A Visit to the Zuni Pueblo

A church across the street from the museum.
The countryside where the Zuni Pueblo is located on the western side of New Mexico. This mesa is sacred.

These are the charms I bought from Stafford. One bear and two frogs. Bears when blessed are fetishes to bring good health to the owner of the fetish.

Stafford concentrating hard so that he does not make a mistake and have to start over. He is using soapstone here. Fetish makers use about every stone imaginable including many stones imported from many places around the world. They like the softer stones simply because it easier on their grinders and thus less expensive to produce a fetish.

This is Stafford working on the frog charms I bought. You can see his grinder is partially enclosed by a homemade cowling covered with some plastic. He is trying to keep the dust from flying all over and into the house. You see the tall plastic drink container. It gets hot at the Zuni Pueblo. Real hot.

The Zuni Museum. See this site if interested in many pictures showing the Zuni people all through the year. http://zunionline.com/photo07.html I like this site because we were only there for a few hours and caught only a glimpse, a moment in time, in the Zuni Pueblo.

The shape of the bread is typical of the Zuni. The flavor is reminiscent of sour dough. I bought bread at the Taos Pueblo and told the lady that we had earlier bought bread at the Zuni Pueblo. She turned up her nose and said, "Oh, that bread tastes like sourdough. This is good bread." There seems to be some jealousy between the Taos people and the Zuni people. I thought both breads were real good. Give me some cheese and wine and all bread tastes pretty good to me!

http://maps.google.com/maps?ie=UTF8&q=Zuni+Pueblo&ll=33.797409,-106.018066&spn=8.485466,14.0625&z=6 (Click on link to see a map locating the Zuni Pueblo) J and I were driving quite a long time traveling from Casa Grande, AZ, to Albuquerque, NM when we unexpectedly came upon the Zuni Pueblo. Unlike the other pueblos we visited there is no gate or visitors center where money is collected to drive or walk into the pueblo. A lady at the Taos Pueblo expressed a very low opinion of the Zunis because they do not control access to their pueblo. "They are even letting some Arab families live in the pueblo." We drove in and found the museum near the entrance. Paid our admission and took an hour or so to peruse the small museum, but nice displays and much to be learned of the Zuni history and of the controversial anthropologist Edward Curtis. See for more about Curtis: http://www.tfaoi.com/aa/4aa/4aa593.htm

When we finally arrived at our motel in Albuquerque it was about ten at night--a long day. And then after making reservations, they did not have our reservation. We found out about a month later that the lady at the central office for La Quinta had screwed up and told us one address and then put us in a different La Quinta motel in Albuquerque. We ended up getting a room okay, but the desk clerk was scrambling. The next day we we off to spend three nights at a WorldMark associate property in Sante Fe--very nice and within walking distance of the Plaza. J was thinking it was a long walk coming back, but she did fine. We really enjoyed the Geogia O'Keeffe Museum. http://www.okeeffemuseum.org/home.aspx I learned that she was a controversial figure in her day having posed nude for published photographs taken by her professional photographer husband.

After visiting the Zuni museum, J walked out the door and saw a man sitting on his back porch (talking real rustic, here) at a grinder making fetishes. (To us non-Indians, charms, because they have not been blessed by a medicine man or shaman) She asked him where to buy bread and he referred her next door to one of the pueblo houses. We are talking some seriously old housing now. You can see the two loaves of bread that she bought. That actually was our dinner that evening. You can see the ovens that our used by the pueblo people to bake their bread. Many pueblos have community ovens and one can see these ovens behind houses all over the SW. The ovens are called horno. Actually, these ovens have been adopted from the Spanish culture. See for more about hornos: http://www.cookingpost.com/bread.cfm

J suggested I go over and talk to the fetish maker. I did and ended up sitting down on a chair beside him for 45 minutes to watch him make some bear and frog fetishes. We had quite a conversation and I met his children. Turns out he is the straw boss for the Zuni Forest Fire Fighting Crew. Living in the West, I have heard of them . They are considered the best Hot Shot Crew in the U.S. His name is Safford Chimoni. He gave me his address and phone number and invited me to come back when they have some of their annual celebrations and he would take me around and explain what was going on and introduce me to other Zunis. I had told him that I teach Native American Studies. He liked that I was doing that. Actually, he had been in Idaho twice last summer because Idaho had an outrageous fire season. So far this year things have been pretty quiet until tonight when a grass fire on the outskirts of Boise got our of control with winds gusting to 50 mph causing ten houses to be totally destroyed and nine others burned. Anyway, Stafford is mentioned in two different books I bought about SW fetishes. He is considered a quality craftsman. I bought three charms for $60. He did not ask a price just let me pay him what I wanted. I hope it was about right. I feel badly about shorting any craftsman of the money they are due because they put so many hours in for so little return. But, I don't like to be cheated either.

Well, another lesson for the student of Native American cultures. I am not teaching this year so maybe that explains my need to do these posts. Besides it will help me remember our trip in future years when I look back on this post.

Time for bed,

Yeeeeeeeooooooowww... May the smoke blow in the other guys eyes...

Papa Coyote