Cultural Icons: Understanding Social Identity through Iconography in the Contact Era Pueblo World

Summary

The arrival of the Spanish shattered the Pueblo people’s worldview in the Rio Grande during the 16th century. Nevertheless, the Pueblo people held onto specific icons that socially identified them as Pueblo, while yet creating Spanish commissioned pottery and other Spanish materials. The 1680 Pueblo Revolt and cultural revitalization movement by Puebloan groups sought to return indigenous peoples to their heritage through an emphasis on traditional religious practices and lifeways. Using iconography on historic pottery, this paper will explore the ways social identity can be maintained yet transformed in situations of intense cultural contact. I compare motifs on pots from the Northern and Middle Rio Grande, dating from the pre-Contact through post-Revolt period. These areas experienced different degrees of colonization which is evident in the degree to which indigenous or Spanish linked motifs occur on pottery.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

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

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 21795