Frank Hamilton Cushing - Work at Zuni

Work At Zuni

He was invited by Powell to join the James Stevenson anthropological expedition to New Mexico. The group traveled by rail to end of the line at Las Vegas, New Mexico, then on to Zuni Pueblo where Cushing, "went native", living with the Zuni from 1879 to 1884, becoming anthropology's first participant observer. (This credit is usually assigned to Bronisław Malinowski, whose work with the Trobriand Islanders followed Cushing's stay at Zuni by more than thirty years.) After some initial difficulties (the Zuni seriously considered killing him as he was obviously after their secrets) he was accepted by the community, adopted by the Governor of the Pueblo and participated in Zuni activities. In 1881 he was initiated into the warrior society, the Priesthood of the Bow. He received the Zuni name Tenatsali, "medicine flower." In 1882 he took his Zuni father and fellow Bow members on a tour to the Eastern United States which attracted considerable media attention. This can be seen as part of what Cushing called "the reciprocal method", where he would introduce his anthropological subjects to his own culture, just has they had introduced him to theirs (Green 1990:166). Such practice, a century ahead of its time, is now called "reflexive anthropology". During this tour Cushing married Emily Tennison of Washington, D.C. He returned to Zuni with his wife and her sister.

It was at this point that Cushing became embroiled in a political intrigue. In 1877, President Hayes had signed a bill designating the boundaries of the new Zuni reservation. One 800-acre (3.2 km2) section of Zuni territory called the Nutria Valley had been left out. Three land speculators, including Major W. F. Tucker, arrived in Zuni in late 1882 to claim the parcel for a cattle ranching operation. The angered Zunis appealed to Cushing for help, whereby he wrote letters to newspapers in Chicago and Boston in their defense. Unfortunately, Major Tucker's father-in-law was Illinois Senator John A. Logan, who would become a vice presidential candidate in 1884. Even though President Chester Arthur rewrote the Zuni boundaries in 1883 to correct the Nutria Valley omission, the damage had been done. Senator Logan's reputation had been tarnished in the "land grab" imbroglio. Logan, in his position as U.S. Senator, threatened the Bureau of American Ethnology director John Wesley Powell with funding cuts if Cushing's stay in Zuni was not terminated. Cushing was forced to return to Washington, ending his landmark efforts amongst the New Mexico natives.

He was able to return briefly in 1886 but personal and health problems ruined his stay for him. He was succeeded as leader of the Hemenway Southwestern Archaeological Expedition by archaeologist and ethnologist J. Walter Fewkes.