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Pueblo Indian Watercolors
Cultural Definitions
The definitions that follow refer to terms used in this guide.
America
In the early sixteenth century, all of the land in the Western Hemisphere (including North, Central, and South America) was named after the little-known Italian navigator Amerigo Vespucci, who some thought was the first European to visit the continents of the Western Hemisphere. Although many people use the name "America" to mean the United States of America, the U.S.A. is only one of many countries in America.
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Anglo
The first people to live in the Southwest of what is now the United States were members of different Indian cultures. The next group to arrive were Spanish explorers, soldiers, and settlers who came north from Mexico. Later, other explorers, soldiers, and settlers came from the eastern United States. Because most of them spoke English, they were called Anglos (a term that refers to the Anglo-Saxon roots of the English people) by the Hispanic and Indian peoples already there. Even though Caucasian people are not necessarily of English descent, Anglo continues to be used in the area to identify non-Hispanics and non-Indians.
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Hispanic
The historical name for the Iberian peninsula where Spain is located is Hispania. Like many European nations, Spain established colonies on the African, Asian, and American continents. Although they did not live in Spain, many colonists around the globe referred to themselves as "Spanish" to differentiate themselves from indigenous peoples who lived in areas before the colonial conquests.
In the American Southwest, people of Spanish heritage or descent refer to themselves, and are referred to by others as "Hispanic" or "Hispano." Others, who wish to make a connection with their Mexican heritage refer to themselves as "Chicano" or sometimes "Mexican-American." The term "Latino" is also used in the United States to refer to persons of Latin American heritage.
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American Indian
Christopher Columbus coined the term "Indian" to identify the native peoples of the Americas in 1492 when he mistakenly thought he had landed in India instead of the Caribbean. The word Indian, which many people believe is inappropriate, has been used for so many years that many native people continue to use it instead of the term "Native American." Both terms are used interchangeably throughout this guide.
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Native American
The term "Native American" is often used in place of the more common word "Indian" to indicate the indigenous people who live in the Americas. Native Americans, whose ancestors crossed from Asia to North America more than twenty thousand years ago, were already settled throughout North, Central, and South America at the time the Europeans first arrived in the Western Hemisphere.
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Glossary
Heartline
A heartline is a decorative motif originating in the mid-nineteenth century in the American Southwest. Frequently animal figures on pottery and stone carvings are depicted with a line from the mouth to the chest, terminating in an arrowhead at the heart. This heartline represents the spirit or life of the animal.
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Kachina
A supernatural being important in the religion of the Hopi and Zuni, the kachinas are represented by small wooden carvings, often called "kachina dolls." For ceremonial purposes, men wear masks and regalia appropriate for specific kachinas.
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Kiva
A chamber or room built for the meetings of a religious group, clan, or society, a kiva is sometimes underground. Members use the room when they come together to talk, work, and conduct religious ceremonies. Many of the nonpublic religious ceremonies of Pueblo peoples are held in kivas.
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Maize
An American Indian word for corn, maize is the most important food in Pueblo life. The ancestors of the Pueblos were hunters and gatherers. During the third millennium B.C., the nomadic hunter-gatherer ancestors of modern Pueblo Indians added domesticated corn to their diet, which allowed them to establish farming communities along the Rio Grande and other fertile areas in the Southwest.
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Mesa
A mesa is a flat-topped mountain or hill common throughout the Southwest. Spanish explorers called these geographic features mesas, which means table in Spanish, because they resemble tables with smooth, flat tops, and sides that drop away steeply.
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Mission
A mission is a church and religious center originally established with the purpose of converting Indians to Christianity. The first missions in the American Southwest were churches built by Spanish priests and Franciscan friars and were in the middle of pre-existing Pueblo communities.
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Tablita
The thin board with painted and cutout patterns is worn by female Pueblo dancers. The most common designs are clouds, butterflies, sprouting corn, rain, stars, and the moon. The bright, multicolored designs are sharply contrasted. Black is frequently used to outline the separate shapes and to accent the divisions of various patterns.
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Yucca
Sometimes called Spanish bayonet, yucca is a low-growing desert shrub. It is also called soapweed because yucca roots produce a good lather for washing. The plant is indispensable to the Pueblos because they can use its sharp pointed leaves as needles, flatten the ends to fashion paint brushes, and twist its leaf fibers into thread and cord. The regalia of certain Hopi and Zuni kachinas have skirts made of stiff yucca leaves.
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