The Anthropology and Archaeology of Pueblo Secret Societies

Abstract The Eastern, or Rio Grande, Pueblos have always been more resistant to anthropological study than their Western Pueblo neighbors, a fact usually attributed to the impacts of Euro-American colonialism in New Mexico’s Rio Grande Valley. There are, however, internal structural differences between the Eastern and Western Pueblos that bear on the question of secrecy and resistance and that long predate the colonial period. All Pueblos have secret societies. In the Western Pueblos, these societies are embedded in and controlled by matrilineal descent groups (lineages and clans). In the east, kin-based organizations had declined by the late precolonial period (AD 1300–1600), and political power shifted to secret societies that control their community’s ceremonial calendar and virtually all governmental functions. The secrecy that surrounds these institutions strongly resists observations by—and questions from—both outsiders and uninitiated insiders. This article explores the origins of these differences and proposes that the Chaco Phenomenon (circa AD 900–1100) was a critical hinge point in the ritual and political divergence of East and West.