2017 Copyright NOTE: "To be used in an upcoming publication--do not use without written permission of the author and publisher." ABC-CLIO/Greenwood
INTRODUCTION
Every Native American tribe has its own set of cultural etiquettes and taboos as is the case among the Native American Indians of the southwestern United States. The distinctive cultural etiquettes and taboos of Native American tribes need to be studied and preserved as part of Native American cultural preservation and heritage. The tribes that make up the American Indian population of the southwestern United States consist of the following tribes: the Apache, Comanche, Havasupai, Hopi, Jemez, Kiowa, Kiowa Apache, Lipan, Maricopa, Mohave, Navajo, Paiute, Papago, Panamint, Pecos, Pima, Pueblo, Shoshoni, Sobaipuri, Tewa, Ute, Walapai, Yavapai, Yuma, and Zuni.
Meeting and Greeting Customs
Cultural etiquette in meeting and greeting among Native Americans of the southwestern U.S. varies from tribe to tribe. Many Native people such as Apache, Yavapai, and Navajo will simply greet each other with a simple handshake. In some cases, an Apache man may throw his hands and arms up toward the sky as an Apache greeting. When two Navajo women meet they may hug each other. Sometimes a greeting may involve weeping for joy between two Navajo women who have not seen each other for a long time.
Marriage and Family
Most Native American tribes are matrilineal in their social structures, for example, the Apache, Navajo, Pima, Pueblo, Maricopa, Shoshoni, and Zuni are matriarchal tribes. In such tribes, it is proper etiquette that when a couple marries that the husband will go to live with the bride's mother and her family. In most Native American tribes of the southwest, monogamy is observed (Navajo, Hopi, Pueblo, Zuni). Before 1900, the Comanche Indians practiced polygyny and levirate and sororate marriage practices were not uncommon among the Apace, Comanche, and the Lipan tribes. In levirate marriages, if the husband died then his widow would marry the brother of her deceased husband; and in sororate marriages, if the wife died then her husband would marry the sister of his deceased wife.
In Navajo cultures, a mother is very important to the social fabric and well-being of the family and the larger Navajo culture. A mother has certain responsibilities that she is obligated to fulfill. She is in charge of the Navajo house, also called a hogan. The Navajo home is considered sacred and the mother is to guard the home. She is responsible for the care of the home, the contents of the home, the care of the children, and the tending of the sheep. The Navajo man’s role is to provide for his family and for all the things that will keep the home operating. He must haul wood to warm the home, maintain the family’s livestock, and hunt for wild game. The role of children and young men and women in Native American cultures is to show respect to their parents and tribal "Elders" and to do chores around the home by helping to help haul wood and water.
Appearance and Dress
Traditionally most Indians wore clothes made from buckskin (Apache, Navajo, Mohave, Yavapai). Men woreIndian breechclothsand leggings, and women wore skirts and tunic-like shirts. For shoes, the Yavapai people worenative moccasins, but others wore sandals made of yucca fiber. The Yuma (also called the Quechan people) didn't wear much clothing at all. Yuma men typically wore breechcloths. The Yuma women wore dresses made of willow bark strips.In the winter season, the Yuma Indians wore rabbit-skin robes at night.
Hospitality Etiquette
In Native American hospitality guests are always fed. The normal greeting for guests is not“Hello”or“How are you doing?”but rather “Have you eaten?” Hospitality etiquette for Native American families is to do their best to keep a pot of food, such as mutton stew, always ready to eat for any guest who comes to the hogan (round, log house) (Navajo) or the wickiup (brush hut) of the Apache or Yavapai.
The duties of the host in the Native American home are always to compliment guests, lend help to “Elders” with entering or leaving the home, to never sit while any guests stand, to offer guests the places of honor in the home and the best food available, and to protect guests as members of the family or clan. The duties of a guests are to accept any food offered, to be grateful for any and all offers from the host, to give honor and respect to the woman of the home, to always compliment the host, and to present the host with a gift.
Body Language and Verbal Communication
Body language is very important to Native Americans. Proper body posture is expected in the Navajo tribe. Navajos believe it is unattractive if a person slouches or gives any appearance of being lazy. A Navajo person should always sit in a position of readiness with a straight, upper back and up-lifted shoulders in order to communicate that he or she is ready to help and serve as needed in the home as well as in the tribe. In order to point to an object, or in a particular direction, it is considered rude to point with one’s fingers, rather the lips are pursed or “pressed together” and the face and lips are pointed towards the object or in the desired direction. In Indian cultures among the Navajo, Apache, Yavapai, and Zuni, when a younger person is speaking with an “Elder” direct eye contact should be avoided.
In verbal communication, it is proper etiquette to listen more than one talks. This is especially true between a younger person and an older person or an “Elder” in Indian society. During a conversation, a person should not speak until he or she is sure the other person has finished speaking. One should expect many pauses in a conversation. A person should not speak too fast or too much. When a person speaks, he or she should speak softly and deliberately. In general, a person should not speak of tribal politics, the dead, religion and religious ceremonies, witchcraft, or other sensitive cultural issues.
Taboos
Native American tribes have a number of taboos. The taboos vary from tribe to tribe; however, in some cases there are some cultural overlaps among the specific taboos in the Indian cultures of the southwestern U.S. By observing the taboos related to their world, Native Americans believe they can avoid sickness and even an untimely death.
Food Taboos
Among Native American tribes of the southwest, gluttony is considered taboo. At a meal, a person should always make sure he or she leaves enough food so that all the other clan members can have a portion of the meal that is served. Eating burned bread in the Navajo culture is taboo. Native Americans typically do not drink milk. Among the Apache and Navajo tribes, one should not eat snake, bear, reptiles or fish meat. In many tribes, the owl is considered a messenger of bad news or even death so eating owl meat is taboo. The Navajo and Yavapai tribes also do not eat fish. The taboo against eating fish in the Yavapai culture is based on their oral tradition that there was once a worldwide flood and it was at that time that some of the ancient Yavapai people became fish, thus if one were to eat fish he or she might be eating an ancestor.
Marriage/Family/ Association Taboos
Marriage was typically arranged in Native American tribes. In some cases, a bride and groom did not meet until their wedding day. In the Hopi culture, the engagement was signaled to the tribe when a man and a woman brushed each other’s hair. In practically all the tribes, it was forbidden to marry within one’s own clan down to the first and second cousins. Marriages were informal among the Ute and once premarital intercourse occurred at the home of a young woman she was considered married. In many Native American tribes, divorce was as simple as the wife putting her husband’s belongings outside of the hogan or hut. The man was then forced to return to his own clan to live with his mother and father. The children stayed with their mother.
When a girl has her first menstruation a special ceremony is held as a rite of passage and she is given special instructions imposing food taboos and behavioral taboos until the end of her menstruation. Some of the taboos in the Navajo puberty ceremony, also called the Kinaaldá lasting four days, are that it is forbidden for the pubescent girl to sleep the first night of her Kinaaldá ceremony. She must sit up straight the whole night. During the night, special prayers are sung over the girl by her mother. The next morning the girl must prepare a special ceremonial corn cake called an alkan for her people. It is also during the puberty ceremony when the medicine man calls upon the spirit of the first Native American woman, also called the Changing Woman (in Apache, Navajo, and Yavapai tribes), to come and inhabit the body of the pubescent girl for four days. During the four days, the young Native American girl is believed to be transformed into the Changing Woman at which time the pubescent girl also acquires all the desirable traits she will need to be a good Native American wife and mother.
When a person violates some socially appropriate behavior, teasing and ridicule are the primary means of discipline in the family and the tribe as a whole (Apache, Navajo, Ute, Yavapai). Derogatory nicknames are sometimes used to ridicule and tease a person for his or her bad behavior in which he or she is guilty of some inappropriate behavior or breaking some social taboo.
In Native American tribes, there are many taboos for when a woman is pregnant. A pregnant woman should not tie knots when she is pregnant or she may have a hard time giving birth; she should not try to count the stars or she will have too many children; she should not eat a lot of sweet foods because the baby will not be strong; she should not look at a wild animal or her baby will look wild; and she must not look at a dead person or a dead animal while pregnant because it is bad luck and her baby might be born sick (Navajo). In Zuni culture, the Indians believed that if a husband killed a snake when his wife was pregnant the baby would be born spotted like a snake and die.
Taboos Relating to Nature and Religion
The religion of Native Americans is directly linked to nature. Many Native Americans worship and pray to the earth (also called Mother Earth); the sky (also called Father Sky); the sun; and moon; as well as to what they call “the four winds” from the north, south, east, and west. The goal of Native American religions is to maintain balance and harmony between human beings, nature, and the spiritual realm. In the Native American worldview, everything has a spirit: rocks, trees, rivers, animals, the sun, the moon, stars, and people all have a spirit. Religious taboos for Native Americans involve anything that disrupts or disturbs balance and harmony.
Southwestern Native American tribes typically recognize three categories of spiritual beings—a supreme god, nature spirits (including agricultural spirits), and ancestor spirits. The Hopi and the Zuni Indians have an elaborate system of worshipping Kachina spirits, or the spirits of children who were lost in the mountains. Each year the Kachina spirits visit the tribes in order to assure the Hopi and Zuni of a good harvest; however, special dances and Kachina rituals must be performed, otherwise the Kachinas will not give a good harvest. Some tribes also believe in a “Great Spirit” who they call God. The Apaches worshiped Usen who they believed was the one God who created all human beings.
The religious leaders among most southwestern Indian tribes are the medicine men or the medicine women. In some Indian tribes, shamans perform religious rituals and perform healing ceremonies. In most Native American religions, a sweat lodge is typically part of the religious rituals and ceremonies. The steam in sweat lodges helps to purify a person’s physical, emotional, and spiritual being. The sweat lodge is a sacred place in which one prays for healing to spirit beings (also called holy ones) as well as to the spirits of ancestors for guidance and wisdom. It is taboo if one does not follow the proper way to enter and exit the sweat lodge, and if one does not heed the protocol and prayer rituals in the sweat lodge as led by the sweat lodge leader.
In Native American religions, the medicine man knows elaborate ceremonies and rituals to cure sickness and remove curses. Traditional Native American religion followers believe that sickness and death are often the result of violating some religious taboo; such religious taboos include touching the dead, engaging in witchcraft, touching or abusing some sacred or ceremonial object, touching an object that was struck by lighting, upsetting a sprit, disrupting the natural or animal world, and disturbing a grave. In Native American religions, the medicine man or medicine woman also has the power and the ability to reverse spells cast by witches. A strong belief in witchcraft is common among most Native American tribes, especially among the Navajo in the southwest. Through special ceremonies and singing healing “spiritual songs,” the medicine man can restore order and balance in the realm of human beings, the realm of nature spirits, and the realm of the spirits of deceased human beings. Not following all the rituals and instructions of the medicine man or medicine woman is taboo.
Taboos Relating to Death
In general among Native American cultures the subject of death or any discussions about the dead are taboo topics. Among many Native tribes, it is taboo to touch the body of a corpse. Even today it is taboo to mention the name of the deceased in most cases. If the name of the dead is named the name is always mentioned using a past tense verb.
Southwestern tribes, especially the Apache and Navajo, fear the ghosts of the deceased. For this reason, the Apache and Navajo do all they can to ensure that those who have died do not return by burying a deceased person’s possessions along with him or her. A Navajo man’s horse was sometimes killed and buried with a deceased Navajo man on occasion along with the man’s saddle. A dead person’s home was often burned to keep his or her spirit from returning to the home. In some tribes, such as the Shoshoni and the Yavapai, the dead were cremated along with all their possessions. It is taboo to wear a dead person’s clothing or jewelry; so the clothing and jewelry are also burned along with the corpse. The taboos regarding death are some of the strongest taboos in Native American cultures.
Suggestions for Further Study
Collins, John James. Native American Religions: A Geographical Survey. Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen, 1991.
Pearson, Keith L. The Indian in American History. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc., 1973.
Spencer, Robert F., Jesse D. Jennings et al. The Native Americans: Ethnology and Backgrounds of the North American Indians. New York: Harper & Row, 1977.
Spicer, Edward H. The American Indians: Dimensions of Ethnicity. Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1980.
Trimble, Stephen. The People: Indians of the American Southwest. Santa Fe, NM: School of American Research Press, 1993.
Utter, Jack. American Indians: Answers to Today’s Questions. Lake Ann, MI: National Woodlands Publishing Company, 1993.
Yazzie-Parsons, Evangeline and Margaret Speas. Diné Bizaad Bínáhoóaah: Rediscovering the Navajo Language: An Introduction to the Navajo Language. Flagstaff, AZ: Salina Bookshelf, Inc., 2007.
By David H. Campbell, Ph.D.
