Smoking Customs and Plains-Pueblo Interaction in the Southwest Border Pueblos

Summary

This project centers on Plains-Pueblo interaction in the late-prehistoric and protohistoric periods. It analyzes how trade and inter-regional interactions were ritually mediated between these two culture groups, through the examination of pipes and smoking materials used in economic interactions at pueblos in the Northern Rio Grande area of New Mexico. Ethnographic and ethnohistoric literature indicates that pipe-smoking was part of rituals that cemented inter-tribal trade relationships. The data from this project support the idea that pipes were used in trade negotiations and ceremonial interactions and can be proxies for examining social interaction and regional mediation aspects of trade and decision making. The blending of Plains and Pueblo pipe forms and materials suggests that there may have been a certain level of integration, alliance, or partnership in these interactions.

Three categories of data totaling 1,306 pipes were analyzed from known trade centers and comparative samples from interior sites not known to be trade centers in the Southwest and Great Plains. Methods used in this study included analyses and tabulations of particular physical attributes of pipes that provide information on pipe use and regional style, as well as spatial and temporal analyses of pipe concentrations and concentrations of particular pipe attributes.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 83rd Annual Meeting, Washington, DC (2018)

Keywords

Spatial Coverage

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 21404