pueblo of Zuni, located near the Continental Divide that runs north and south along North America'smountainous backbone. The reservation, established in 1877, comprises 408,404 acres (638 square miles) in the northwestern edge of the state of New Mexico, with an overlap into eastern Arizona (see Map 1).

    The Zuni who live here are unlike other North American Indians, unique even among the other nineteen Pueblo tribes of the Southwest. But the differences are deep, not apparent in the physical appearance of the pueblo. Indeed, on a leisurely drive through town, Zuni appears unremarkable: modern houses, modern schools, modern offices and businesses. New trucks and cars reflect successful participation in America's market economy.

    The Zuni pueblo, in fact, seems to have all the modern accoutrements of a Native American Indian tribe embedded in America: an airstrip, post office, bank, telephones, faxes, and television; three restaurants, three retail stores, and three gas stations; a museum, a church, public and private schools, a biweekly newspaper, and a branch of the University of New Mexico. Two omissions stand out: There are no liquor stores and no bingo parlors or casinos.

    The Zuni suburb called Blackrock includes neat, small government-built houses arranged in rows with equally small yards. A public health hospital, radio station, furniture store, and archeology laboratory are also located here, about two miles from the main town.

    But in the older part of Zuni, clustered stone houses and adobe beehive-shaped ovens with wood stacked alongside suggest something of the pueblo's unique character. When the Spaniards explored the American Southwest during the mid-sixteenth century, they reported as many as ninety pueblos in the area. Now there are twenty and Zuni is the largest.

    The Tribal Census Office reported 9,448 persons living in Zuni as of December 31, 1994. Of those, 8,740 (about 93%) were enrolled in the Zuni Tribe; other Indians, including Zuni not yet enrolled, numbered 252 (3%), and non-Indian residents, 456 (5%). These figures reflect a tremendous population increase from the low figure of 1,640 residents reported for 1910. The tribal population more than doubled between 1960 and 1994—from 4,190 to 8,740—largely due to improved health care, a high birthrate, and the preference of Zuni to stay where they are.

    All generations speak the native language, Zunian. Year-round ceremonies validate strong religious continuity with deep roots in a pre-European past; a separate religious language is used by men during rituals and in their ceremonial chambers, called kiwitse. English is also spoken fluently. Overall the community is relatively prosperous. Two main sources of income are wage labor through federal and tribal jobs and the making and marketing of quality jewelry, fetishes, and other arts.

    The people of Zuni are handsome, with healthy dark skin and shiny straight black hair. The height of the men varies more than the women's, but generally the population is short, averaging about five feet, four inches. Like other Native American populations, some Zuni have the "thrifty gene," which was biologically adaptive in the past, making it easier for the body to store food for lean times. Now, however, that gene is linked to weight problems and a high incidence of diabetes. Some Zuni also suffer from a kidney disease (mesangiopathic glomerulonephritis) called locally the "Zuni disease," one unusually common in Japan. The Zuni are physically distinctive in many ways—ways that can be partly explained by considering the admixture of two groups, one Native American and the other Japanese. And so we begin our exploration.

    To visitors familiar with other Native American groups, the Zuni appear shorter and less Caucasian in mixture than other Indian populations. To people who have traveled abroad, some Zuni resemble the Japanese, especially those from the Kyoto region, or relocated Tibetans. Old pictures of the Zuni community, like other pueblos in the Southwest from the late nineteenth century, depict Tibetan-like houses in recessed clusters of apartments, many storied, with wooden ladders connecting the rooftops (see Figure 2). Zuni women appeared in dresses with a manta at an angle across the right shoulder—also very much like the Tibetan style. Now, of course, people wear ordinary Western clothes, except for ceremonial occasions when traditional clothing and many fine items of turquoise, coral, and silver jewelry are worn (see Figures 4 and 5).

    The kinship system seems linked with everything in Zuni society. The Zuni have so many relatives in so many different categories—all in the same town—that they have successfully and perhaps permanently confused anthropologists. In all, four systems weave people and their relationships into a complex fabric of social and religious ties: clans, kiva groups, curing societies, and priesthoods.

    First, numerous named relatives are organized in fourteen matrilineal clans. Additional relationships with named "relatives" include persons in religious organizations—six kiva groups, eight curing societies, and sixteen priesthoods, each with associated responsibilities and ceremonies that occur year-round.

    Every Zuni belongs to his or her mother's clan, the primary kinship affiliation for life. In addition, a Zuni identifies as a "child" of the father's side, which is a secondary relationship but important, especially for males in their religious activities. Membership in the kiva groups—one for each of the six directions—is separate from and cuts across clan membership: All males belong to one of the six kiva groups; no women do. The eight curing or medicine societies are primarily organizations for men who have had a serious illness, were treated, and recovered, thus automatically becoming a member of the medicine society that was successful in healing. A few women are also incorporated through special medical treatment and subsequent survival.

    The sixteen priesthoods are exclusively for men and are directed by the rainmakers, called uwanami. The highest priest is called Pekwin and is believed to derive his power directly from the Sun Father. In Chapter 9 we will look at the similarities of Zuni religion to Shinto, especially in association with ancestors and shrines. Zuni priests are considered very holy men who must not quarrel and who must remain aloof from worldly affairs, fast often, and go on frequent retreats.

    A Zuni man is almost continually preparing for the next religious event, an expensive and time-consuming activity because there are so many ceremonies and dances throughout the year. Hundreds of masks must be maintained and religious regalia repaired in time. The women's participation includes elaborate food preparation, provision of financial assistance and gifts for full-time priests and their helpers, and quietly witnessing the rituals and dances. With few exceptions, women do not dance, nor do they prepare prayer sticks or attend events in the kiwitse, which are exclusively men's ceremonial chambers.

    In addition to many religious activities, Zuni residents celebrate national holidays such as Memorial Day and enjoy modern sports, especially basketball and volleyball. The A:shiwi Running Club annually takes this traditional sport beyond reservation boundaries to the Boston Marathon, where in 1994 Zuni runners placed in the top 10%.

    The Zuni Council manages about sixty programs in areas of administration, health, education, employment, human services, public safety, and law enforcement. The Zuni Cultural Resource Enterprise and Heritage and Historical Preservation Office are also part of its direct responsibility.

    Perhaps the most important thing to know about the modern Pueblo of Zuni is the tribe's sense of privacy and religious ceremonial continuity. This does not mean the people are hostile or angry. Zuni sense of the dignity of their "Place" is subtle, refined, and civilized. There are no hotels for overnight stays nearer than Gallup, thirty-five miles away. At selected times of the year, people outside of the pueblo may quietly, respectfully, watch dances from the rooftops encircling the plaza, but without cameras and without pencils. Until recently, the elaborate New Year "Shalako" ceremonies held in early December were also open to the public. But Zuni is nonetheless a very private place and in all likelihood will stay that way.

ZUNI AND THE OTHER PUEBLOS

    Questions persist about the relationship of Zuni to other Native Americans, including other Pueblo Indians. How can their distinctive characteristics be understood and explained? Why does Zunian have no known affiliation to any other language in North America? How did the blood allele B get to this pueblo—and not others? Why is the religious system so highly integrated and complex? The Zuni culture is one of the ten most-documented cultures of the world, yet these and numerous other questions persist. Indeed, the complexities of the social, religious, and political system have "occupied scholars and defied interpretation by them since the 1890s," writes Edmund Ladd, a Zunian scholar.

    Of course, other Pueblo groups are also unique; together the pueblos comprise a separate cultural area, in many ways puzzling. As Alfonso Ortiz, a Tewa Pueblo Indian and professor of anthropology at the University of New Mexico, noted, "It is essential to stress that the various peoples of the Southwest fashioned unique cultural syntheses from elements of diverse provenance."

    Synthesis is a good word to denote a creative ongoing process for all human cultures, but some groups seem to achieve it more easily than others, and seem more responsive to the flexibility required. This capacity for adaptation may be a marker for the whole Pueblo region (see Map 2), not just Zuni. The twenty contemporary Pueblo groups of the American Southwest stand out as distinctive clusters of communities derived from at least seven different language groups, sharing many characteristics, but continuing individual local traditions in pottery, jewelry, and ceremonies. Unlike the nomadic Navaho and Apache who arrived in the area much later—perhaps as late as the sixteenth century—and who live in households quite separated from each other, Pueblo peoples live in consolidated villages and have long been agriculturalists. In Chapter 9, I speculate on the possibility that the Pueblo groups as a whole share a common link to the Anasazi civilization, which may have incorporated influences from Asia at an earlier time than the one considered here for the Zuni.

ZUNI PREHISTORY

    The archeological record in the Zuni area indicates that a flurry of new pueblos was built between 1250 and 1300, but the Pueblo of Zuni in its exact present location may be quite new—perhaps as recent as A.D. 1692, after the Pueblo rebellion against Spanish and Catholic intrusion. The final selection of the exact middle at Halona on the north side of the sluggish Little Colorado River was possibly the consolidation of the six pueblos first reported by the Spanish in 1540. A brief reconstruction of the sequence of earlier occupations and influences documented by the archeological record provides a framework for later discussion of evidence of the proposed late-thirteenth-century arrival of a pilgrimage from the "ocean of the sunset world."

    Clearly, the people who became the Zuni were not the first, or the only people to come to the Southwest. Between about 9500 and 5000 B.C., the general area was sparsely occupied by a population called Paleo-Indians. The famous fluted stone points—distinguished by deep central grooves—from the Clovis and Folsom sites in New Mexico are considered representative of one of the earliest populations in all the Americas. Although details about the Paleo-Indian period remain murky, the Clovis and Folsom finds indicate very early occupation in the New Mexico area.

    During the next period, called Archaic, from 5000 B.C. to about A.D. 1, the population of the Southwest increased; hunting and gathering remained the main way of life. Then, midway through the Archaic period, about 2000 B.C., corn, and later beans and squash, were introduced from Mesoamerica, supplementing the diet and supporting a growing population.

    Distinctive semisubterranean structures called pithouses began to appear about A.D. 200, a time when pottery was added to the cultural inventory. The people who settled in the drainage of the Zuni River about A.D. 650 became part of the developing Anasazi cultural tradition to the north.

    Archeological sites in the Zuni area indicate continued links with Anasazi communities during Pueblo I, between A.D. 700 and 900. They shared, for example, similar pithouses with granaries and grinding stones. The existence of shells from the Pacific Ocean and the Gulf of California implies a trade network.

    After A.D. 900, a new kind of building masonry was adopted; aboveground houses replaced pithouses, and it has been suggested that pithouses changed from dwellings to ceremonial chambers, now called kivas. Thousands of small sites associated with distinctive kinds of pottery are identified for this period, called Pueblo II.

    After A.D. 1150, the people in the Zuni region shifted affiliation away from Chaco, the major Anasazi ceremonial center in the north. As that civilization mysteriously collapsed, the people in the Zuni River drainage seemed to link more closely with people called Mogollon to the west and south in Arizona. This period, called Pueblo III, continued to be a time of many small pueblos.

    Then, between about A.D. 1250 and 1400, a major change in settlement patterns occurred in the Zuni area. People began to aggregate into large, well-planned, plaza-oriented communities ranging in size from 250 to 1,200 rooms. The consolidation of people is associated with intensified agricultural techniques, including irrigated terraces. Sophisticated water control supported the more concentrated populations. During this period, called Post-Chacoan, most communities elsewhere in the Southwest were abandoned, yet the population around Zuni grew; ruins of previous pueblos abound in the vicinity. What happened at Zuni?

    This period, the late thirteenth century A.D., is proposed as the probable time for the arrival of Japanese pilgrims—with new language, religion, and genes. If a freeze-frame could capture that event, I believe it would reveal an entourage of people from many backgrounds arriving and deciding this was the exact middle of the universe, and then commencing to build large pueblos, drawing in straggling survivors of the Anasazi civilization.

    Of course we have neither a photograph nor a written record of what happened and why such a consolidation occurred. But this is an unusually thoroughly studied area: Sophisticated tree-ring dating, dendrochronology, provides a rich record of when structures were built, and the timing, severity, and length of droughts; skeletal remains indicate significant physical changes in the population; measurements and excavations of ruins reveal major changes in settlement patterns; glaze on pottery suddenly appears.

    The archeologists state the present Zuni area was probably founded about A.D. 1350 and it is one of six pueblos reported by the Spanish when they arrived nearly two hundred years later.

THE SPANISH PERIOD: 1539 TO 1846

    The first Europeans to arrive in Zuni territory were Spaniards in search of "Seven Cities of Cibola" reported to be rich in gold and silver. The first, in 1539, was a black scout from Morocco named Esteban, who came in advance of Fray Marcos de Niza. Esteban offended the Zuni and was promptly killed; Fray Marcos hastened a quick retreat without actually entering any of the villages. The next year an expedition with several hundred armored horsemen under the command of Francisco Vásquez de Coronado explored the Zuni area and other pueblos, but withdrew in frustration in 1541 because no gold had been discovered. Six major villages were occupied at that time (see Map 3).

    Four decades later, Spaniards returned to establish mission stations among the Pueblo groups. The first Zuni mission was begun in 1629 at Hawikuh, one of the six named Zuni communities, and another church was added at Halona in 1632. In that same year two priests were killed by the Zunis of Hawikuh, temporarily halting Catholic efforts. Missionary activity may have begun again about 1660 at Hawikuh, but this time it was the Apaches who killed a priest.

    By 1680, Spanish exploitation, including attacks on religion, slavery, floggings, and hangings, became intolerable, and the Zuni joined the Pueblo revolt led by Popé, a Tewa Indian from the pueblo of San Juan to the east. All the pueblos joined the effort; missions were burned, priests killed, and the Spaniards expelled.

    The Zuni, who had occupied six villages until 1680, retreated to the top of Corn Mountain (Dowa Yalanne) during the revolt (see Figure 6). By 1692, when Spanish control was reestablished, the Zuni had consolidated into one community at Itiwanna, the true middle, also called Halona, the present location. They had been especially resistant to Spanish efforts at Christianization and kept their religion viable throughout this tumultuous period.

    Information is sketchy about mission activity after 1703, but we know that three Spanish exiles were killed during this early period by the Zuni. When Mexico threw off Spanish control in 1821, all the Spanish troops and missions packed up and left. Then the pueblos became exposed to new risks: raids by Navahos, Apaches, Comanches, and other Plains tribes.

THE AMERICAN PERIOD: 1846 TO 1950

    The Zuni had maintained their self-sufficiency and religious continuity for three centuries, despite Spanish, Navaho, and Mexican intrusion; very few converted to Catholicism. When the American period began in 1846, after the Mexican War, new boundaries were drawn; New Mexico became a territory of the United States in 1848. The next hundred years brought about rapid cultural changes and challenges as external contact intensified and accelerated.

    Beginning in the mid-nineteenth century, a stream of expeditions, missionaries, ethnologists, traders, and government officials arrived. Although few stayed, the disruption was significant: Epidemics lowered the population, and deep political factions developed over religious matters.

    Until 1934, the Zuni political system was directed by the religious leaders—rain priests, kiva officials, and the sun chief, who appointed the governor (see Figure 7). But the federal Indian Reorganization Act called for an elected council. A new tribal council was duly elected and installed by the established council of priests, and today religious leaders continue to be influential in secular decisions and serve as special advisors.

    World War II became a turning point in Zuni history, when over two hundred Zuni men left the pueblo for various military services. When they returned as veterans, they had a difficult time reentering the pueblo's social and religious structure, but by 1950 their influence in politics was shaping new developments in the economy, education, and community services. Women in this matrilineal but conservative tribe received the right to vote in 1965.

(Continues...)

Table of Contents

	Preface to the Paperback Edition	vii
	List of Illustrations	xi
	Acknowledgments	xv
	Foreword	xix
	Preface	xxiii
	Introduction	xxv
Chapter 1	Portrait of a Pueblo	3
Chapter 2	Search for the Middle of the World	21
Chapter 3	Links across the Desert	42
Chapter 4	Coasts and Currents	60
Chapter 5	Ships and Shoals	84
Chapter 6	Teeth and Bones, Blood and Disease	103
Chapter 7	Words and Wanderers	122
Chapter 8	Kinship and Kachinas: Cultural Consequences of Social Mergers	146
Chapter 9	Cosmology and Religion: Kokko and Kami	168
Chapter 10	The Chrysanthemum and the Sword Revisited	193
	Afterword	213
	Endnotes	217
	Bibliography	267
	Credits	295
	Index	299