THE PUEBLO OF SIA, NEW MEXICO 
By Lesure A. WHITE 
INTRODUCTION 
Sia was the only Keresan pueblo studied ethnologically in anything 
like systematic fashion during the 19th century. Adolph F. Bandelier 
made observations at Santo Domingo and Cochiti and possibly at 
other Keresan pueblos during the 1880’s, but his data were spread 
indiscriminately throughout his ‘‘Final Report,” etc., (1890, 1892), or 
embodied in his novel, ‘The Delight Makers’ (1918); he published 
no monograph on any living pueblo. Father Noél Dumarest recorded 
some of his observations at Cochiti in the late 1890’s, which were later 
edited and published by Elsie Clews Parsons. Most of the ethno- 
graphic fieldwork among the Keres has been done since World War I. 
Mrs. Parsons did her first work among the Keres at Laguna in 1917. 
She was followed by Franz Boas at Laguna in 1919; by Esther S. 
Goldfrank at Cochiti and Laguna in 1921; by Ruth Benedict at 
Cochiti in 1924; and by myself at Acoma in 1926. 
In 1879 James Stevenson, of the newly organized U.S. Geological 
Survey, but detailed to do research for the Bureau of American Eth- 
nology, went to Sia, where he made a collection of ethnologic speci- 
mens! and, presumably, initiated investigation of the social and 
ceremonial life of the pueblo. We do not know how much time 
Stevenson spent at Sia. Apparently he made two field trips: the first 
in 1879-80, the second in 1887. The first was probably of some 
weeks’, or possibly months’, duration. Of the second trip Maj. J. W. 
Powell, then director of the Bureau of American Ethnology, tells us 
that Stevenson spent ‘‘six remarkably successful weeks” at Sia in the 
fall of 1887 (Powell, 1892, pp. xxvii-xxviii). In another place he 
says that Stevenson’s researches at Sia ‘‘were commenced. . . in 1879 
and continued during 1887-88” (Powell, 1894 a, p. xxxix). 
Stevenson accumulated ‘‘copious notes,’ says Powell, ‘together 
with photographs and sketches, and a unique collection of objective 
material’? (Powell, 1894 a, p. xl). But his untimely death, in 1888, 
prevented him from preparing his material for publication. This task 
was undertaken by his wife, Matilda Coxe Stevenson. According 
to her own account, she had accompanied her husband to Zufi in 
1879, and subsequently on all of his field trips to Zufii and to the Hopi 
1 See the list of specimens from ‘‘Silla’”’ in ‘‘Illustrated Catalogue of the Collections obtained from the 
Indians of New Mexico in 1880,’ by James Stevenson (1883, pp. 454-455). 
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