The Zuni Reservation, also referred to as the Zuni Pueblo, is located about 150 miles west of Albuquerque. The main reservation is located in the western part of New Mexico, but the Zuni also have holdings in Apache County, Arizona, which are not adjacent to the main reservation. According to Zuni traditional knowledge, the Zuni finally arrived at the Middle Place, or Ha'wi-k'uh, after a long migration. Historically, the ancient site of Ha'wi-k'uh was the first pueblo village encountered by Spanish explorers, specifically an African slave named Estavenico. Although Estavenico was killed trying to escape from the Zuni hosts he had ceremonially offended, later reports of this first encounter identified Zuni land as the the site of the fabled cities of gold, which in subsequent generations became known as Cibola. Most historians have assumed that Cibola, and therefore what is now the Zuni Reservation, is a reference to a European myth about the fabled Seven Cities of Gold, but other research suggests that Cibloa may be a Spanish mistranslation of the Zuni self-ascription A:shiwi.
"Rainbow, Zuni Pueblo," photograph, (2000-017-B19-F18-2). Center for Southwest Research, University Libraries, University of New Mexico.
Bunzel, Ruth Leah
1932 Introduction To Zuñi Ceremonialism. 47Th Annual Report of the Bureau of
American Ethnology. Washington: U. S. Government Printing Office.
Cushing, Frank Hamilton
189 Outlines Of Zuñi Creation Myths. Thirteenth Annual Report of the Bureau of
Ethnology of the Smithsonian Institution 1891-’92. Washington, D. C.: Government
Printing Office.
Eggan, Fred
1995 Zuni History and Anthropology. Zuni and the Courts : A Struggle for Sovereign
Land Rights. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas.
Leighton, Dorothea Cross, and John Adair
1963 People of the Middle Place: A Study of the Zuni Indians. Behavior Science
Monographs. New Haven: Human Relations Area Files.
Levin Rojo, Danna
2014 Return to Aztlan: Indians, Spaniards, and the Invention of Nuevo Mexico. Norman:
University of Oklahoma Press.
Stevenson, Matilda Coxe Evans
1904 Zuni Indians: Their Mythology, Esoteric Fraternities, and Ceremonies. U.S. Bureau
of American Ethnology. Twenty-Third Annual Report. 1901-1902. Washington:
Government Printing Office.