The Pueblo
Zuni is a small village in the Southwestern part of New Mexico. For a thousand years, it has been the most important part of the region. The language of the Zuni people (A:shiwi ) is a linguistic isolate--there being no other language which bears any resemblance. This suggests that the time in which the Zunis separated from a parent group lies at a considerably distance and it implies a cultural conservativeness such that no other language has been allowed to take root. Just as Zunis will say that their religion is the glue which holds their culture together so others are beginning to understand that Zuni is the glue which holds southwestern New Mexico together.

Idiwanna is the name the Zunis give to the place where theyl ive. Idiwanna in the Zuni language means The Center Place.

Zuni is a cultural and religious and political center which shares in a cultural envelope extending back and in four directions for more than a thousand years. The present Zuni exists as a nation, as the political and cultural center of that ongoing tradition of Pueblo culture which originated in the desert southwest. The present Zuni, is the same place that it was a thousand years ago, it is still Idiwanna, The Center Place.

The Fetish Carvers
Fetishes have been found at sites ancestral to Zuni dated as early as 650 AD. There is reason to think that the use of fetishes at Zuni is a lot older than that One way to understand the use of fetishes in a Pueblo society (like Zuni) may be as a holdover of pre-Pueblo beliefs such as shamanism wherein an individual seeks a personal relationship to animal helpers.

At Zuni, rain and prosperity are brought about because of the kachina dances and the Pueblo's prayers to the ancestors, but an individuals health and success may depend more on the intercession of his or her animal helpers. Not unlike, perhaps, when one of the astronauts took a fetish in orbit--training and coordination of the mission depended on NASA and science but personal safety was sought through a fetish.

Zuni is a place of order, regularity, tradition and "fit"--the older tradition of animal helpers has been fit into the Pueblo's religious societies, thus, at Zuni fetishes are blessed by the Medicine society. At specific intervals all the fetishes of a society are brought together and certain office holders are charged with their custody.

The most significant (though difficult to read) discussion of Zuni use of fetishes was written for the Second Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology by Frank Hamilton Cushing and originally published in 1883. Cushing collected fetishes for the Smithsonian which are now housed in its collection in Washington D.C.

Zunis are very well known for their fetish carvings. Probably because Zuni has been on a major trade route for the last thousand years it has developed into a relatively more open society, not afraid to share what is appropriate with outsiders. (There has been a long trade, for example, in providing fetishes to Navajos for protection of their sheep and cattle. Similarly, it is not uncommon for Zunis to consult Navajo crystal gazers to locate things that are missing.) Fetish carvings are expressions of what Zunis find beautiful and if they bring pleasure of the beautiful and "luck" to others then so much the better.

As Lena Boone, a noted carver, explained in a Wall Street Journal article (April 28, 1993), "In our tradition, fetishes are used for healing, protection, spiritual guidance, good luck and longevity. I believe in that. A lot of my customers believe in that. But in my work I don't guarantee it."

For contemporary carvers one finds two styles: an older more abstract style wherein features are only suggested and a realistic style where exacting details are rendered. Both styles are well represented at Zuni. In general, older carvers prefer the more abstract style, and younger carvers the more detailed.