NATIVE AMERICANS, THE: THE SOUTHWEST: WHITE MYTH, NATIVE MYTHOLOGY (TV)
Summary
One in this six-part miniseries detailing Native American history and culture. This episode examines the Native Americans of the southwest. Many southwestern tribes share a common origin story about ascending through four worlds. Each world ends with the destruction of the earth, from a world of fire, to breath, to water. After the destruction of the last world, it is said that human beings lived underground with ant-people. To this day, ceremonies are conducted that celebrate the emergence into the fourth world: light. The people of the southwest built structures in sandstone canyons and grew squash and corn along desert rivers. The Pueblo people created great works of architecture like Pueblo Bonito, a massive living complex which took 150 years to construct. They also carved out a complex system of roads and settlements across the desert, and created works of art such as baskets and pottery. However, their population grew too large to be sustainable, and they suffered long, harsh droughts. The Pueblos moved to other areas, creating a new civilization. The Hopi tribe’s culture revolved around their cultivation of corn. Their stories told that they had made a pact with a great spirit to grow corn, and it came to be used in prayer and religious ceremony as well as for food. Modern Hopi villages are spread out near Flagstaff, Arizona, such as Oraibi, the oldest continuously inhabited town in North America. Family, prayer, and song is entwined in every aspect of Hopi life. They are also noted for their belief in the Kachinas, disembodied spirits given form through costume and song. In the 15th Century, the Apache and Navajo people moved into the desert, struggle and conflict accompanied their arrival. Apaches lived and hunted in the mountains around Arizona as nomadic war bands, while the Navajo built settlements and shared land with the Pueblos. Spanish conquerors arrived from Mexico, looking for gold and slaves to work their mines. The peoples of the southwest were initially welcoming to the Spanish, but in 1540 a Spanish expedition led by Francisco Vásquez de Coronado set up camp near a Pueblo village and incidents of Pueblo women being raped occurred. The Pueblo protested but their pleas were ignored, so the Pueblo retaliated by raiding their horses. Coronado ordered 200 Pueblos to be burned at the stake; those who escaped were killed. Under Spanish rule, traditional ceremonies were forbidden. In 1675, 47 Indians in Santa Fe were accused of practicing witchcraft and four were hanged, the rest imprisoned. Ceremonies had to be carried out in secret. In 1680, a medicine man named Popé organized a revolt between several Pueblo villages. A total of 18 Pueblo settlements rebelled, burning down their local churches; 400 Spanish were killed and 2,000 were driven back to Mexico. Fifteen years later, the Spanish returned. Their influence remained even into the 1960’s, when a pastor in a Pueblo village was arrested for accosting locals for practicing traditional beliefs. In the 19th Century, settlers from the east were snatching up land and bounty hunters from Mexico were dealing in scalps and slaves. In 1861, General James Carlton had orders to defend Union supply lines through Apache territory, but he had the ulterior motive of wiping out the Apache completely so as to take their land. Twenty-five years of Apache resistance followed in brutal guerilla warfare, led by the medicine man Geronimo. By the 1880’s, the Apaches had been subdued at great expense. The remaining Apaches were held in prison camps, where many died from disease. Unlike other tribes, the United States subscribed to a philosophy of total annihilation concerning the Apaches. Geronimo pleaded for his people’s freedom from his exile in Oklahoma, and continued until his death in 1909. Carlton also set his sights on the Navajo and their vast sheep fields. He enlisted the aid of frontiersman Kit Carson in his attack on the Navajo. In 1863, Carson burned their fields and orchards, forcing them to march to the same prison camps where the Apache were held. Many left their children in Pueblos along the way to protect them. In the winter of 1865, the Navajo rancher Manuelito sequestered himself and dozens of Navajo in the canyons of his homeland, refusing to move or surrender. However, Manuelito was forced to surrender in 1866 due to starvation. In 1868, Manuelito and other Navajo leaders signed a new peace treaty that granted them freedom from the prison camps. The Navajo returned to their ancestral homelands and vowed to remain there at all costs. They still live there in modern times, continually struggling for land rights. Every August, Santa Fe holds its annual Indian Market, where Navajo artwork fetches a high price. However, many southwestern Native Americans are concerned about maintaining their cultural identity in an age where they fear being absorbed into mainstream culture. Unlike many other tribes, the southwest people live on their original land. They struggle with the morays of the modern world and with keeping their language, which they believe is now the cornerstone of their traditional ways. Commercials deleted.
Details
- NETWORK: TBS
- DATE: 1994 9:05 PM
- RUNNING TIME: 0:48:43
- COLOR/B&W: Color
- CATALOG ID: 100721
- GENRE: Public affairs/Documentaries
- SUBJECT HEADING: Pat Mitchell Collection, The; Indigenous Peoples Collection
- SERIES RUN: TBS - TV miniseries - 1994
- COMMERCIALS: N/A
CREDITS
- Pat Mitchell … Executive Producer
- Trans Pacific Television … Executive Producer
- Cerise Fukuji … Associate Producer
- Steve Lewis … Associate Producer
- Jacoba Atlas … Supervising Producer
- Vivian Schiller … Supervising Producer
- Patricia Foulkrod … Line Producer
- John Borden … Director
- Phil Lucas … Director
- Michael Grant … Writer
- Hanay Geiogamah … Writer
- Robbie Robertson … Music by
- The Red Road Ensemble … Music by
- Joy Harjo … Narrator
- Verna Teller … Cast
- Bob Haozous … Cast
- Grace McNeley … Cast
- Radford Quahmahangnewa … Cast
- Alfonso Ortiz … Cast
- Kee Shay … Cast
- Geronimo
- Manuelito
- Popé
- James Carlton
- Kit Carson
- Francisco Vásquez de Coronado