Acoma Indian Culture

The Acoma Indians centered their lives around the myth of the Corn Mother, known to them as Iatiku. Born in the underworld and nursed by Tsichtinako (who is known as the “Thought Woman”), Iatiku’s purpose is to “bring life to all the things in your baskets in order that the world be complete for you to rule over it” (Merchant 49). According to their beliefs, Iatiku is responsible for the creation of the four seasons and the spirits that ruled over each season, the formation of the “katsina,” who were Cloud-spirits of the ancestors that resided within a lake in Wenimats, and the inception of Tsitsanits, known as “Big Teeth,” who’s responsibility was ruling over the katsina. The intersubjective relationship that the Acoma Indians have with nature
Iatiku’s statement that the humans and the spirits will feed one another, in the sense that the humans will honor the spirits and give offerings, and that the spirits will then grant a good hunt, is what ultimately created such a ubiquitous respect for nature and acknowledgement of its importance amount the Acoma people. This theme was present within a mass majority of practices of Eastern Woodland Indian tribes, and served as the main cause for their intimate relationship with their environment. However, the arrival of the Europeans drastically changed the practices of these Indian tribes, both through the resources that they brought into the New World and the enforcement and integration of Christianity. Europeans changed the agricultural practices of many tribes in different ways. One way was through the introduction of the horse and firearms to the New World. This caused a shift from agriculture within certain tribes to more of a nomadic lifestyle because hunting suddenly became convenient. Tribes “abandoned their ecological safety nets in order to concentrate year-round on bison hunting” because of the technological advancements through the horse and rifle (Merchant