Description
The Puebloans, or Pueblo peoples, are Native Americans in the Southwestern United States who share common agricultural, material, and religious practices. Among the currently inhabited Pueblos, Taos, San Ildefonso, Acoma, Zuni, and Hopi are some of the most commonly known. Pueblo peoples have lived in the American Southwest for millennia and descend from the ancestral Puebloans. Puebloan societies contain elements of three major cultures that dominated the Southwest United States region before European contact.
Language
Pueblo people speak languages from four different language families, and each Pueblo is further divided culturally by kinship systems and agricultural practices, although all cultivate varieties of maize.
Culture
The Puebloans are traditional weavers of cloth and have used textiles, natural fibers, and animal hide in their cloth-making. Since woven clothing is laborious and time-consuming, every-day style of dress for working around the villages has been sparer. The men often wore breechcloths. Corn is the most readily recognizable staple food for Pueblo peoples. Although it is possible that different groups may have grown local plants such as gourds and chenopods at very early dates, the first evidence of maize cultivation in the Southwest dates from about 2100 BCE. The various Pueblo communities have different traditions regarding the making and decoration of pottery artifacts.