"A Tewa" New Mexico

Hernando Gonzallo Villa

A drawn portrait of a Tewa tribesman on horseback. The Tewa tribe is located in northeastern Arizona and in New Mexico. The Arizona Tewa are related to the Tewa communities living in the Rio Grande Valley, such as Santa Clara and San Juan.

Tewa (also known as Tano) is one of five Tanoan languages spoken by the Pueblo people of New Mexico. Though these five languages are closely related, speakers of one cannot fully understand speakers of another (similar to German and Dutch speakers). The six Tewa-speaking pueblos are Nambe, Pojoaque, San Ildefonso, San Juan, Santa Clara, and Tesuque.

As with Tiwa, Towa and Keres, there is some disagreement among the Tewa people as to whether Tewa should be a written language or not. Some Pueblo elders feel that Tewa languages should be preserved by oral traditions alone. However, many Tewa speakers have decided that Tewa literacy is important for passing the language on to the children.

The Tewa pueblos developed their own orthography (spelling system) for their language, San Juan Pueblo has published a dictionary of Tewa, and today there are Tewa language programs teaching children to read and write in most of the Tewa-speaking pueblos.