Zuni Festival of Arts & Culture

Heritage Insights Programming at the Zuni Festival of Arts and Culture

Click Here to read more about the Zuni Festival of Arts and Culture.

At the Zuni Festival of Arts & Culture, the Ashiwi, or Zuni people, travel to Flagstaff from Zuni to share the Zuni language, life ways, traditional music, and dances. Zuni, New Mexico, is an integral part of the cultural landscape of the Colorado Plateau. Enjoy performing artists such as the Nawetsa Family Dancers who perform traditional Zuni dances, and music from the Zuni Pueblo Band. Learn about the importance of art and cultural place-names in the perpetuation of traditional identity. Meet and buy directly from Zuni artists and demonstrators. This event is created in partnership with the A:shiwi A:wan Museum and Heritage Center in Zuni, New Mexico.

The Museum of Northern Arizona will integrate humanities content into its 25^th Zuni Festival of Art and Culture through specific programs led by tribal educators and elders. This year, the public will explore collaboration from a Zuni perspective and visitors can learn about the language and history of the Zuni people.

11:00 a.m., Ethnology Gallery
Film: 1923 Shalako Film Remake
(10 min. film, discussion to follow)

In 1923 the Heye Foundation produced The Shalako Ceremony at Zuni, New Mexico, which contained highly sensitive footage of the Zuni Shalako ceremony. Through a groundbreaking collaboration between the American Museum of Natural History and the A:shiwi A:wan Museum and Heritage Center, this silent film has been remade with Zuni subtitles and narration. Jim Enote, director of the A:shiwi A:wan Museum and Heritage Center, discusses cultural ownership and exerting control of historical accuracy.

1:00 p.m., Ethnology Gallery & New Courtyard
Zuni Waffle Gardening

Discussion and demonstration. Jim Enote, director of the A:shiwi A:wan Museum and Heritage Center, illustrates the process of building a waffle garden. Learn about the Zuni’s relationship with the environment, how traditional values and agricultural values are linked, and how the use of waffle gardens conserves space, water, and labor. After the discussion, join Enote in the New Courtyard (weather permitting) to see a waffle garden in progress.

3:00 p.m., Ethnology Gallery
A:shiwi to Halona:wa: Zuni Emergence & Migration

According to the Zuni or A:shiwi, their place of origin was Chimik’yana’kya dey’a, known to modern hikers as Ribbon Falls on Bright Angel Creek, which flows to the Colorado River from the north rim wall of the Grand Canyon. Learn the story of Zuni Emergence in the Grand Canyon, their migration throughout the Colorado Plateau, and the eventual settlement at the “Middle Place,” in what is now Zuni Pueblo in New Mexico.

The Heritage Insights Programs are funded in part by a grant from Arizona Humanities.