Tribal sheriff gives presentation on Zia symbol's history

A prominent figure in the Zia Pueblo spoke Wednesday afternoon in the Eastern New Mexico University Campus Union Building's Zia Room about how the symbol synonymous with his tribe's name came to be on New Mexico's flag and countless other places.

Tribal Sheriff and General Counsel for Zia Pueblo Robert Medina - whose presentation was sponsored by ENMU Native American Affairs as part of Native American Heritage Month - said that he began studying the Zia symbol when he wrote a research paper about it as part of law school.

"Even as a member of the Pueblo of Zia, I didn't know necessarily know everything there was to know about the Zia sun symbol, because there are some things that I'm not allowed to know," he said. "I know that the Zia sun symbol is out there, but there was a lot of things that I didn't know."

He soon learned that the Zia symbol made its way onto the New Mexico flag when, in 1925, a design by Harry Mera won a contest determining the symbol on the flag.

Mera, however, conceived of the design after seeing a piece of pottery in Santa Fe's Museum of Anthropology that contained a Zia symbol, according to Medina.

"What we all don't know, is how did that pottery that gave the inspiration for Dr. Mera - how did that leave the Pueblo? I had to go to our religious leaders and to our elders in the community and ask them," he said.

The elders told Medina that in the late 1800s, anthropologist James Stevenson, sent by the United States government to document the lives of the Zia Pueblo, became familiar with many of the ceremonies conducted by the tribe.

"During one of these events, there was a pottery in the fire clan society. The fire clan society was doing an initiation. Part of the ceremony, there was a ceremonial vase that's a necessary article for the ceremony," Medina said, adding that after a medicine man refused to sell him the pottery, he took it for himself. It then made its way to the Museum of Anthropology.

"Had that pottery never been stolen, the world would never know that the sun symbol even existed. We wouldn't know that there's a circle with four rays pointed four different directions, had that pottery not been taken," he said.

According to Medina, the Zia Pueblo has long been fighting to protect their symbol.

He cited an event in the late 1990s wherein a company attempted to trademark the Zia symbol.

"The Pueblo intervened, and we were able to stop the trademark from proceeding. Since then, the US Patent and Trademark Office has refused to trademark anything with the Zia sun symbol," he said.

To protect the symbol, the Zia Pueblo has threatened litigation against the state of New Mexico twice in the past (it was unsuccessful both times). As legal counsel to the Pueblo, Medina has recommended that they continue to fight to protect the symbol by requiring that those interested in using it ask for permission.

"Since 1999, a lot more companies have come forward to the Pueblo of Zia to ask permission to use it," he said.