12,000 years of hunting, gathering, raising, growing, cooking, marketing &
Eating in New Mexico: Apache, Navajo, Pueblo

Apaches | Navajo/Dine | Pueblos

Apaches

"Jicarilla Apache Trading Post" by Laverne Nelson Black

About the Apaches and their Food Traditions

The Apache Nation of tribes are further divided into divisions called bands and clans. There are five Apache reservations. Famous Apache chiefs and medicine men include Geronimo, Cochise, Victorio, Santos, Juh, Nahche, Nakaidoklini, and Mangas Coloradas.

The Apache call themselves N'de, Dinë, Tinde, or Inde, which all mean "the people." They were first mentioned as Apaches by Oñate in 1598, although Coronado, in 1541, met the Querechos (the Vaqueros of Benavides, and probably the Jicarillas and Mescaleros of modern times) on the plains of east New Mexico and west Texas. There is no evidence that the Apache reached Arizona until after the middle of the 16th century. The Yavapai and Apache were the last Indians to be subdued in the Southwest.

Most Apaches were nomadic and lived almost completely off the buffalo. Some Apache tribes had a long history in what is now Texas. Western Apaches living near the Pueblo Indians became farmers. They once planted and grew maize, beans, pumpkins, and watermelons, but the Comanches would attack them in their fields and they were eventually forced to move westward further into New Mexico and Arizona. They used dogs as beasts of burden, and were the first Indians, after the Pueblos, to acquire and use horses.

"Although the Western Apache engaged in subsistence farming, their economy was based primarily on the exploitation of a wide variety of natural resources by hunting and gathering. It is estimated that agricultrual products made up only 25% of all the food consumed in a year, the reamiing 75% being a combination of meat and undeomesticated plants. Because they could not rely on crops throughout the year, the Western Apache did not establish permanent residences in any one place. In fact, except for early spring, when there was planting to be done, and early fall, the time of harvest, they were almost constantly on the move.

In May the people deserted low-altitude winter camps in the Salt and Gila River valleys and treked overland to farm sites in the White Mountains. Here they seeded small plots (generally about a half acre in size) or corn, beans and squash. Once this was finished, large gathering parties set out in search of saguaro fruit, the prickly pear and the Apache staple mescal (agave).

Older people unwilling to make the trek, the disabled and a few children remained behind to cultivate the fields.

Acorn and mesquite beans wee collected in July and August and by September the fruit of the sapnish bayonet (Yucca baccata) was ready for picking. In the early fall the Apache returned to their farm sites, harvested their crops, and spent most of October and November gathering pinyon nuts and juniper berries. As the food was brought in, it was either eaten on the spot or stored in baskets for the months ahead. Hunting was best in the late fall, and it was not until a good supply of game had been secured that they moved again towards their winter camp, thus completing the annual cycle. (Source: Keith Basso The Cibecue Apache, NY, Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1970)

Read this description of an Apache woman's life

Navajo (Dine)

Navajo or Diné (pronounced [d?n?], meaning The People in Navajo) refers to the Navajo people, currently the largest Native American tribe in North America, with about 300,000 members. The Navajo Nation's reservation encompasses the Four Corners region of northern Arizona, southern Utah, and northern New Mexico.

"Traditional Navajo Foods and Lifestyle Bring Health and Strength"
Reprinted from Indian Country Today By Brenda Norrell


SHIPROCK, NM -- Seated on the edge of his pickup load of steamed and roasted corn, Dennison Benally enjoys the sweet life of a Navajo summer day.

Surrounded by his family, he talks easily of roasting corn in its husks, fresh from the cornfields, in the family's outdoor kiln-style oven made of rocks.

It is this corn, naadaa, a gift of the Holy People, which nourished Navajos through the ages.

When Navajo came from the Four Worlds, they were without food so the turkey shook himself and kernels of corn fell from under his wings.

Thanksgiving card, 1930's USA

Navajo elder Kenneth Foster said the Navajo Creation story tells how Changing Woman, the first Navajo woman, was transformed into a sacred being. Corn meal was used for the blessing. When Mother Earth gave birth to Monster Slayer and Son of Waters, the twins journeyed to their father the sun. They were told that they had come from the "land of growing corn and rain."

Before his death, Navajo elder Howard McKinley, who lived to be nearly 100 years old, recalled how corn pollen was used in ceremonies and corn silk was used for healing teas. Navajo women sang corn grinding songs as they ground corn on grinding stones. Parched corn was ground together with pinons for nut butter similar to peanut butter.

McKinley remembered picking wild yucca bananas and wild potatoes. He remembered how blocks of frozen water from Blue Canyon were stored as chunks of ice for summer months in cut-rock houses near his home in Tse Ho Tso (Meadow between the rocks) known as Fort Defiance, Arizona.

"People wouldn't be getting cancer today if they were still eating the wild foods," McKinley said. He served as a tribal councilman most of his life and traveled with Annie Wauneka, who became a legend, encouraging Navajos to adopt safer health practices in the fight against tuberculosis.

When McKinley saw Navajo elderly being served corn dogs on a napkin, he helped revolutionize Navajo food programs in the mid-20th century.

It was called "the corn dog harvest" in Washington.

McKinley, a storyteller, received a master's degree and always walked long distances. If he needed to go to Albuquerque, about 175 miles away, he would just start out walking, sleeping in trees to avoid coyotes. While sharing stories on the front porch of his home, he credited his long life to walking and laughter.

Just down the road from McKinley's home in Fort Defiance, Louva Dahozy and her daughter Katherine Arviso launched innovative projects for decades; proving traditional Navajo foods are healthier than modern diets packed with fat, sugar and salt.

Arviso, while director of the tribe's Navajo Food and Nutrition department, led a scientific study of traditional foods, which revealed the secrets of ancient Navajo foods. Among those, the ash made from burning juniper needles, cooked in blue corn meal mush, is an amazing source of calcium and minerals.

Blue corn meal mush with juniper ash (Taa niil) has 802 mg of calcium in one cup, compared to 2.4 mg of the same amount without ash (Toshchiin.) Minerals were also found in Navajo edible white clay, grey clay, tumbleweed ash and Zuni Lake salt.

The study showed that ash was superior to baking soda in boiled hominy corn. The ash added calcium and Vitamin A, while the baking soda added sodium which can increase hypertension.

Dried foods, stored for winter, were analyzed including dried yellow squash and zucchini squash and watermelon, good sources of vitamins and minerals. The study revealed high sources of protein and iron in mutton blood sausage, liver and heart.

Traditional Navajo "creamer" made from ground corn offered protein, fiber, calcium, magnesium and iron. Wild greens were very high in Vitamin A. One half cup of Navajo spinach "waa" (Cleome serulatum) contained four times the recommended daily allowance for Vitamin A.

Chiilchin, sumac berries, were found high in Vitamin C. Roasted pinons offer protein, potassium, magnesium, iron and zinc.

The yucca bananas from the Yucca Bacata, wide bladed yucca, are nutritious, sweet and delicious.

Banana yucca fruit (photo by Mimi Kamp)

The ripe fruit was eaten fresh or prepared for winter. The pulp from the wild banana fruits was either scraped and baked on a hot rock or the fruits were baked in a bowl in hot coals. The baked fruit was sometimes made into a roll, with a hole pushed through the center to allow air to circulate. A piece of the dried roll could be cut and added to corn meal mush.

Yucca was used in many ways. The center blades were used to make "gazoo" cheese by mixing the blades with goat's milk. The blades were used for making brushes or as a combination needle and thread. The roots were prized as natural soap and shampoo.

Food clay or dleesh to Navajos, was mixed with wild potato or tomatillo berry to counteract the tart and astringent taste. Mixed with the box thorn, it became a remedy for upset stomachs.

Before the days of mutton, brought by the Spaniards, and fry bread, ingredients brought by the cavalry and traders, Navajo traditional foods were wild plants and game. During times of hunger, wild grass seeds were gathered and ponies were eaten.

Dahozy points out Navajos grew strong and healthy on the wild foods and game. Long before the days of fast foods, canned foods, and frozen foods Navajos gathered and hunted their foods.

A soldier at Fort Sumner watches Navajo and Apache prisoners as they await food rations.
(NM State Monuments photo)

After the turn of the century, trading posts sold the first canned and processed foods and soft drinks.

"Navajo traditional foods are not the white flour and greasy foods that traders brought to the reservation," Dahozy said.

Source for this article

Traditional Navajo foods as a food pyramid

Kinaalda Ceremony and Sun Cake

Dine family helps prepare "alkaan" cake. (photo source)

"A Navajo girl, upon reaching the age of 13 and experiencing her first menstrual period becomes initiated into womanhood by a beautiful 4-day ritual entitled the Kinaalda, which is part of the Navajo Blessing Way Ceremony. The Kinaalda literally translates "puberty ceremony," and this term is interchangeable with both the girl and the ceremony."

"Throughout this celebration will be the Kinaalda, her family, and members of her society who are all considered participants and helpers. Kinaalda's duties in action include grinding corn, racing, preparing a cake called 'alkaan,' and these activities are repeated during the day, almost every day. She undergoes body moldings, hair washings and combings by a chosen female aid who will be a lifetime companion who can instruct the girl on proper behavior and procedures. The aide reflects the Kinaalda's intention that the ceremony be one of sharing and caring for others."

"The circle is always emphasized in this ceremony. It symbolizes the sun, the cycles of the year and of life. She runs in a large circle. She runs towards the east and turns sunwise to return. Other children usually run with Kinaalda and they are blessed by their involvment. They yell out a Kinaalda shout to call attention to Changing Woman, the sun, and Talking God."

"Cake: the 'alkaan,' made from the ground corn, is also circular and represents the sun. It is baked in circular pit, dug outdoors, especially for the ritual and it is baked according to the passage of the sun. On the top of the cake corn pollen is sprinkled to the four directions in a specific order. The bottom and top of the cake have a circular pattern of corn husks. When the cake is cut it is also done in a circular, sunwise direction, the first piece being cut from the east."

Much of the Kinaalda coming of age ceremony centers around making a cake in the earth. These pictures of the process are from the book Kinaalda: A Navajo Girl Grows Up with text and photos by Monty Roessel, Lerner Publications, Minneapolis, 1998.

Top row left to right: each Navajo girl first grinds the corn meal and stirs the batter, while her family helps dig and prepare the cake pit. Second row, right to left: a ring of sewn corn husks lines the bottom and top of the cake, batter is poured and corn meal is sprinkled on top. Bottom row, left to right: the cake is cooked with an open fire, after it cools the cake is cut in hunks and served to family and guests in the hogan.

"The people enter and sit in the hogan in a sunwise direction and are seated in a circle. Corn pollen is passed around, in a circle, and used with special motions to signify its powers of fertility, nourishment, beauty and harmony. As each person receives it they enact a blessing with it. A bit is pinched with the fingers and put on the person's tongue. Then the person touches the top of their head with the pollen and then it is sprinkled in the air in front of themselves. All people perform these same motions. The action becomes a movement within a rhythm."

Read the full report here.

Video of some of the Kinaalda ceremonies including making the care are here.

Navajo Fry Bread

"Out of the Frying Pan" by Tantri Wija in The New Mexican, August 16, 2006

It may be a cliché to say that wherever one finds North American Indians, one finds frybread, but it isn’t necessarily untrue.

Whether or not one believes the simple fried dough has a genuine place in a tribe’s traditions, almost every Native American gathering features the soft, often sugar-dusted dough.

The role of frybread in American Indian culture dates to the second half of the 19th century, when tribes forced to move to reservations were given “commodities” — or government rations — consisting largely of flour and lard. With these unfamiliar, limited and nutrition-poor ingredients, they created frybread and adopted it as a dietary staple.

According to Joyce Begay-Foss, the director of education at the Museum of Indian Arts & Culture, “(Frybread) was a survival food that came out of being rounded up and put in captivity and given commodities that (American Indians) weren’t used to having. (The government) even gave them coffee beans, and they weren’t used to coffee. It made them sick.

“They struggled to figure out what to do with flour and lard and things that they weren’t used to eating,” Begay-Foss, a Navajo, said. “And that totally changed their diet.”

Most cultures have some version of a simple fried dough; frybread is not all that different from a doughnut, a beignet, a sopaipilla, a buñuelo, a johnnycake or a poori, for example.

Indian frybread also is similar to the fried dough that American settlers ate while crossing the prairie on their way west. In John Steinbeck’s novel The Grapes of Wrath, the impoverished, itinerant Okies eat fried dough for every meal.

Frybread also has become popular in the larger American culture. The Cheesecake Factory — a national casual-dining chain — has frybread on its menus, and one can sometimes find it, dressed up in truffles or gourmet chocolate, among the selections of some of the pricier restaurants around town. Ironically, even the government has officially recognized frybread: It was named the state bread of South Dakota in 2005.

Though eating fried dough is not unique to American Indians, many permutations of the dish are distinctively Native. In New Mexico, for example, one can order a Navajo burger — a burger folded in frybread — and Navajo or Indian tacos — frybread topped with beans, cheese, lettuce, meat and other savory fillings. The replacement of the tortilla with the round frybread is distinctive to Southwestern tribes.

Health controversy

What is also uniquely Native is frybread’s role in the history — past and present — of the people who consume it. Indian frybread has lately come under fire for its unhealthiness as well as its cultural implications.

In her January 2005 article in Indian Country Today, American Indian activist Susan Harjo asked her fellow Indians to abstain from frybread because it contributes to the high obesity rates on reservations and, as she put it, gives the impression of Natives as “simple-minded people who salute the little grease bread and get misty-eyed about it.”

Harjo is referring to frybread’s origins as a product of government rations, implying that by continuing to consume frybread every day, Americans Indians are perpetuating the indignities thrust upon them in the past.

“If frybread were a movie, it would be hard-core porn,” Harjo writes. “No redeeming qualities. Zero nutrition.”

Not everyone would agree with Harjo.

Lois Ellen Frank, author of the award-winning cookbook Foods of the Southwest Indian Nations, is part Kiowa and a doctoral candidate in cultural anthropology at The University of New Mexico. Frank has been doing extensive research on foods, especially the connection between food and culture in American Indian society.

“Frybread has really an interesting history,” Frank said, “and from a Native American perspective, it’s split.

“On one side they love frybread, they cook it every day, and they consider it a traditional food. (So) I would say yes, it is traditional from the perspective that it’s been around for 150 years.”

But there’s now a second wave of reaction to frybread that Frank calls the “resistance.”

“Because diabetes is rampant — as high as 90 percent on some reservations, primarily Type II — the diet has deviated so far from its origins that people are very concerned,” Frank said.

She also points out that frybread has become symbolic of some Native health problems even if it’s not necessarily the primary cause of those conditions.

“My prediction,” Frank said, “is we’re going to see frybread become iconic. There used to be T-shirts that said ‘Frybread power.’ Now there are T-shirts with a red circle with a line through it (meaning) ‘No frybread.’ We want to be healthy.”

The reintroduction of traditional foods such as cacti, beans, corn and pinocha, as well as an increase in activity associated with farming those foods, could be key to turning the American Indian diabetes epidemic around, Frank said.

“When you reintroduce traditional food,” she said, “it brings back all the culture associated with the indigenous food, which is as vitally important as the food itself. Not only is the food important from a health standard, but all the group activities have been given new life, things that have almost disappeared — a renewal of old traditions that have cultural importance.”

Navajo Sheep

Navajo weaver with her sheep and hogan. (photo by William Pennington)

Sheep to us mean life, for this animal gives us many things. Their meat gives us food, their wool gives us clothes, blankets and other cloth, and their skins give us warm blankets and pads to sleep on. Without this animal our lives would be poor. Since the 15th century most families have had sheep. It is not so any more. We also have sheep dogs. They know how to keep the sheep together and move them from one grazing spot to another. They also protect the sheep from predators.

Sheep must be cared for. They can't take care of themselves. In times past, wolves, coyotes, mountain lions and bear would have eaten them. Sheep often spend their summers in the low lands, such as in the Canyon De Chelle. In the winter months they are moved up on the rim of the canyon. There is more food for the sheep up on the open plain. In the spring of the year the sheep are sheared of their wool. The wool is then given to the women for washing, carding, spinning, dyeing and weaving.

Sheep in corral near Shiprock, NM (photo)

We build circular corrals out of poles to put the sheep in at night to protect them from predators. Inside this corral is a very small corral for the lambs, protecting them from the press of the sheep. In the mornings they are released and put out into the pastures. Because of the good sheep dogs we don't have to watch the sheep all the time ourselves. They spend the day out on the pastures and at night the sheep are brought back into the corral.

When we butcher a sheep for food we catch it and tie it up to a pole. We take a sharp knife, lay the sheep's neck down on a pole and quickly cut it's throat so it will not suffer. As the sheep bleeds, we catch it's blood. After the sheep has died, we hang it by it's hind feet in a tree and skin and clean it. After it has been skinned, we lay it on a large outside working table and cut it up. During this process the fat is cut off and put by itself. It will later be wrapped in whatever intestine is left over, cooked and eaten.

Janene Yazzie dresses out her sheep Tuesday at the Navajo Nation Fairgrounds in Window Rock during the traditional events portion of the Miss Navajo Nation contest. [Photo by Jeremy Schneider/Independent]

The blood is made into a wurst. The stomach and intestines are carefully washed out and are filled with chopped up potatoes. Then the blood is poured in. After it is full, the top of the stomach or intestine is tied off, sealing the bag. It is then boiled in water until it is completely cooked through. This is then eaten by cutting off a slice and putting it with the meal.

The meat of the sheep is eaten, usually within a couple of days. What the immediate family doesn't need is given to the extended family. Sometimes, if there is meat left over, it will be cut into thin strips and dried. This will take several days. After it is dried, it is hammered until it is pulverized into individual strands of meat. This can be stored and eaten like this, or reconstituted in soups. In this pulverized form it reconstitutes quickly in water.

Read the full report here.

Read the an article about the sheep butchering feature of the Miss Navajo Pageant here.

Mutton Stew

Navajo Mutton Stew t-shirt design (left); mutton stew eater (right)

Here's a recipe

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Pueblos

Pueblo women: parching corn (left) drawing by Maurus Chino
Pueblo woman with traditional foods, corn and squash (painting by Oscar Berninghaus)

 

The Pueblo People are a diverse group of Native American inhabitants of New Mexico and Arizona who traditionally subsisted on agriculture. When first encountered by the Spanish in the 1500s, they were living in villages that the Spanish called Pueblos, meaning "towns". Of the approximately 25 pueblos that exist today, Taos, Acoma, Zuñi, and Hopi are the best-known.

Eggan (1950) in contrast, posed a dichotomy between Eastern and Western Pueblos, based largely on subsistence differences with the Western or Desert Pueblos of Zuñi and Hopi dry-farmers, and the Eastern or River Pueblos irrigation farmers.

 

Linguistic differences between the Pueblos point to their diverse origins. The Hopi language is Uto-Aztecan; Zuñi is a language isolate; Keresan is a dialect continuum that includes Acoma, Laguna, Santa Ana, Zia, Cochiti, Santo Domingo, San Felipe. The Tanoan is an areal grouping of three branches of the Kiowa-Tanoan family consisting of 6 languages: Jemez (Towa), Tewa (San Juan, San Ildefonso, Santa Clara, Tesuque, Nambe, Pojoaque, and Hano); and the 3 Tiwa languages Taos, Picuris, and Southern Tiwa (Sandia, Isleta).

Historically, they supported themselves mostly by maize agriculture, although they live in one of the more arid regions in North America. European settlement began in the late sixteenth century, but the desert surrounding the Rio Grande Valley precluded massive intrusions into Indian land until the mid-nineteenth century. As a result and despite forced conversions to Catholicism by the Spanish, the Pueblo tribes have been able to maintain much of their traditional lifestyle. There are now some 35,000 Pueblo Indians, living mostly in New Mexico and Arizona along the Rio Grande and Colorado River. Learn more about Pueblo peoples here.

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About Pueblo Feast Days

Meet the Pueblo People -- Respectfully by Dea Adria Mallin Cultural Travels.com

The drums have been beating hypnotically for hours – about as long as the 110° sun has been beating down on dancer and observer alike in the pueblo plaza. Filaments of dancing Pueblo Indian men, women, and children thread slowly up and down the plaza in the ritual patterns of the Corn Dance in this centuries-old tradition.

Now the koshari – the sacred “clown” men who deliver serious messages to their people, their gargantuan bodies painted in black and white stripes and arrayed with straw and bells – emerge from the kiva holding the requisite chunks of watermelon.

A few tourists point at the bulging painted bellies above the loincloth and to the koshari faces scarfing up the watermelon and spitting seeds in trickster mode, while other tourists begin to clap or to laugh loudly. “Hey, Joe, get that with the camera!” shouts one, as several others raucously clamber up the ladder of a private home to get a better view for themselves.

What’s wrong with this picture of a Pueblo Feast Day, open to the public? Sadly, too much. Although the idea of entertainment is ingrained in the American psyche, it is important not to mix up a Native American feast day, or even the pueblo itself on an ordinary day, with Disneyworld.

Says Calvin Tafoya, former director of the New Mexico Indian Tourism Program, “Tourism can have dramatic effects on a culture, and it is easy to cross the exploitation line.”

With the popularity of travel to New Mexico and the Southwest, many visitors are arriving at Indian pueblos without an understanding of appropriate etiquette. The people of the pueblos invite visitors onto their sacred land and ask simple respect for the ancient ways. Each pueblo has its own regulations, each posts signs stating them, and each maintains a pueblo office where, except at ceremonial days, guests should register before walking around the homes, church, or kiva. All too often, this is ignored by the deliberate and the accidental tourist.

While everyday life at the pueblo can be quiet to the point of a hush, celebration days draw large crowds. Yet a Feast Day has entirely different rules than the much noisier Pow Wow like the one in Gallup, NM. Yes, I met the tribal people in Gallup, but I met them differently. The Pow Wow is a social gathering, intent on enjoyment. But the Buffalo Dance at San Ildefonso, or the Elk Dance at Nambe, or the Corn Dance at Santo Domingo or Santa Clara? These are days of pure spiritual resonance.

To the uninformed, there may seem to be only sound and random movement, when actually there is the concentrated peace of the tribe members’ prayerful dance steps, their hearts and minds at one with Mother Earth, Father Sky, the drumbeat, and their ancestors.

I have attended the Corn Dance at Santo Domingo for fourteen of the past seventeen years, so I have observed the 4-year-olds -- in deep concentration as they moved their little feet in attentive alignment with the drums, the chanting, and the steps of those in front of them -- turn into young adults. And each year there are new 4-year-olds growing into the ancient ways.

I was lucky to have had a Pueblo Indian tell me, on the day before my first Feast Day, that I should bring lots of water, a hat and an umbrella to provide shade, maybe a folding chair to sit on, money to buy watermelon juice and Indian foods, and that I should stay the entire time. Most tourists take a look at the dancers and the drummers, catch a bit of the ritual, walk to the area with crafts and food, get too hot, and leave. Staying all day and remaining quiet and observant allows me to experience the sanctity, the suspension of time, and the hypnotic repetitions that bind the community in their hopes for a good harvest.

Feast Day visitors often ask, “When does it start?” or “When does it end?” As my brother used to say, irreverently, when it was his turn to do the dishes, “I’ll do them when the spirit moves me.” There are approximate starting and ending times, but again, visitors should not think of this day as “performance.”

Because the day is more akin to a church service than a spectator event, even talking is inappropriate. Laughing, pointing, clapping, taping, asking questions, sketching, and photographing (except in rare instances) are also inappropriate. Only when the concentration of participants and spectators is unbroken can the ceremony be experienced fully – and not as trophy cocktail party talk.

For the Native American family, preparations for a Feast Day are extensive and expensive; for a poor family, the cost is considerable. Mounds of chile stews, hot pou (oven bread), fry bread, posole, and tamales are part of the orderly chaos as family members and friends crowd the plaza and the adobe dwellings.

Unless invited, and preferably in advance, tourists should not invade a family space, particularly since there are booths with plenty of foods and native crafts outside the ceremony and dwelling area. Unfortunately, tourists do not always make the necessary distinctions. Some of the houses on the plaza were once ceremonial buildings and are considered to be spiritual pathways for Indian beliefs. Too often, visitors can be seen climbing the ladders to the flat adobe roofs to get a better view or walking into the homes of those families who live on the plaza where the dancing occurs. Here, they have been known to smoke cigarettes, eat the food on the tables, and walk out. Because the Indians are taught to be hospitable, polite, and generous, and because the communal spirit is at the center of the celebration, the Indian families say nothing. But responsibility falls on the guest who should observe the rules for privacy that he would insist upon in his own house.

Remember, too, that if the adobe houses on the plaza have sitting ledges, during a ceremony they are for the elderly and not the tourists. At one reservation, cushions had been set out on all the ledges, and while most of the visitors politely refrained from using them, some scooted over to the cushions, shouting, “Hey! Come over here! I’ve got seats!” That left the grandmothers and the grandfathers (among the Pueblos, the elderly are addressed as “Grandmother” and “Grandfather” and accorded the full respect of longevity and acquired wisdom) standing up.

If you visit on an ordinary day at one of New Mexico’s nineteen pueblos, be aware that each tribe is trying to strike a balance as it brings tourists to its doorsteps. Visitors often misinterpret what they see before them, thinking, for example, that an unpaved road means squalor. To the Indian, nature is the great teacher, and he needs to touch the earth, literally. So the road is not paved, and the Indian may go barefoot or wear moccasins or sneakers.

Also, to the untutored, an adobe house may not look like McMansion, but it has worked for centuries, long before America as we know was even a glimmer. On a visit to Cochiti, I got out of my air-condition car to walk to a friend’s adobe house and nearly melted before I reached the door. Yet upon entering the house, I was as cool as I’d been in my rental car with the AC on high. Adobe is not poor; it’s high-tech!

There has always been much to learn from America’s Indian tribes, who, from the beginning, shared everything with the newcomers to their lands -- though not always with good results since Western European notions of property and ownership conflicted with the Indians who gave the settlers such words as “consensus.” In an interview with Lakota Chief Oren Lyons, Bill Moyers commented regretfully that Western man took the land and the corn and gave the Indian “firewater” and disease and confinement on reservations in return. Lyons answered slowly and thoughtfully. “Yes,” he said. “But we’re still here. And I’m still a chief.”

If you will be visiting the Southwest, clip and save these etiquette guidelines prepared by the Eight Northern Indian Pueblos Council of New Mexico:

--Each pueblo has its own laws governing the use of cameras (still, movie, video, digital, or cell), sketching, and painting on location. Most pueblos require a permit. Even with a permit, ask for permission before photographing any person, and offer a small donation for the privilege. Remember that cameras and film can be confiscated.
--Drive slowly. Children and pets play near the roads and are not accustomed to fast-moving vehicles on their quiet lands.
--Prohibition laws on most pueblos forbid the carrying or use of alcohol, drugs, and firearms.
--Silence is mandatory during all pueblo ceremonies. This means no questions about ceremonies or dances while they are underway, no follow-up interviews, no walking across the dance plaza, and no applauding after the dance or ceremony. Also, respect the fact that some subject matter is not for public knowledge.
--Kivas and ceremonial rooms are restricted to use by pueblo members only. Cemeteries are sacred burial grounds and are off-limits to non-pueblo members.
--Do not attempt to scale the walls of adobe structures or climb on top of buildings; the old walls have withstood centuries of wind, snow, and rain, but may crumble under hiking boots.
-- Nature is sacred on the pueblos, so littering is naturally taboo.

About the Feast Preparation

"Picuris Pueblo: Bountiful banquet" byShannon Shaw| The New Mexican August 9, 2006

Aromas of sweet prune pies, Pueblo Indian cookies and bread filled the Gaussoin house in Santa Fe on Monday as family and friends prepared for the Picuris Pueblo Feast Day on Thursday.

The group members started cooking early because they had invited more than 300 people to their home at Picuris to sit "family style" around the dinner table Thursday and eat red and green chile, posole, chicos with beef, green bean and cabbage stew, potato salad, ham and desserts, said Connie Tsosie Gaussoin, matriarch of the Gaussoin family and a renowned jeweler.

"We never turn anyone away who comes to our house to eat," Gaussoin said. "Sometimes when outsiders come they expect to be seated first, but everyone has to wait their turn. We host a very eclectic group that can be made up of people from the opera world to jewelers to educators."

All 19 pueblos in the state have a feast day. The first feast of the year is held at San Ildefonso Pueblo, and the last one is at Pojoaque Pueblo.

Picuris Pueblo was one of the few to choose its own saint, said David Gaussion, one of Connie's sons. Pueblo members embraced St. Lawrence because he gave riches to the poor, and Picuris was a poor pueblo at the time, David said. St. Lawrence was also the patron saint of cooking and received his martyrdom by being slowly burned to death on a gridiron.

At the Gaussoin house, family members baked the pies, cookies and bread in an horno in the backyard. "The horno is one of the most important cooking tools we have," Connie said.

Loaves of bread were on the kitchen table, and stacks of pueblo Indian cookies, called tsu-tsu in Picuris, lined the counters. Connie's sister, Desbah Tsosie; her sons, David and Wayne Nez Gaussoin; and daughter, Tazbah, and a friend had been mixing dough since late Sunday.

Feast Day for many pueblo families is a chance to see relatives who moved away, become rejuvenated from the pressures of the outside world and honor long traditions, David said. As they mixed dough, he and his siblings talked about how they used to watch their mother and aunt do all of the cooking, he said. Feast days were established by the Spanish who first came here, said Walter Dasheno, a former Santa Clara Pueblo governor. "They established churches as their primary contact with the Indian communities throughout New Mexico. The Indian communities have kept alive the Spanish missions established, so each year on particular dates, they honor patron saints of their communities."

The Picuris Feast Day begins with a morning Mass, Connie said. After mass, the pueblo will hold traditional foot races in which men race barefoot. "It's a hard race to run," David said. Afterward, everyone will eat and get ready for the basket dance, a social dance in which everyone participates. Picuris also has a pole climb, similar to the one at Taos Pueblo.

Soon the Gaussoin family will pack up everything they have prepared to take it to Picuris for their guests. They will use the original wood-burning stove that was left by Connie's mother and aunt and cook the remaining foods for the feast.

"From watching my mother and aunt all these years, they taught us how to do this and carry on our traditions because it's very important that we continue," Connie said. "It's a lot of hard work, and the next generation just has to be strong and keep going."

Contact Shannon Shaw at 995-3837 or sshaw@sfnewmexican.com

Pueblo Feast Days Calendar 2006

Pueblo Indian Cultural Center restaurant

"Driving Cross-Country For A Tiwa Taco"
Reprinted by permission from Indian Country Today By Brenda Norrell


ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. -- When the doors flung open at the Indian Pueblo Cultural Center restaurant, a tourist rushed in and exclaimed, "I've driven all the way from Minnesota for this food!"

Tourists, however, aren't the only ones driving cross-country for the Tiwa tacos, blue corn enchiladas, bread pudding and new line of low-carb, mouth-watering entrees at the Pueblo Harvest Cafe.

Burt Wilson, Navajo head cook and assistant manager, said he learned to cook in Gallup, N.M. "They wanted their mutton and blue corn meal mush," Wilson said of the Navajo elderly in the nursing homes where he learned his craft.

"But I didn't learn how to make fry bread until I got here. It's not as easy as it looks."

Now, he's dishing up the in-demand Tiwa taco. It's the Tiwa version of an Indian taco, beginning with one-quarter piece of fry bread topped with beans and the fixings - pinto beans, shredded lettuce, chopped tomato and grated cheese. Then, it's topped with another quarter piece of fry bread.

"That's what we call a Tiwa taco."

The secret of the Tiwa taco is in the maker of the fry bread dough, Acoma Pueblo's Zelda Chaplin. She has the touch. Serious fry bread eaters ask for her by name. "We let Zelda make the dough. Some people come in and ask, 'Is Zelda here today?'" Wilson said.

Blue corn enchiladas and the Navajo favorite mutton stew are the latest additions to the menu.

As for mutton stew, Wilson said, "It's a little more popular than I thought it would be."

Although the bread pudding is prized, when the platters and posole bowls are finished, Wilson said, "Not a lot of people go for desserts because they feel so full when they leave here." Wrapped individually are Pueblo sweets - cinnamon sugar cookies known as biscochitos and prune pies - for visitors to take home.
Read the full report here.

Here are links to the different Pueblos and information on their feast days.

Continue to the next part of the exhibit about
the Spanish and Mexican colonial food heritage of NM.

New Mexican Cuisine	NM Food Heritage Home	NM Food Heritage Sites
First New Mexicans Foods	Spanish & Mexican Colonial	Territorial & Statehood
Santa Fe Food Heritage	Albuquerque Food Heritage	Las Cruces Food Heritage