To the Four Winds – Identities and Destinies on New Spain’s Far Northern Frontier: the Piro and Tiwa Provinces of New Mexico, c. 1540-1740.

Summary

The roughly 200 years from the Coronado expedition to the reoccupation of the Tiwa pueblo of Sandia (Na-fiat, Tuf Shur Tia) in the 1740s brought unprecedented challenges on two of the largest Puebloan groups, the southern Tiwas and their neighbors, the Piros. Although impact from Spanish encounters and other stressors varied, Piro and Tiwa pueblos were dramatically reduced in number at the time of the Pueblo Revolt of 1680. Decades after the Revolt, the Tiwa pueblos of Isleta (Tue-I) and Sandia were resettled by people of Tiwa and other native ancestry. The Piro pueblos remained abandoned, however, despite several Spanish schemes to revive them.

Using a series of archival and archaeological data, I aim to track some of the processes that affected Piros and Tiwas before and after the Pueblo Revolt, when the continued occupation of both their homelands hung in the balance. The question is: how did the Tiwas manage to save at least two of their pueblos while the Piros were permanently scattered? The repercussions of these processes are still felt by the descendant communities today – especially Piro descendants whose organizational structure lacks official recognition and whose collective memory of their Ancestral pueblos is tenuous.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 81st Annual Meeting, Orlando, FL (2016)   •
• "Changes in Latitudes, Changes in Attitudes": Transitions and Thresholds throughout Central America and Beyond

Keywords

Spatial Coverage