ARIZONA HIGHWAYS

On First Mesa the Hopi women still make fine pottery,
with black or red bird and feather designs on a cream or yellow
background. On Second Mesa they weave coiled baskets and
on Third Mesa beautiful wicker plaques.

Southeast of the Hopi country, just over the border in
New Mexico, is the pueblo of Zuñi. There were six or seven
Zuñi towns when Coronado arrived in 1540, but they were
all abandoned before or during the Pueblo Revolt. Now there
is only Zuñi itself, established about 1695 near one of the
abandoned pueblos, and a few summer camps or farming
villages.

Zuñi and Hopi, the two westernmost of the pueblos, are
sometimes called the Desert Pueblos. They have always traded
back and forth and have many of the same customs. But their
inhabitants speak totally different languages. Zuñi pottery is
also different from that of the Hopi. Black and red designs,
often of deer or long-tailed birds, are painted on a white back-
ground. In recent years Zuñi silversmiths have become famous
for their fine jewelry.

Midway between the Desert Dwellers and the Rio Grande
are two other pueblos, Acoma and Laguna. Acoma stands on
top of a 400-foot-high mesa. It is one of the older towns,
occupying the same location it did when the Spaniards first
came. Laguna, a few miles to the east, is newer, founded just
after the Pueblo Revolt by refugees from the Rio Grande. The
inhabitants of these two towns speak Keresan, the language
of five other pueblos along the Rio Grande.

Up and down the Rio Grande Valley, from Taos 70 miles
north of Santa Fe to Isleta 12 miles south of Albuquerque,
the the sixteen present-day River Pueblos. By language, these
fall into four groups. The members of five pueblos, Zia, Santa
Ana, San Felipe, Santo Domingo, and Cochiti, speak Keresan,
the same language as do their relatives at Acoma and Laguna.

All of the other pueblos belong to one language division,
the Tanoan, but this in turn is divided into three languages
which are not intelligible to one another. At Santa Clara, San
Ildefonso, San Juan, Nambe, Pojoaque, and Tesuque the Tewa

CITIES from page 16

language is spoken. It is also spoken by the residents of Hano
in the Hopi country. The people of Taos, Picuris, Sandia, and
Isleta speak dialects of Tiwa. The last pueblo, Jemez, is the
only one today in which the Towa language is used.

Like their western cousins, the inhabitants of most of the
Rio Grande pueblos also make pottery. In general, each pueblo
has its traditional patterns and forms. The women of San Juan,
Santa Clara, and San Ildefonso are noted for their polished
red and polished black pottery. About forty years ago several
potters at San Ildefonso began to make highly polished black
jars with designs in dull black. This style became so popular
that it has spread to other pueblos.

Unlike the Hopi towns, these New Mexico pueblos are
not on reservations. The Hopi were never actually under
Spanish control and thus never received land from the Spanish
government. Not until 1882 was a reservation set aside for
them by the United States government.

But the New Mexican pueblos are on land which was
granted to them by the Spanish Crown nearly 300 years ago.
These grants were later confirmed and guaranteed by the
United States Congress. These Pueblo Indians are among the
few Indian groups in the United States who have title to their
land, instead of living on land owned by the federal govern-
ment and reserved for Indian use.

The Pueblo Indians are slowly increasing in numbers.
Today there are some 25,000 of them living in thirty-odd
towns and villages in Arizona and New Mexico.

The Atomic Age has come to the Southwest. Railroads
and highways crisscross the desert and mountains; giant planes
leave vapor trails across the blue sky. Cities and towns are
spreading out over the countryside. But all these signs of prog-
ress have touched the Pueblo Indian only lightly. Life still
goes on in the ancient pueblos much as it did a thousand years
ago. Painted and masked dancers still perform their age-old
ceremonies in the kivas. The Pueblo Indian rests serene in the
knowledge that he is still living in the center of the universe,
that his own gods still rule over his world.