Tewa

Not to be confused with Tiwa people.

This article is about the ethnic group. For their language, see Tewa language.

Chaiwa, a Tewa girl with a butterfly whorl hairstyle, photographed by Edward S. Curtis in 1922

Tewa girls, 1922, photographed by Edward S. Curtis

A Southern Tewa (Tano) anthropomorphic figure with rattle, petroglyph in the Galisteo Basin, a major Tano homeland prior to the Pueblo Revolt of 1680

The Tewa (or Tano) are a linguistic group of Pueblo Native Americans who speak the Tewa language and share the Pueblo culture. Their homelands are on or near the Rio Grande in New Mexico north of Santa Fe. They comprise the following communities:

• Nambé Pueblo
• Pojoaque Pueblo
• San Ildefonso Pueblo
• Ohkay Owingeh (formerly known as San Juan Pueblo)
• Santa Clara Pueblo
• Tesuque Pueblo

The Arizona Tewa, descendants of those who fled the Second Pueblo Revolt of 1680-1692, live on the Hopi Reservation in Arizona, mostly in Tewa Village and Polacca on the First Mesa.

Tewa (also known as Tano) is one of five Tanoan languages spoken by the Pueblo people of New Mexico. Though these five languages are closely related, speakers of one cannot fully understand speakers of another (similar to German and Dutch speakers). The six Tewa-speaking pueblos are Nambe, Pojoaque, San Ildefonso, San Juan, Santa Clara, and Tesuque.

Tewa language

As with Tiwa, Towa and Keres, there is some disagreement among the Tewa people as to whether Tewa should be a written language or not. Some Pueblo elders feel that Tewa languages should be preserved by oral traditions alone. However, many Tewa speakers have decided that Tewa literacy is important for passing the language on to the children. The Tewa pueblos developed their own orthography (spelling system) for their language, San Juan Pueblo has published a dictionary of Tewa, and today there are Tewa language programs teaching children to read and write in most of the Tewa-speaking pueblos.

Notable people

• Maria Martinez, a famous potter known for black on black ware
• Popé
• Esther Martinez, a Tewa linguist
• Jody Naranjo, potter
• Rose Gonzales, potter
• Patricia Michaels, contestant and runner-up on the U.S. version of Project Runway during season 11.

Further reading

• Ortman, Scott G. (2012) Winds from the North: Tewa Origins and Historical Anthropology. ISBN 978-1-60781-172-5.

External links

• Collection of Turn of the Century Photographs of Tewa Indians
• indigenouslanguage.org