Alfonso Ortiz

Alfonso Alex Ortiz (April 30, 1939 – January 26, 1997) was a Tewa cultural anthropologist and activist from Ohkay Owingeh.

Ortiz's research focused on Tewa cultural practices, rituals, myths, and knowledge. He is best known for his book on Tewa cosmologies, The Tewa World: Space, Time, Being and Becoming in a Pueblo Society, published in 1969. Ortiz's writing of sacred practices with outsiders generated some controversy within his Pueblo communities as it broke the code of silence taboo around Pueblo religion.

Ortiz was an early proponent of autoethnography and encouraged other Native peoples to produce scholarship on their own cultures, instead of being the object of study of outside researchers. He is generally regarded as one of the most influential Pueblo academics of the twentieth century along with Joe Sando.

Early life and education Alfonso Ortiz was born in Ohkay Owingeh, New Mexico on April 30, 1939. His father, Sam Ortiz, was Tewa, and mother, Guadalupe (Naranjo) Ortiz, Hispanic Ortiz was primarily raised by his paternal, Tewa grandparents in Ohkay Owingeh. He went to high school in Española, won a National Merit Scholarship, and went on to attend the University of New Mexico. He is best known for his works The Tewa World: Space, Time, Being and Becoming in a Pueblo Society (1969); American Indian Myths and Legends (1984), co-edited with Richard Erdoes; the edited volume, New Perspectives on the Pueblos (1972); and his contributions to the Handbook of North American Indians (1978), published by the Smithsonian.

In addition to his teaching and research, Ortiz was an activist for Native American rights. He was a member of the National Advisory Council of the National Indian Youth Council from 1972-1990, chair of the National Advisory Council to the Newberry Library's D’Arcy McNickle Center for the History of the American Indian, and president of the Association on American Indian Affairs from 1973-1988.

Legacy In 1999, the National Endowment for the Humanities issued a grant for the University of New Mexico to establish the Alfonso Ortiz Center for Intercultural Studies.

Awards 1975 Guggenheim Fellowship 1982 MacArthur Fellows Program 1982 Achievement Award from the Indian Council Fire (ICF) of Chicago

Works

New Perspectives on the Pueblos, University of New Mexico Press, 1972 Handbook of North American Indians (volumes 9 and 10, Smithsonian Institution, 1979 and 1983 To Carry Forth the Vine: an Anthology of Traditional Native North American Poetry. American Indian myths and legends Richard Erdoes, Alfonso Ortiz (eds) Pantheon Books, 1984,

Alfonso Ortiz Papers 1926-1993 (mostly 1960s-1980s) at Princeton University Library Alfonso Ortiz Collection of Native American Oral Literature 1959-1965, at Princeton University Library