SETTING AND BACKGROUND 
The historical sketch of Sia has thrown light upon a number of 
significant points: (1) the subjugation and missionization of the Sia 
by the Spaniards; (2) the destruction of their pueblo and its subse- 
quent reoccupation; (3) enmity of some other pueblos incurred by Sia 
for siding, together with Santa Ana and San Felipe, with the Spaniards 
after the Revolt of 1680; and (4) the decline of the pueblo due to 
disease, poverty, and possibly to factional strife and to executions for 
witchcraft.* We now turn to a description of the setting and back- 
ground of Sia and its culture in relatively modern times, since about 
1890 when Stevenson concluded her study of this community. 
THE NAME TSI‘YA 
The name of the pueblo here described is Tsi-ya. Harrington 
(1916, p. 517) spells it Tsé’ja, and says that it is a word of ‘‘obscure 
etymology;’”’ I was unable to discover any English equivalent of it. 
The name has been spelled variously in the literature: Cia, Cilla, 
Ciya, Chia, Sia, Siay, Silla, Siya, Tsia, Tria, Trios, Tse-ah, Tse-a, 
Tzia, Zea, and Zia (ibid., pp. 517-518; Harrington gives a biblio- 
graphic reference for each use). After the Mexican War, some 
Americans in the area, e.g., James Stevenson, apparently seem to have 
thought that the name was the Spanish sila (chair, saddle). The 
Pueblo Indians and the long-established Mexicans in the Rio Grande 
region call people from Texas Tejanos. The people of Sia would, 
therefore, be Sillanos, and I find that some of the specimens 
collected by the Stevensons, now in the U. S. National Musevm, are 
labeled ‘‘Sillana.”” The Keresan term for ‘people of Tsiya”’ is 
Tsé’jame, ‘people’ (Harrington, 1916, p. 517). By or before the 1950’s, 
when the present study was terminated, ‘“‘Zia’”’ had become the most 
generally accepted spelling of the name; it was necessary for the U.S. 
Post Office to settle upon a spelling, and highway maps, the Indian 
Service, and the U.S. Public Health Service have tended to follow 
suit. I am retaining the earlier spelling “‘Sia’’ because it is the one 
used by the Bureau of American Ethnology when it published M. C. 
Stevenson’s monograph, and it is the one used in the Handbook of 
American Indians (Hodge, 1910, pp. 562-563). 
4 Bandelier (1890, p. 350.) believed, on the basis of unspecified evidence, that Sia, Nambe, and Santa Clara 
“owe their decline to the constant inter-killing . . . . for supposed evil practices of witchcraft.”” There 
have been rumors that factional strife broke out after Mrs. Stevenson left Sia and that ‘‘some people got 
sick and died’’ as a consequence. 
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