American Indian Culture and Research Journal

During the twenty years between 1970 and 1990 the Zuni Tribe of New Mexico made several major claims relative to their aboriginal land and the interests they hold in that land. They claimed title to some lands, interests in other lands-a sixty-mile easement for a quadrennial religious pilgrimage, for example-and damages as a result of lands permanently lost to them. As a result of their demands for justice, three pieces of legislation were passed by the US Congress, two major land-claim cases went before the United States Claims Court (Zuni Indian Tribe v. United States), and one major case was tried in federal district court in Arizona (United States v. Plutt) . More than two dozen experts from disciplines as diverse as palynology and lexicography prepared extensive written expert testimony for submission to the various courts. Tens of thousands of pages of exhibits were also submitted in support of the expert reports and by 1990, in what has to be one of the greatest litigative triumphs of an American Indian tribe, the Zuni had won virtually 100 percent of the demands they made twenty years before. During the period in which the tribe pursued both the litigation and legislation, experts conducted what may be the most intense study of a semi-arid landscape- an area sacred to the tribe- and claimed that though these areas were now under the control of others, title should reside with the Zuni Tribe.