The Zuni

by Nancy Bonvillain

A portrait of the Zuni of the American Southwest examines their thriving culture of farmers, builders, and traders and notes how their ability to adapt enabled them to survive pivotal developments in history.

120 pages, Library Binding

First published January 1, 1995

About the author

Dr. Bonvillain is an authority on Native American cultures and languages. She is the author of books on the Mohawk language and on the Huron, the Mohawk, the Hopi, the Teton Sioux, the Navajo, the Inuit, the Zuni, and the Santee Sioux and on Native American Religion and Native American medicine. She has written on gender, linguistics, and narrative.

Dr. Bonvillain has written four textbooks: Language, Culture and Communication; Women and Men: Cultural Constructs of Gender; Native Nations: Cultures and Histories of Native North America; and Cultural Anthropology. Her articles have appeared in Anthropological Linguistics, American Indian Culture and Research Journal, International Journal of American Linguistics, Dialectic Anthropology, Papers on Iroquoian Research, and in several collections. She has taught at Columbia University, SUNY Purchase and Stonybrook, the New School for Social Research, and Sarah Lawrence College. Dr. Bonvillain has received fellowships from the National Science Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the American Philosophical Society, and the U.S. Bureau of the Census. Her fieldwork has been with the Navajo and on the Akwesasne Mohawk Reserve.

Reviews

[Richard · Rating 4 out of 5]

In a little more than 130 pages of narrative text Bonvillain provided an informative overview of a variety of aspects of the Zuni nation. The first three chapters covered their creation stories, their spiritual beliefs and practices, and how their community life was traditionally organized. The next three covered their history from the mid 16th century when the Spanish conquistadores and missionaries first arrived up until the mid 20th century as they coped with and adapted to the incursions of white American settlers, US government policies aimed at ‘civilizing’ Indians, and the world wars. The last two chapters introduced readers to how the Zuni have tried to deal with a wide range of such contemporary issues as protecting their water and land rights, regaining sacred objects and human remains stolen from them, fostering their own language and educational systems, etc in the late 20th and early 21st centuries.

The author did some things to enhance one’s engagement with this book. The prose is largely direct and thus quite readable. There were a number of photos and a few maps. There were also inserts of 1-2 pages in length in most of the chapters which elaborated in more depth on some topic.

This is not a scholarly text. Ie, there were some quotes from various individuals but no footnotes referring to specific sources. Neither were some of the subtleties of an issue or any one event discussed in any detail. But at the end of the book Bonvillain did provide a 6 page chronology of events which included some graphics and a 3 page glossary of terms. A 3 page bibliography of books, articles, and websites means that readers looking for more substance can readily find it.

There were times when I wished the author had devoted a little more attention to specific issues. But I think she accomplished the two goals of this 14 volume series on The History and Culture of Native Americans. The first for the benefit of young adult readers is to document the rich diversity of Native American history, culture, and practices and how these have evolved over time. The second is to provide coverage of the complex relationships Indians have had with non Indians over the last several hundred years.

I will keep the other volumes in mind for future reading about other Native American nations.