Tag Archives | Pueblo

The Zuni Buffalo Dance


Native Americans in the Southwestern United States were making music using instruments such as turtle shell rattles, clay bells and clay flutes as early as the 7th century. After about the year 1000 Southwestern Native Americans assimilated an increasing number of Mexican and U.S./Mexican border instruments.

Pueblo songs–-music of the Zuni, whose “Buffalo Dance” we see in this video, and the Hopi, Pueblo tribes like the Taos Pueblo, Santo Domingo Pueblo and San Ildefonso Pueblo–are among the most complex of all Native American songs due to their melodic and rhythmic trickiness.