The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #83454   Message #1536192
Posted By: Q (Frank Staplin)
06-Aug-05 - 12:59 AM
Thread Name: 'The badlands of New Mexico
Subject: RE: 'The badlands of New Mexico
'Anaasází, not Apache, must be the word guest is referring to; a Navajo word meaning alien enemy, or ancestor of the aliens.

The early ethnographers applied the name, as Anasazi, to the people who left the many ruined structures in the Four Corners area; the ancestral Puebloans. The Navajo called them that, the ethnographers took it, and it has stuck although it is now known to be inappropriate.

Chíshí (implies tall) and Beehai are Navajo names for two groups of Apaches (Chiricahua and Jicarilla resp.); the name for another (White Mt.) can't be spelled with normal characters. Naashgalí is applied to the Mescalero group.

Naasht'ázhí is the Navajo name for Zuni. It means black-streaked, for the black tattoos they once had (now they use removable charcoal). The Zuni, of course, are descended from the Anasazi.

Both the Zuni and the Navajo now use the term Anasazi for the prehistoric Puebloans of the Four Corners area, although old meanings persist in stories and jokes.

Settled farming groups such as the Zuni would consider the Apaches, and the Navajo, who raided them, as enemies and the names of the raiders would become equivalent to enemy. I don't have a Zuni dictionary, so I can't give the terms in their language.