Southwestern Native Americans

This index has links to resources at Sacred-texts about the religion, mythology, folklore and spiritual practices of Native Americans of the desert Southwestern region.

The following tribes have their own indices:

Navajo
Hopi
Zuñi

The Delight Makers
by Adolf F. Bandelier [1890]
An ethnographic novel of pre-columbian Pueblo life.

Pueblo Indian Folk-Stories
by Charles F. Lummis [1910]
A classic retelling of Pueblo mythology by a pioneering scholar of the Southwest region.

Tales of the Cochiti Indians
by Ruth Benedict [1931]
Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletin 98.
A ethnographic collection of folklore from one of the New Mexico Pueblo groups, the Cochiti, by one of the greatest 20th century anthropologists.

Dancing Gods
by Erna Fergusson [1931]
This classic description of Southwestern ceremonialism is also a great read.

Songs of the Tewa
tr. by Herbert Joseph Spinden [1931]
An evocative collection of poetry from the Tewa Pueblo people, plus an extended essay on Native American poetry.

Origin Myth of Acoma
by Matthew W. Stirling [1942]
(Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletin 135)
A fascinating academic study of the Acoma Pueblo myth cycle.

The Tribes of the Thirty-Fifth Parallel
Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. XVII.--No. 100, September. [1858]

Aw-aw-tam Indian Nights (Myths and Legends of the Pima)
by J. William Lloyd [1911]
Folklore of the Pima, residents of the deserts of southern Arizona.

Yaqui Myths and Legends
by Ruth Warner Giddings [1959]
Native American folklore from the coast of the Sonora desert of Mexico.