Pueblo Languages:
A. Uto-Aztecan spoken by the Hopi
B. Zuni spoken by the Zuni
C. Keresan spoken by the people of Acoma, Laguna, Cochiti, Santo Domingo,
San Felipe, Santa Ana, and Zia
D. Tanoan includes the subgroups of Tiwa, Tewa, and Towa:

1. Tiwa is spoken by the people of Taos, Picuris, Sandia, and Isleta
2. Tewa is spoken by the people of San Juan, Santa Clara, San Ildefonso, Nambe,
   Tesuque, and Pojoaque. The people of Hano, a village located on First Mesa at Hopi also speak Tewa
3. Towa is spoken by the people of Jemez

Although each pueblo has its own distinct cultural identity, anthropologists group them into three regional divisions. Environmental differences, especially the relative availability of water, varied greatly from west to east. While the Hopi have no permanently flowing streams, a small stream serves the pueblo of Zuni, so that the people who live there must rely primarily on rainfall and runoff to bring a successful harvest to fruition. The Eastern Tanoan Pueblos, in contrast, who live along the Rio Grande and its tributaries, have constructed irrigation canals to divert the water to their planted fields.

Furthermore, farming based on flooding and rainfall does not require a large labor force, so, in the west, small families and clan groups easily provided the needed manpower. However, in the east, the complex tasks of clearing, terracing, damming, and ditching, as well as fields sometimes located at a considerable distance from permanently flowing waters, required greater communal effort. The use of more complex technology in the east often involve the whole adult population. Thus, the first apparent difference between western and eastern pueblos is the composition of the groups that performed tasks associated with farming. The Western Pueblos-Hopi, Hano, Zuni, Acoma, and Laguna-carried on a subsistence economy based on flood and dry farming techniques with lineages and clans. The Eastern Tanoan pueblos-that are located along the Rio Grande-used nonkinship units called sodalities and associations to mobilize the large numbers of people needed to conduct irrigation-based farming. In between these two extremes was the third group, known as the Keresan Bridge because they were intermediate in their organization. While the Keresan Bridge Pueblos (those not included in the Western Pueblos and who are located along the Rio Grande) had lineages and clans, they used nonkinship units (again, sodalities and associations) to fill governmental duties. (A lineage is a family line, while a clan includes several related lineages that reach further back in time to a previous ancestor who may be a mythic being. While lineages can be traced, clans include such time depth that relationships cannot be traced through specific linkages.) The Keresans who practiced irrigation appear to have been shifting from clan involvement in government to nonkinship control vested in their powerful medicine associations.

Each group-the Western Pueblos, the Keresan Bridge Pueblos, and the Eastern Tanoan Pueblos-shares a constellation of characteristics that includes similarities in political, social, and ceremonial organization as well as farming techniques. Pueblo society revolves around five basic concerns: 1) weather, 2) illness, 3) warfare, 4) control of flora and fauna, and 5) village harmony. The emphasis on these concerns varied among the three groups as well as how they dealt with them. The Western Pueblos coped through magical and religious practices, while the Eastern Tanoan Pueblos used more practical means, although their cultures were no less religious.