Surviving Columbus: The Story of the Pueblo People; Dr. Alfonso Ortiz

It was overwhelmingly car law graduates who Clara Tru relied on, sounded a mingle, Hopi, Zooming, and down. And their huge dossier's of testimony by these people that formed the basis of Commissioner Burks, prohibition against Pubby, went up to Blue Lake to deflower young virgins, you know, that was part of the, there was an orgy taking place up there and fortunately the people up there were joined by people like D. H. Lawrence, Mabel Dachlan, and other, the colony of Anglo artists and intellectuals, writers who wrote letters and fought that tooth and nail. He told me eventually that Proby Vision was rescinded. You were put into a dark basement. They also had the councils and advisors in the dorms, in the boys dorm anyway, they had something called the Board of Education.

Oh yeah. That was about that long. And if you were caught misbehaving, you were brought in and just a bend over boy, and they clacked you, but hard, clacked you so hard, they nearly banged your head against the opposite wall. There's always also, when I was going on virtually, by hitting them constantly, but eventually you just became passive and didn't question authority anymore. Really? Oh, better ask a new question, because I played that one out, I think. Okay. One of the other attacks on plug or culture was brought us to Missionaries. Can you tell us about that and look, in fact, that had unplugged animals? Yes, there came an attack on public culture and public religious institutions from Protestant Missionaries. They were basically trying to break what they considered to be the twin hole of idolatry in the one hand and of Catholicism on the other. And they were trying to break the hole of indigenous religious beliefs and practices by

having them outlawed, as the commissioner of Indian First Directive of 1923 indicated, and they were trying to win a converts away from Catholicism by direct missionary activity. They succeeded here in their end pockets, but more than that, they wreaked havoc. They just created a great deal of pain and ill will during the time when they were attempting to win converts away from traditional religions and the Catholic Church. Okay. I don't know. El Passa just briefly could do a process all that in beginning with the Protestants, because I think we had a little bit of noise over there. It just occurred again. Okay. During that period. During this same period, Protestant churches were... No, no.

Okay, that's it. I'm playing. I'm going to give out the Protestant missionary efforts. At the same time that the Pueblo peoples were trying to reintegrate their boarding school graduates from Carlisle and Hampton Institutes. They were also having to deal with Protestant missionaries who were trying to break up what they perceived to be a hegemony on the part of the Catholic Church among the Pueblo peoples. They also were trying to do what the Catholic Church had been trying to do for 300 years by that time, namely weaned the Pueblo people away from what they termed their idolatrous indigenous beliefs and practices. And so with a third religious element, aggressive and intolerant working in Pueblo communities, you had a great deal of havoc and ill will and pain that was inflicted.

And the resolution was simply that the Protestant churches gave up because they couldn't make significant inroads into the Pueblo communities. I guess they felt they had all the religion they needed at that point. Okay. What? I'm looking here for how these government practices and Protestant practices impacted the communities themselves, particularly an example might be Hopi splits between progressives and traditions. If you feel like you can talk about that. Yes. Where Protestant communities did gain a beachhead in particular Pueblos, such as at Hopi, the Hopi mesas provided the best example of this, the missionaries served to polarize the communities into progressive, that is to say,

pro-change, pro-American ways and pro-missions as against the conservatives who were pro-native culture and tie-change and against outside influences on their lives, including missionaries. Okay. Let's have a lot more to say. But yeah. It led to the split in Arabi in 1906, for instance. Okay. You can just say what causes split in Arabi. For instance, this missionary-fueled dissension between approximately equal-sized rival groups in Arabi on third Mesa at Hopi, led to the split of the community, eventually in 1906 between the progressive pro-Western pro-American faction and the conservatives. And this resulted in the progressive group

splitting off permanently from the conservative group. And it was out of all this, that the villages of Hodvilla and Bacaby on third Mesa were found in 1906. So one factional split led to the occupation and the founding of two villages which are still occupied today. Okay. All right. Now let's just jump up a little bit into the aftermath of the bersan bill and the federal lands. What I'm looking for here is that after the defeat of the bersan bill there was some compensation for it. Okay, how about a little bit of a bersan bill?

It's defeat and a pueblo lands act. Mm-hmm. Yeah. All right. Good leader, okay. Another threat that was faced by the Pueblo people, yet another one came in the 1920s in the form of the bersan bill. So called because he was introduced into the Congress by senator home bersan of New Mexico. What it proposed to do basically was to legalize the rights of squatters on Pueblo lands. It would leave squatters both Hispanic and Anglo right where they were by legalizing their rights to the lands they were living on. And of course it would have meant that if it had been uncontested and gone on through the Congress and been signed into law, it would have probably met the end of Pueblo culture and the continued integrity of the communities

because they couldn't survive with non-ended neighbors who were basically at odds with them, who basically questioned their rights to remain as separate communities. They would have collapsed to have the right to the water has been recognized and permitted to remain in place. But what it did instead was bring the Pueblo peoples together as they probably had never been since the Pueblo Revolt of 1680. I don't know of anything else in Pueblo history that galvanized the sentiments of the Pueblo leaders and councils against something as the bersan bill. All of the modern, all in the public council had its beginnings then because the meetings were held in 1920 beginning in 1922 to organize opposition to the bersan bill. Well the bersan bill as you know was defeated and in its wake there came soon the Pueblo Landsat which acted to redress some of the injustices

that were done to the Pueblo people, specifically the Pueblo Landsat was intended to clarify title and return lands that were unjustly taken from the Pueblo people back to them and also to purchase other lands that they lost unjustly and added back to the tribal real estate. And in those instances, where individuals were shown to have paid a fair amount and under reasonable, just legal circumstances, they were permitted to keep their purchases. So after the defeat of the bersan bill, there was an attempt at redress of the harm that was done by the squatters dating back into the previous century. Again, comes the land question. Why is lands so important to the survival of the Pueblo people in this damage? Land is critical to the survival of the Pueblo people

in this day and age because as elders have put it unless we can bequeathed to the children, a place in which they may plant their feet as well as their crops, or whatever they want to plant, then the community will dissolve, then they'll scatter like leaves in the autumn and the idea of land is really not the land so much. But it's all the right terrain. They were wrong, go ahead. The issue of land is not so much a land itself because Pueblo people should not see land as a commodity. They see it as a symbol of community, of something that enables people to stay together. It's not something you own, it's something to which you belong. And remember that the remaining lands, which they occupy in 1992, are all they have left of larger areas

which are now occupied by other people and which are included in public lands, either as National Forest, or as under the oversight of the Bureau of Land Management. Beyond that, as elders, a Pueblo elders have always been fond of saying in their teachings, we must have a place to bequeathed to the young, our children and grandchildren, and generations yet to come, a place on which they can plant their feet, a place which they can call their own in the sense of belonging to that place. And so land is much more than just land. It's mother earth to the Pueblo peoples, and that's what it's always been. Okay, great. I like that a lot. Now, the religious crimes code, what impact the religious crime codes have on the Pueblos?

And particularly again, I'm going back to going underground. The religious crimes code of the 1920s also had a profound impact on Pueblo life. I guess if anything was guaranteed to make sure that Pueblo religions went underground yet again, as they had to do to survive so many times, going back to the terrible decades of the 17th century when there was sustained pressure on them from the Spanish side, both missionary and civil authorities to change and to adjust to Catholicism rather than to the continue with the indigenous religious beliefs and practices. If there was ever any time during the American period,

which they perceived as a threat similar to the threats they had in the 17th century, the 1920s was that period. It was not only suddenly an explosion of missionaries in the 1920s, there were encroachments on their beliefs that were steadily building up since the beginning of the American period. They just reached a break-in point in the 1920s with the Religious Crime Act. How can you compare and contrast how compared to the Spanish period? Was the American period as bad? How do you link those two? In comparison with the Spanish period, specifically the 17th century, the American period was not as bad

in the sense that the public people had learned how to survive. They learned mechanisms. But how they had support this time. Okay, let me start it over again. Unlike the past, when public people had to fight, desperate, lonely action to win their right to survive, most especially the public revolt of 1680, for which they had no help, no outside help. This time, in their fight against a bursum bill, and their fight against their religious crimes act, they had plenty of help. This is not to say that, ultimately, they didn't win the fight themselves, but they had help this time. There were artists and intellectuals in the tiles to Albuquerque corridor, who came to their aid and defense. There were distinguished museum people,

anthropologists and prominent writers who had spent time in New Mexico, such as DH Lawrence, who wrote letters on their behalf, and editorialized in the top newspapers of the country, such as the New York Times, so that it became, their battle became the battle of many, many thousands of other Americans. And the battle was waged not alone in New Mexico, but in newspapers, such as the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, and other major newspapers, and public opinion molding forums across the country. That was a difference. And that remains a difference today. If there were to be threats today, 1992 and beyond, to their continued cultural integrity, their cause will be taken up by millions, I would predict. Okay.

After this later in the 20s, we had the Indian Reorganization Act. How did the Indian Reorganization Act impact the Columbus? It's good, or is it mixed? Mixed, definitely. Okay. The Indian Reorganization Act, which came in the following decade. Hold on just a second, I'll turn it again. I went out of... Oh, yeah. That was shifting. The Indian Reorganization Act, which came in the next decade, in the 1930s, also had a profound impact on public life. It was a mixed impact in that the good came from the fact that the pressure was removed from them to give up their native culture, to stop speaking native languages and the boarding schools, to, oh, they were formerly prevented from expressing themselves as cultural beings through art and other things,

and other ways, while they were in school, that pressure was taken away. They were told, be yourselves. It's good and honorable to be a Hopi Indian, an Azuni Indian, a San Diego Indian, or what have you. And things were relaxed in other ways. The assimilation of this pressure, which had been unrelenting here to four, was relaxed for the first time. The negatives came in the sense of, oh, the... they were... the attempt was made to shape their governmental institutions, more in the model of American governmental institutions. Those that adopted what were known and are known still, as Indian Reorganization Act or IRA constitutions, had a great deal of power put in the hands of the federal government in regulating their life,

much more systematic and clearly stated out powers than the federal government ever had before. That was one of the negatives. There were others, but I'll limit myself to that one example. Okay. That's good. Let's... Okay. What was diffused before, you know, unspecified became suddenly specified and codified. And the public was wisely, despite their friendship and their admiration for John Collier, mostly did not fall for the Indian Reorganization Act. It was other tribes that adopted them. And some even had them forced. Can we talk about that for the public? Because that's... The other Indians think we have, see. Oh, okay. That's gonna be happening. Contrary to popular belief in Indian Country, the public people did not, for the most part, opt to adopt the Indian Reorganization Act.

Despite their admiration and friendship of John Collier, the architect of the Act, they simply would not come under its provisions. So, on... To this day, only four public groups are under the provisions of the Indian Reorganization Act in the sense that they have constitutions that arose from that Act. Santa Clara, Estleta, Laguna, and the Hopi people. The zoonies have a constitution, but it's not of the same order. Okay. 40s and 50s. Life started to change on the portals. Agriculture, as the days started to diminish, can you describe some of those material changes? Okay. I think one of the times that I'm around now. I don't have to rely on documents anymore. Another watershed of changes came in the 1940s, and it was not of the public people's own making.

So many men went off to fight in World War II, that the old farms lay fallow. Oh, shit. One of the changes that came in the 40s was something that the public people had nothing directly to do with. It had to do with their involvement in World War II. So many went off to fight, that farming all but seized, because mostly the able-bodied men were away fighting in World War II. So farming ended in many places fall, intense and purposes, and the public people began to get used to a cash economy. The soldiers, sailors, air forcemen were sending their checks home. And if farming wasn't done, they had to buy food somehow.

They had to get food somehow. So their wives, mothers, and other people at home, cash checks and purchase their food directly from stores. And when the armed forces veterans came back, returned home, they mostly did not resume farming, at least not in the same scale they had before. Instead, the cash economy slowly, but surely, began to take over public life. So that was one major change. Another was that in the absence of farming, people began to work outside of the Pueblos. Los Alamos was established as a wartime project, the Manhattan Project. So at least for the northern Pueblos, a large number of public people began to work at Los Alamos, both men and women. And increasingly, people began turning to work in arts and crafts,

with a slow growth of the tourism industry in New Mexico. There was a market for arts and crafts. Another large number of people went into government work, specifically and mostly the Bureau of Indian Affairs. So the cash economy, you can trace its shore beginnings from the war years, and its expansion into the 50s and 60s. In the 20s and 30s, it is said by the people who were alive then that the only thing you needed money for was for sugar, coffee, and a few things that could not be bought in the stores. Can you talk a little bit about, I actually have two questions,

a little bit about the Termination Act. Yeah, we're rolling. Okay, the Termination Act of 1952 did not have much of an impact in Pueblo Country. It scared tribal leaders at that time, but no Pueblo was terminated, but it did state that it was the intent of Congress at the earliest feasible time, Fiso being defined as when the tribes were ready, that federal supervision and oversight would be terminated, hence the term Termination, that federal oversight over reservation lives would be terminated, and the communities presumably will be permitted to sink our swim as communities in the general mainstream of American life, and the tribes were divided into three groups. Those which were deemed ready for termination very soon with very little preparation,

those which could be made ready by being aided in preparation for termination in a few years, and those of the vast majority which were not ready, could not be made ready within the foreseeable future. Fortunately, most of the Pueblos fell into the third category, because mostly because they are not resource rich, the initial tribes that were terminated, the two most famous cases were the Menominy of Wisconsin and the Clameth of Oregon. There are both rich and forest resources, and you can bet you can be quite sure that that was the reason they were selected, so that their extensive forest resources could be thrown open to commercial exploitation. Okay. This is my last question. We've gone through 500 years of contact with Europeans. How do you see the future of the Pueblo people

for the next centuries, and how do you see the future of all Native peoples with the changes with all the things that are happening? Given even a cursory understanding of the vast sweep of history and the changes wrought during the past 500 years, I think there will continue to be challenges and threats to Pueblo cultural integrity and survival, but I think that now and in the future Pueblo peoples collectively in the singular are much better adapted to survive and to have the institution of society aid them in their continued survival than they were, say in earlier centuries of contact, the global continue to be hard. It'll be hard because the values of the dominant culture

and Indian people in general are very, very opposed in many ways. We mentioned one just a few minutes ago, the view of the land, the Pueblo people it represents community to your Americans, it's a commodity to be bought and sold to Pueblo people, the Earth is a nurturing mother who will continue to nurture succeeding generations if she is taken care of. I want to start that over, which is truck as well. I can see you in the back. But, I can see this camera. No, you're filming. Okay. Okay. One value on which Pueblo peoples and members of the dominant society differ,

which will always cause conflict unless one side or the other changes is in the view of the land, the view of the Earth. For Pueblo people's land is not a commodity, it is a symbol of community. For your Americans, land is a commodity to be bought and sold, unlike other products or bought and sold. Land to the Pueblo peoples represents mother Earth, a nurturing mother at that, one who will always provide for her children if she is taken care of. This is why the integrity of the reservation base, the integrity of Pueblo real estate has always been a concern to Pueblo leaders, and it will continue to be sold. But it's a country grows, and as new resources are needed, and as water becomes scarce, there will continue to be threats, but I'm confident that the leadership

will always be there to meet those threats. Very nice. Okay, well, I get the squad here, and we're rolling. Oh, you look good. I'm surprised. There's been various perspectives on history, Pueblo history from the traditional who can you explain different perspectives that you know about how Pueblo people approach history? Well, the Pueblo people's view of history is different as with so many things in Pueblo life, different but not necessarily incompatible. History is just one way of looking at the past, and a review history as a way of constantly recovering a useful and meaningful past,

then different ways of viewing the past can be regarded as equally valid. The Pueblo way is not linear. It's not chronological. It's more of it's episodic and the kind of time that I see that is reflected in Pueblo views of the past is one in which time past, time present, and time future are often simultaneously present in the view of that past. And so there is no way you can render that chronologically. It's to use the past truly as a guide to shape actions in the present and to help you prepare for the future. And that's a much more, I think, dynamic and useful view of the past and use of the past

than a purely linear one. One which is, as more than one historian has said, just one damn thing after one.