Humanhood in the Organ Mountains: Prehistory

Indigenous reflections on artifacts from Chavez Cave

This site offers video footage and transcripts of several consultations with Zuni Elders. These consultations occurred at Chavez Cave and La Cueva as well as at the University Museum where a review of objects recovered from these significant locations took place. Two Zuni Elders participated in person (Figure 1) while several other Elders participated remotely from Zuni by video conference (Figure 2). Collectively, these Elders offered insights on the importance of both caves and on the objects recovered from these significant landscape localities.

Several of the insights that emerged from these conversations helped to rectify inaccurate characterizations of the objects that were made by earlier non-Indigenous researchers. Several of those revisions are discussed and presented in this site and form the basis for new lines of investigation. University Museum staff and student workers are deeply grateful for wisdom contained in these indigenous understandings of both places and objects.

Kindly Proceed with Good Intentions

Please note that many of the insights shared by the Zuni regarding these caves and the objects found in them constitute culturally sensitive knowledge. We ask that visitors honor these Elder’s generosity to share this information by treating with with courtesy and respect.

Figure 1: Octavius Seowtewa (left) and Michael Gchachu (right) at the University Museum consulting on objects from Chavez Cave.

Figure 2: Other Zuni Elders participate in the consultation remotely via web conference.

We would like to thank the following Zuni elders for participating in the consultations:

• Octavius Seowtewa
• Michael Gchachu
• Curtis Quam
• Gilbert Yuselew
• Alex Seowtewa
• Presley Haskie