Indian Pueblo Cultural Center
Introduction
Text-to-speech Audio
The Indian Pueblo Cultural Center preserves and interprets the history, culture, and art of the Pueblo people. The museum's many exhibits provide both a basic introduction to the history of the Pueblo people from before the time of contact with European peoples to the modern era. The Center also preserves and shares the art of all 19 pueblos (communities) throughout New Mexico, with artifacts and murals throughout the museum. The museum offers authentic Native American food at its Pueblo Harvest restaurant each day. In addition to offering guided tours and events, the museum also provides visitors with information on visiting the 19 area Pueblos. If you plan on visiting the Pueblos themselves but are not able to visit the Center, please be sure to click on the "Visiting the Pueblos" link below to learn a bit more about them and the appropriate manners of behavior and etiquette.
Images
Indian Pueblo Cultural Center is one of the top-rated museums of Native American history in the US
The museum includes many displays of Pueblo artwork
"The Tewa World: Space, Time Being and Becoming in a Pueblo Society"-click the link to learn more about this book by anthropologist Alfonso Ortiz.
Backstory and Context
Text-to-speech Audio
The museum has a collection of 2000 artifacts including jewelry, textiles, baskets, photographs, prints, and paintings. The museum's permanent exhibit is titled "Our Land, Our Culture, Our Story." This exhibit provides guests with a historical overview of the pueblo. The museum also holds historic displays, artifacts, and artwork from all 19 Pueblos. Reflecting the dynamic nature of the Pueblo, the museum is always changing with seasonal exhibits and rotating films and educational programs.
The term pueblo is used specifically to refer to Native American communities in the Southwest. Spanish explorers were the first to use the term to refer to the signature apartment-like stone and Adobe mud residential structures characteristic of Native American villages in the area. The word pueblo is Spanish for town or village.
Communities designated as pueblos at the time the King of Spain ceded the Southwestern territory of the U.S. after the American Revolutionary War fall under the legal term "Pueblo" under the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Thus, there are 21 federally recognized "Pueblos" that are home to the Pueblo people. This umbrella term refers to several different peoples and language groups in the Southwest. These groups are divided among two major cultural distinctions-- those that practice matrilineal descent and those that practice patrilineal descent. Included in these people groups are the Hopi of Arizona, the Pueblo of Ohkay Owingeh in New Mexico, and the Pueblo of Ysleta Del Sur in Texas, among others. The Sandia Pueblo people are near Albuquerque.
Sources
"About IPCC." Indian Pueblo Cultural Center. Accessed March 12, 2018. https://www.indianpueblo.org/about-ipcc.