While the popular stereotype of American Indians envisions them as a people whose primary sustenance came from hunting, in fact American Indians were successful farmers when the Europeans began their invasion of North America. This was particularly apparent in the Southwest where the Spanish called the Indians “Pueblos” in reference to their permanent agricultural villages.
In the Southwest, Indian farmers grew a variety of different crops, including maize (corn in American English), beans, squash, and cotton. Of these, maize was the most important food crop. Maize was not originally domesticated in the Southwest, rather its hearth (the location where it was first domesticated) is in Mexico. In his book House of Rain: Tracking a Vanished Civilization Across the American Southwest, Craig Childs reports:
“Corn—the rudiment of Southwest culture—was first cultivated in the Tehuacán Valley of Mexico about five thousand years ago. Derived from a tropical grass that still grows in Central America and southern Mexico, the domestic version known as Zea Mays reached the Southwest around the fourth millennium B.C.”
By 500 BCE, the agricultural revolution was well under way in the Southwest. In his book The Ice-Age History of Southwestern National Parks, Scott Elias reports:
“Agriculture revolutionized life-styles, because for the first time people had the luxury of a stable life in a permanent, settled location. With a reasonable harvest of corn and other crops in the fall, winter no longer had to be a time of living on a knife edge, balanced between starvation and survival.”
About 1150 CE, Indian people established the village (pueblo) of Acoma on a mesa top in New Mexico. The people of Acoma have been farmers for more than a thousand years and much of their life traditionally revolved around the problems and ceremonies associated with agriculture. Among Pueblo people corn (maize) was the most important crop and at one time it may have formed 80% of their diet.
Traditionally, all land at Acoma belonged to the cacique (chief) who then allocated land to those who asked for it. While the title to the land remained in the hands of the cacique, land belonged to those to whom it had been allocated. Land was transmitted, as a rule, from mother to daughter, but if there were no daughters, then a son could inherit. Like many other agricultural peoples in North America, the people of Acoma are matrilineal: that is, individuals belong to their mother’s clan.
At Acoma, the cacique was traditionally chosen from the Antelope clan. Thus, leadership did not pass from father to son.
When a garden or field was no longer being used, then the cacique could assign it to someone else.
There were also 10-15 acres of land at Acoma which was communal and worked by all of the people of Acoma under the direction of the war chief. The crops from this land were allocated to communal purposes.
As with agricultural peoples around the world, at Acoma and the other Southwestern Pueblos, there was a careful observation of the sky to determine the transition between seasons. These transitions, such as solstices and equinoxes, were often marked with ceremonies.
The winter solstice is an important time as the sun may delay its return north unless the appropriate ceremonies are performed. In Acoma, the entire community traditionally participated in sun-related activities on the day of the winter solstice.
According to Pueblo tradition, at the summer solstice the sun is stationary for four days, that is, it appears to rise and set at the same place on the horizon. According to astronomer Ray Williamson, in his book The Living Sky: The Cosmos of the American Indian:
“The summer solstice is a time of ritual dances for the Pueblo, part of the object being to celebrate the turning of the sun and to encourage him to remain northward and high in the sky for a long period in order to provide warmth and light for the crops.”
In addition to the sun, Pueblo people also paid attention to the moon, marking not only the 29.5-day cycle, but also the longer 18.61-year cycle. The longer cycle, which is based on the lunar standstill, requires tracking the rising of the full moon on the horizon. Gradually the moon rises farther north, then returns to the south. Craig Child writes:
“At the winter solstice during the standstill, the full moon reaches its highest possible position in the sky, and during the summer solstice it reaches its lowest possible position.”
Indians 101
Twice each week, Indians 101 explores American Indian topics.
Indians 101: The Southwestern Culture Area
Indians 101: Pueblo Indian Pottery
Indians 101: Hopi Political Organization
Indians 101: Pueblo Clowns
Indians 201: The Pueblo Revolt of 1680
Indians 101: The Hopi and the Spanish
Indians 101: Acoma Pueblo and the Spanish, 1539-1599
Indians 101: The Zuni and the Spanish in the 16th Century