Awanyu or Avanyu is a water guardian and a deity of the

Tewa people The Tewa are a linguistic group of Pueblo Native Americans who speak the Tewa language and share the Pueblo culture. Their homelands are on or near the Rio Grande in New Mexico north of Santa Fe. They comprise the following communities: * ...

. Awanyu is depicted as a horned (or plumed) serpent with a sinuous body suggestive of the flow of water or the zigzag of lightning. Frequently, the Tewa emplaced Awanyu icons on cave walls situated high above canyon rivers in

New Mexico New Mexico is a state in the Southwestern United States, Southwestern region of the United States. It is one of the Mountain States of the southern Rocky Mountains, sharing the Four Corners region with Utah, Colorado, and Arizona. It also ...

and

Arizona Arizona is a U.S. state, state in the Southwestern United States, Southwestern region of the United States, sharing the Four Corners region of the western United States with Colorado, New Mexico, and Utah. It also borders Nevada to the nort ...

. Awanyu may be related to the associated deities of Quetzalcoatl, the

feathered serpent The Feathered Serpent is a prominent supernatural entity or deity found in many Mesoamerican religions. It is called Quetzalcoatl among the Aztecs; Kukulkan among the Yucatec Maya; and Q'uq'umatz and Tohil among the K'iche' Maya. The do ...

Mesoamerica Mesoamerica is a historical region and cultural area that begins in the southern part of North America and extends to the Pacific coast of Central America, thus comprising the lands of central and southern Mexico, all of Belize, Guatemala, El S ...

. Awanyu is a frequent motif on Native American pottery from the

Southwestern United States The Southwestern United States, also known as the American Southwest or simply the Southwest, is a geographic and cultural list of regions of the United States, region of the United States that includes Arizona and New Mexico, along with adjacen ...

. . Awanyu is a protector of the Pueblo people, the guardian of waterways and a harbinger of storms, and represented as a plumed (or horned) serpent. The earliest representations of Avanyu are from 1000 AD. These were found on Mimbres pottery, a precursor to

Pueblo pottery Pueblo pottery are ceramic objects made by the Indigenous Puebloans, Pueblo people and their antecedents, the Ancestral Puebloans and Mogollon cultures in the Southwestern United States and Northern Mexico. For centuries, pottery has been centr ...

. In the Mogollon and

Casa Grande Casa Grande ( O'odham: ''Wainom Wo:g'') is a city in Pinal County, approximately halfway between Phoenix and Tucson, in the U.S. state of Arizona. According to the 2020 census, the population of the city was 55,653. It is named after the Casa ...

districts images of Avanyu appear between 1200 and 1450 AD. Avanyu appears in

Tewa The Tewa are a linguistic group of Pueblo people, Pueblo Native Americans in the United States, Native Americans who speak the Tewa language and share the Pueblo culture. Their homelands are on or near the Rio Grande in New Mexico north of San ...

and Tiwa speaking peoples areas around 1350 AD. Archaeologist Dr. Polly Schaafsma, whose research specializes in Avanyu mythology among other subjects, writes, “The horned serpent continues to be revered as an important deity among the Pueblos and is known by various names among the different linguistic groups, including ''Kolowisi'' ( Zuni), ''Paaloloqangw'' (

Hopi The Hopi are Native Americans who primarily live in northeastern Arizona. The majority are enrolled in the Hopi Tribe of Arizona and live on the Hopi Reservation in northeastern Arizona; however, some Hopi people are enrolled in the Colorado ...

), and ''Awanyu'' (Tewa)." She goes on to write that Avanyu is also "associated with the four (or six) directions, the colors of which the snakes also assume." Schaafsma notes that the water serpent's home is located in "springs, ponds, rivers, and ultimately the oceans, all believed to be connected under the earth’s surface, and … may cause torrential rains and floods.”

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Avanyu: Protecting in the Rio Grande
{{DEFAULTSORT:Awanyu Deities of the indigenous peoples of North America Hopi mythology Legendary serpents Feathered serpent deities

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