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50 free Zuni trivia questions with answers — history quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
40 free Zuni trivia questions with answers. Zuni trivia for students, travellers along New Mexico's Trails of the Ancients and anyone curious about the A:shiwi, the people of the Middle Place. The quiz covers the pueblo's deep history - farming the Zuni River valley for thousands of years, the six villages including Hawikuh that the Spanish mistook for the Seven Cities of Cibola, Estevanico's death in 1539, Coronado's attack in 1540, the refuge on Dowa Yalanne after the Pueblo Revolt, and the reservation created in 1877. It also looks at Zuni life and art: the language isolate that no linguist can relate to any other, matrilineal households, pottery fired with dung, needlepoint and petit-point turquoise, the carved stone fetishes and their six directions, Zuni Salt Lake and the coal mine that was stopped in 2003, the ethnologists Frank Hamilton Cushing and Matilda Coxe Stevenson, the weaver We'wha who met President Cleveland, and Zuni's cameo in Brave New World. Sacred ceremony is treated with respect and only through what the Pueblo itself makes public. Every answer has been checked against a reference page and each question shows its source once you have answered.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01What do the Zuni call themselves in their own language?
A:shiwi
The word 'Zuni' is thought to come from a word in the Western Keres language spoken at Acoma.
Q 02The Zuni call their homeland Halona Idiwan'a, which translates as what?
Middle Place
The Pueblo of Zuni sits on the Zuni River, a tributary of the Little Colorado, about 34 miles south of Gallup.
Q 03The Zuni Pueblo lies about 34 miles south of which New Mexico city?
Gallup
The tribally run A:shiwi Transit connects the pueblo and Black Rock with Gallup.
Q 04How do linguists classify Zuni, the tongue of the A:shiwi?
An isolate
It has borrowed some religious vocabulary from Keresan, Hopi and O'odham, but nothing more.
Q 05For roughly how long do linguists believe the Zuni have maintained the integrity of their language?
6,000 to 7,000 years
By 2018 the pueblo's Head Start programme reported only 16 percent of Zuni children spoke the language.
Q 06What is the Zuni name for their own language, translated as 'Zuni way'?
Shiwi'ma
Around 9,500 people speak it, mostly around Zuni Pueblo; the modern alphabet has twenty letters.
Q 07Zuni pronouns distinguish three numbers. Besides singular and plural, what is the third?
Dual
There are no third-person pronouns at all, and adults are often referred to as 'father of so-and-so' to avoid using personal names.
Q 08Archaeology suggests the Zuni have farmed their region for how long?
3,000 to 4,000 years
Ancestral Zuni were irrigating maize plots in the valley by the last millennium BC.
Q 09The Zuni settlement built around 1100, named for its ceremonial chambers, was the Village of the Great what?
Kivas
Zuni ancestors were in contact with the Ancestral Puebloans of Chaco Canyon around the same time.
Q 10Before Spanish contact, the Zuni lived in six villages. Which of these was NOT one of them?
Acoma
Acoma is a separate Keres-speaking pueblo; by the end of the 17th century only Halona was still inhabited.
Q 11Which Moroccan-born member of the 1539 Marcos de Niza expedition was killed at Hawikuh, the first outsider to die there?
Estevanico
He was a survivor of the Narváez expedition; the Zuni reportedly killed him as a spy.
Q 12Fray Marcos de Niza claimed Hawikuh was one of which legendary seven cities?
Cíbola
When Coronado arrived in 1540 he found the friar's stories of treasure were false.
Q 13Which conquistador led 230 mounted soldiers to Hawikuh in July 1540 and captured it from the Zuni?
Coronado
It was Spain's first contact with any Pueblo people; some residents fled to the mesa top of Dowa Yalanne.
Q 21What is the Zuni term for male-bodied people who take on roles usually performed by women?
Lhamana
Some contemporary lhamana take part in the pan-Native two-spirit community.
Q 22Matilda Coxe Stevenson, who wrote extensively on the Zuni, holds what distinction in US science?
First woman employed as an anthropologist in the US
She was also the first woman hired by the Bureau of American Ethnology and helped found the Women's Anthropological Society.
Q 23According to Cushing's report on Zuni fetishes, into how many directions do the Zuni divide the world?
Six
Q 14What does 'Dowa Yalanne', the sacred mesa southeast of the pueblo, mean?
Corn Mountain
The mesa is closed to outside visitors and rises to 7,274 feet.
Q 15After the Pueblo Revolt of 1680, the Zuni took refuge on Dowa Yalanne until which year?
1692
About 48 structures with over 500 rooms were built on the 320-acre mesa top, housing an estimated 2,500 people.
Q 16When was the Zuni Reservation created by the US federal government?
1877
An 1848 US Army treaty had promised protection of Zuni 'Private Property and Religion'.
Q 17Which Smithsonian anthropologist lived with the Zuni from 1879 to 1884 as the first 'participant observer'?
Frank Cushing
Some Zuni later said he had exploited them by photographing and publishing sacred ceremonies.
Q 18Adopted by Zuni's governor in the 1880s, the Smithsonian's ethnologist got what Zuni name meaning 'medicine flower'?
Tenatsali
In 1881 he was initiated into the warrior society, the Priesthood of the Bow.
Q 19Cushing's letters defending Zuni land angered which Illinois senator, a vice-presidential candidate in 1884?
John A. Logan
The row is thought to have hastened Cushing's recall from Zuni in 1884.
Q 20We'wha, the celebrated Zuni weaver and potter, met which US president on a visit to Washington in 1886?
Grover Cleveland
We'wha was a lhamana, taking on roles usually performed by women, and a friend of anthropologist Matilda Coxe Stevenson.
Each direction has a guardian animal; the yellow mountain lion of the north is elder brother to all.
Q 24In the fetish tradition Cushing recorded, which animal is guardian of the north?
The mountain lion
The bear guards the west, the badger the south, the wolf the east, the eagle the sky and the shrew the underground.
Q 25Which two stone-setting techniques using many tiny stones are Zuni specialties?
Needlepoint and petit point
Zuni are also known for mosaic and channel inlay work, mostly in turquoise, sometimes coral.
Q 26Traditionally, what did Zuni potters use as fuel to fire their pots?
Animal dung
Firing was done in silence or low voices to preserve the 'voice' of the clay; pots are painted with a yucca brush.
Q 27Which motifs associated with rain and water commonly decorate traditional Zuni pots?
Frogs, dragonflies and deer
Zuni also produce owl figurines painted in black and red on white slip.
Q 28Zuni households are headed by whom, with descent and land traced through her line?
The eldest woman of a lineage
If a wife wants a divorce she places her husband's belongings outside the home, and he returns to his mother's household.
Q 29Zuni Salt Lake, sacred as the home of the Salt Mother, fills what kind of geological feature?
A maar (volcanic crater)
It is only about four feet deep in the wet season and has no natural outlet, so salt accumulates.
Q 30A proposed coal mine near Zuni Salt Lake was abandoned in which year after lawsuits by the Zuni?
2003
Zuni, Acoma, Laguna, Hopi and Taos people have all made pilgrimages to the lake to gather salt.