The Zuni, like other Pueblo peoples, are believed to be the descendants of the Ancient Pueblo Peoples who lived in the deserts of New Mexico, Arizona, Southern Colorado and Utah for centuries. Archaeological evidence shows they have lived in their present location for about 1,300 years.

Before the Pueblo Revolt of 1680, the Zuni lived in six different villages. Many of the Pueblo people harbored a latent hostility toward the Spanish, primarily due to their denigration and prohibition of the traditional religion. The traditional economies of the pueblos were likewise disrupted, the people having been forced to labor on the encomiendas of the colonists. Some Pueblo people may have been forced to labor in the mines of Chihuahua. However, the Spanish had introduced new farming implements and provided some measure of security against Navajo and Apache raiding parties. As a result, they lived in relative peace with the Spanish since the founding of the Northern New Mexican colony in 1598.

In the 1670s, drought swept the region, which not only caused famine among the Pueblo, but also provoked increased attacks from neighboring nomadic tribes—attacks against which Spanish soldiers were unable to defend. At the same time, European-introduced diseases were ravaging the natives, greatly decreasing their numbers. Unsatisfied with the protective powers of the Spanish crown and the God of the Church it carried wherever it went, the people turned to their old Gods. This provoked a wave of repression on the part of Franciscan missionaries. For example, in 1675Governor Juan Francisco Treviño ordered forty-seven Pueblo medicine men to be arrested and accused them of practicing witchcraft. Four medicine men were sentenced to death by hanging; three of those sentences were carried out, while the fourth prisoner committed suicide. The remaining medicine men were publicly whipped and sentenced to prison. When word of this reached the Pueblo leaders they moved in force to Santa Fe, where the prisoners were being held. Because a large number of Spanish soldiers were away from Santa Fe fighting the Apache, Governor Treviño relented and released the prisoners. Among those released was a San Juan Indian named Popé (also spelled Po'Pay).

Following his release, Popé planned and orchestrated the Pueblo Revolt. While a fugitive from the Spanish authorities for complicity in several murders, Popé sought refuge at Taos Pueblo. From Taos he plotted the revolt. Popé dispatched runners to all the Pueblos carrying knotted cords, the knots signifying the number of days remaining until the appointed day. Each morning the Pueblo leadership was to untie one knot from the cord, and when the last knot was untied, that would be the signal for them to rise against the Spaniards in unison.

The day for the attack had been fixed for August 11, 1680, but the Spaniards learned of the revolt after capturing two Tesuque Pueblo youths entrusted with carrying the message to the pueblos. Popé then ordered the execution of the plot on August 10, before the uprising could be put down.

The attack was commenced by the Taos, Picuris, and Tewa Indians in their respective pueblos. Twenty-one of the province's thirty-three Franciscans, and three hundred and eighty Spaniards, counting men, women and children, were killed. Spanish settlers fled to Santa Fe, the only Spanish city, and Isleta Pueblo, one of the few Pueblos that did not participate in the rebellion. Believing themselves the only survivors, the refugees at Isleta left for El Paso on September 15. Meanwhile Popé's insurgents besieged Santa Fe, surrounding the city and cutting off its water supply. New Mexico Governor Antonio de Otermín, barricaded in the Governor’s Palace, called for a general retreat, and on August 21 the Spanish settlers streamed out of the capital city headed for the El Paso del Norte. The Piro Pueblo, along with the Isleta, accompanied the Spanish to El Paso, presumably because they would be seen as Spanish sympathizers. The people of Isleta founded the settlement of Ysleta, Texas, and live there to this day.

The retreat of the Spaniards left New Mexico in the power of the Indians. Popé ordered the Indians, under penalty of death, to burn or destroy crosses and other religious imagery, as well as any other vestige of the Roman Catholic religion and Spanish culture, including Spanish livestock and fruit trees. He also forbade the planting of wheat and barley. Popé went so far as to command those Indians who had been married according to the rites of the Catholic Church to dismiss their wives and to take others after the old native tradition. Popé set himself up in the Governor’s Palace as ruler of the Pueblos and collected tribute from the each Pueblo until his death in approximately 1688.

Following their success, the different Pueblo tribes, separated by hundreds of miles and six different languages, quarreled as to who would occupy Santa Fe and rule over the country. These power struggles, combined with raids from nomadic tribes and a seven year drought, weakened the Pueblo resolve and set the stage for a Spanish reconquest.

After the revolt, until 1692, they took refuge in a defensible position atop Dowa Yalanne, a steep mesa 5 km (2 miles) southeast of the present Pueblo of Zuñi. Dowa meaning "corn", and Yalanne eaning "mountain." After the establishment of peace and the return of the Spanish, the Zuni relocated in their present location, only briefly returning to the mesa top in 1703.

Frank Hamilton Cushing was invited by Powell to join an anthropological expedition to New Mexico. The group traveled by rail to end of the line at Las Vegas, New Mexico, then on to Zuni Pueblo [Arizona] where Cushing, "went native", living with the Zuni from 1879 to 1884, becoming anthropology's first participant observer. After some initial difficulties (the Zuni seriously considered killing him as he was obviously after their secrets) he was fully accepted by the community and participated fully in Zuni activities, becoming in 1881 a member of the Priesthood of the Bow. He received the Zuni name Tenatsali, "medicine flower." In 1882 he took some Zuni on a tour of the United States which attracted considerable media attention. During this tour he married Emily Tennison of Washington, D.C in 1882. He returned to Zuni, but was plagued by illness and political difficulties, and was recalled to Washington in 1884. He was able to return briefly in 1886 but again had health problems. He was succeeded as leader of the Hemenway Southwestern Archaeological Expedition by archaeologist and ethnologist J. Walter Fewkes.

A recent controversy involved Zuni opposing the development of a coal mine near the Zuni Salt Lake, a site considered sacred by the Zuni and under Zuni control. The mine would have extracted water from the aquifer below the lake and would also have involved construction between the lake and Zuñi [1], [2]. The plan died after several lawsuits.

The Zuni Indians of today are one of 19 original tribes that once inhabited the area that is now called New Mexico and Arizona. The Zuni Indian Reservation is the homeland of our tribe. It lies in the bed of the Zuni River valley, primarily in Cibola and McKinley counties in western New Mexico, about 150 miles west of Albuquerque. There are also several smaller non-contiguous sections in Apache County, Arizona, northwest of the city of St. Johns. The main part of the reservation borders the state of Arizona to the west and the Ramah Navajo Indian Reservation to the east. The main reservation is also surrounded by the Painted Cliffs, the Zuni Mountains and the Cibola National Forest.

The largest town on the reservation is Zuni Pueblo, which is seat of Tribal government. Also on the reservation are the small towns of Black Rock and Pescado. The Zuni Tribe is governed by an elected governor, lieutenant governor, and a six member Tribal Council with elections being held every four years. The governor is the administrative head of the Tribal Council, which is the final decision-making body on the reservation. The council oversees finances, business decisions, taxes and contracts.

The Zuni tribe is said to have originated from a tribe that lived in the same area over 1,000 years prior to the coming of the Europeans. This tribe, the Anasazi, was a large society that encompassed large amounts of land, riches and many distinct cultures and civilizations. The Zuni are thought to be direct descendants of the Anasazi.

The Zuni are also distinct in that they have managed to remain quite unaffected by outer influences. They still claim the same land they always lived on, an area about the size of Rhode Island. They also mainly reside in one city, Zuni, New Mexico. Although there are Zuni Indians who live outside of the city and the general area, they are few and far between. The tribe has managed to remain intact due to the fact that they were never involved with problems that didn’t concern their own people. Because they did not fight in any wars or take sides in any conflicts, they were able to remain autonomous and were unaffected by the changes around them.

While many anthropologists believe that the Zuni are related to the other pueblo tribes that are scattered throughout the Southwest, they are unique in that their language, to this day, is only spoken by them and bares no resemblance to the languages of any of the other surrounding tribes.

Zuni life, much like it was in the past, is still deeply religious and very different from that of other tribes. The Zuni believe that everything shares a common spirit, being interconnected, and gods reside in the lakes of Arizona and New Mexico. The chiefs and the shamans during religious festivals carry out two different types of ceremonies. Song and dance accompanies masked performances by the chiefs while the shamans pray to the gods for favors ranging from fertile soil to abundant amounts of rain. The shamans play an important role in the community as they are looked upon for guidance as well as knowledge and healing. There are different levels of expertise for all shamans with the goal ultimately being to reach the top level so they can assist in all aspects of Zuni life. Although it is not uncommon to find religion playing a significant part in an Indian society, the fact that women are played an important role is quite uncommon. Women are thought of as the life of the tribe. Men do all of the hunting, building and gathering of necessities, but when they are done, whatever they have caught, collected or built belongs to the women. The women are the ones who do all of the trading with different tribes and take care of financial issues and problems. This is quite a change from most modern societies.See the Belief section for more information!