The Zia Pueblo and the New Mexico State Flag

January 6, 2006, marks the ninety-fourth anniversary of the admittance of the state of New Mexico to the Union. While many articles have been written about the "Land of Enchantment", not many have sought to examine the history of the most prominent symbol of the state; her flag.

Most Americans are familiar with the unique design of the New Mexico state flag. Many assume the red sun symbol on a deep yellow background references the state's southwest location and the fact that it gets plenty of sun. This is partly true, but the symbol represents so much more. The Zia, as it is often called, is an ancient symbol which does represent the sun. It was discovered in the 1800's on a water jar at Zia Pueblo, in the northern part of the state, about thirty miles northwest of Albuquerque. The Pueblo Indians inhabited New Mexico centuries before the arrival of Europeans. Their love of peace and tolerance led to the loss of their ancestral lands to other indian tribes and gold-seeking conquistadores, and eventually to white man's "manifest destiny". The Zia Pueblo are just one of nineteen branches of the tribe, living on a reservation in the Sierra Nacimiento Mountains. The Zia and other Pueblo always tried to live in harmony not only with nature, but with the foreign invaders who took their lands. They knew that no man could truely own the land, so they strove to cooperate with the foreigners for the benefit of all. The foreigners, however, finally managed, as they always did, to push the friendly natives to the edge.

In 1675 New Mexico was under Spanish rule. According to the PBS website, then New Mexico governor Juan Francisco de Treviño was pressured by Spanish missionaries to persecute the Pueblo because of their religious practices. Bowing to the will of the Catholic church, the governor had forty-three natives whipped and four hanged for witchcraft in the plaza at Santa Fe. One of the whipped natives, Popé, organised a revolt against the increasingly harsh Spanish. On August tenth, 1680, Popé led the revolt from Taos. In a coordinated uprising at more than two dozen Indian settlements, separated by hundreds of miles and six different languages, the Indians killed more than 400 Spaniards, including 21 of the province's 33 missionaries, and sacked or destroyed every building and church. The surviving Spaniards fled to Santa Fe, where they were surrounded by 2,500 Pueblo who burned the town to the ground while mockingly chanting phrases from the Latin Mass. The Spaniards regrouped, but were ultimately driven all the way to El Paso by the abused natives. Though they lost many people, the Pueblo succeeded in carrying out the largest Native revolt in U.S. history.

The Pueblo were commited to peace as long as they were left in peace. The Spanish drove them to revolt, and paid dearly for it. Otherwise, the Pueblo would be perfectly happy living alongside those of other cultures. Later settlers did indeed live in peace with the Pueblo, until the U.S. military ultimately drove them to their small reservations. It is this Pueblo spirit of cooperation and respect for differing cultures that drove the designers of the new state flag in 1920, when the Daughters of the American Revolution proposed a contest to design a flag to replace the current one, which was cluttered with the U.S. flag, the New Mexico state seal, and the words New Mexico. Three years later the contest was won by a distinguished Santa Fe physician and archaeologist, Dr. Harry Mera. Dr. Mera chose the Zia, which reflected Pueblo beliefs and philosophy. The number four was sacred to the Pueblo, representing the four cardinal directions, the four seasons, the four phases of the day (dawn, noon, evening, night) and the four phases of life (childhood, youth, middle age and old age). Therefore the four "rays" of the sun symbol each consist of four lines. All this is bound together by a circle of life. The official salute to the flag sums it up:

"I salute the flag of the state of New Mexico, the Zia symbol of perfect friendship among united cultures."