Preservation and research of sacred sites by the Zuni Indian tribe of New Mexico

Another significant part of P.L. 95-280 was a provision that allowed the Zuni Tribe to file a monetary claim for lands taken without payment, even though the Indian Land Claims Commission set up to hear this type of case had long since expired (Hart 1995). To document their land claim, filed as Docket No. 161-79L in the United States Court of Claims, the Zuni Tribe sponsored a substantial amount of new historical and ethnological research to determine the extent of aboriginal Zuni land use (Eggan 1980, Ferguson 1980b, Hart 1980, Jenkins 1980, Minge 1980, Pandey 1980, Tyler 1990). Depositions of Zuni elders were taken by attorneys for the Zuni Tribe and the United States Department of Justice to document traditional land use, including sacred sites. Several tribal elders were taken on field trips to further document traditional land use, and to locate places identified in the depositions on contemporary maps (Ferguson 1981).

A total of 234 sites were recorded during land claims research (Table 4), documenting a wide range of land use including plant collection, mineral collection, hunting, farming, grazing, and religious use areas (Ferguson 1995, Ferguson and Hart 1985). One hundred thirty-nine of the documented land use sites have religious significance, including shrines, pilgrimage trails, springs, and mountain peaks. Thus, almost 60% of the land use sites researched for the land claim are sacred sites.

Since the focus of the case was a claim for lands taken, most of the places documented lie outside of the current Zuni Reservation boundaries. The research did not entail a complete inventory of sites used off the reservation because the 12 deponents included only a few of the many Zuni priests, and they represented less than half of the Zuni clans and medicine societies (Ferguson 1983:10). Nonetheless, this work provides an important perspective on the scale of the religious use area, one that stretches from the Rio Grande to the Grand Canyon (Figure 2). The published maps depicting the locations of Zuni sacred sites, and the accompanying information about the Zuni religious groups who use them (Ferguson and Hart 1985), have become an important resource in subsequent consultations about those areas with federal agencies.

The scale of the Zuni religious area is very large, and much larger than the study areas of most archaeological investigations. This large size has serious implications for the oftenunrecognized methodological limitations of archaeological studies that attempt to address ritual behavior, as well as for the management of those sacred sites by federal agencies. For instance, the Santa Fe Forest does not regularly consult with the Zuni Tribe, even though the Zuni Tribe has known cultural resources on that forest.

The work of archaeologists, ethnologists, and historians in documenting Zuni religious sites for the land claims has been recognized and appreciated by the Zuni People because of the role it played in how the court determined the aboriginal Zuni area. The area of traditional land use claimed by the Zuni was upheld in its entirety (Zuni Tribe v. United States, No.161-9L, Ctl. Cl., May 27,1987, Indian Claims, extent of aboriginal land and title), and the Zuni Tribe has received a monetary settlement of $25 million (Hart 1995).