Santa Fe Anthropology

This semester abroad in Santa Fe offers various opportunities to examine the southwest through different lenses: as a woman, as a tourist, as an amateur anthropologist, as a modern Pueblo person, and as an ancestral Native American. The four courses—Native American Literature, Health and Wellness of Native Women, Anthropology and Ethnology of Southwestern Indians, and Contemporary Issues in Native American Studies—complemented by numerous field trips highlight specific issues that Native Americans face: poverty, loss of land and the tension between traditional values and the “American Dream.” The combination of the classes and trips provide the knowledge of a place and then the experience. The pamphlet for the abroad program states, “[The]

Though we were not able to see Walpi Village at Hopi or any of the Zuni pueblo, we did learn about how the Hopi and Zuni are able to farm even though their geographical locations are not near water. Due to an extensive trial and error process in ancestral times, the Hopis and Zunis became expert farmers in their locations by planting their crops deeper into the sand so that the roots can reach the water that collects on the layer of rock about twelve inches below the surface. We learned about this farming technique in the Anthropology and Ethnology of Southwestern Indians course as well as from Joe Day, who learned to farm from his Hopi family members. A geology class would have been more relevant if we were able to have seen First Mesa at Hopi, but on our other field trips, a southwestern geology class would have been helpful. In particular, our visits to Window Rock, Canyon de Chelly, Chaco Canyon, and Mesa Verde, as well as our drives to the various places would have been enhanced by a geologist pointing out different factors for the variety of geological features scattered across the southwest. On our previous trips, I questioned the professors about how rocks formed in a certain way or eroded in a certain way, and I received guesses as answers. I feel the study group would benefit from a professor of geology because of all the different geological features that we see on the various field trips. A Southwestern geology course would be an addition to the study group’s course load and aid in fulfilling the program's mission: to learning through living—such that the course would round out our field trips because each has some aspect of an extreme geological element like a canyon, mesa, or