Anshe Ky’an’a and Zuni Traditions of Movement

Summary

After the Zuni people emerged into this present world from Ribbon Falls in the Grand Canyon, they set out on a centuries-long journey in search of their spiritual and physical destination, Idiwana. During their travels, the Zuni people split into groups and moved in different directions, forming medicine societies, acquiring song and prayers, and gaining knowledge about the environment that would become the core of their cultural practices into the present. As such, the places of Zuni’s past remain a tangible part of Zuni cultural memory. Recent work conducted on the Fort Wingate Depot Activity, an area known to Zunis as Anshe Ky’an’a, exemplifies the greater concepts that underlie Zuni traditions of movement. Anshe Ky’an’a, located part way between Chaco Canyon and Zuni Pueblo, was established as a Zuni cultural landscape in the ancient past. Through songs, pilgrimages, the procurement of ceremonial items, and reciprocal offerings made to the ancestors in exchange for spiritual blessings, Zunis literally and figuratively continue to bring Anshe Ky’an’a into their daily lives. In our paper, we draw on the research conducted at Anshe Ky’an’a to further explore how Zuni’s history of migrations led to the ongoing values that incorporate movement across their ancestral homeland.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 82nd Annual Meeting, Vancouver, BC (2017)   •
• Pueblo Movement and the Archaeology of Becoming

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Spatial Coverage

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 15245