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Santa Clara Pueblo - New Mexico (U.S.)

Native American

image by Donald Healy, 31 January 2008

The band
The flag

See also:

The Band

map image by Peter Orenski based on input from Don Healy

Santa Clara Pueblo - New Mexico

Four Tribes constitute the eastern Pueblo Indians along the Rio Grande River in central New Mexico: the Keres [see Nambe, Zia], the Tiwa, Tewa, and Towa (ENAT, 206- 209). (The western Pueblo are the Hopi and the Zuni.) The 2,500 residents of the nearly 50,000 acres of the Santa Clara Pueblo belong to the Tano-Tewa, or Tewa Tribe.

The Flag

Flying over the Pueblo of Santa Clara is a flag designed by a former governor of the pueblo, Mr. Edwin Tafoya. He presented the design as a gift to his Tribe. On a white background light blue "step" designs appear in each corner and centered on each edge. The corner designs have four steps, the edge designs have two. These patterns recall the pueblo architecture and adobe structures of the Indian Nations of New Mexico.

Santa Clara is famous for pottery with distinctive black and white coloring. At the flag's center is a wedding vase in black bearing a white outline of a bear claw, symbolizing strength and protection. A "water serpent" image, common to Santa Clara pottery, surrounds the wedding vase in black. Curving around the serpent and vase in black appears SANTA CLARA above and PUEBLO below.

As manufactured locally, the flag is nearly square (approximately 1.2 long by 1 tall), rather than the rectangular proportions common in commercially-manufactured flags.

© Donald Healy 2008
information provided by Peter Orenski, 31 January 2008