Picuris Ethnogeography

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Collaborative Archaeology at Picuris Pueblo: The New History" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

This paper explores the deep history of Picuris Pueblo’s commitment to its surrounding landscape through traditional knowledge of the meanings inscribed therein. We focus on both natural places (springs, mountain peaks, clay deposits) and cultural constructions (rock art, medicine boulders, race tracks, and other “shrine” features), along with the stories that surround them. Our primary goal is archival: at the request of the tribe, to create a written record of significant places, place-names, and place-based traditions for future community members, a task that feels pressing as key elders with traditional knowledge have recently passed. But our research is simultaneously an attempt at critical mapping and is consequently mobilized by land claims and water dispute issues. From the tribe’s perspective, our work is not uncovering any new evidence; rather it reaffirms what the tribe already knows. Framed in a political manner, however, such ethnogeographical work—through the documentation of place names and archaeological evidence of space/place practices—supports Picuris’s political assertion of its sovereignty over the watershed. Finally, our work offers another important example of placemaking in the American Southwest, examining how places become saturated with meaning.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Collaborative Archaeology at Picuris Pueblo: The New History   •
• Society for American Archaeology 89th Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA (2024)

Keywords

Spatial Coverage

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 38804.0