Alfonso Ortiz

Alfonso Alex Ortiz was a Tewa cultural anthropologist and activist. Ortiz's research focused on Tewa cultural practices, rituals, myths, and knowledge. He is best known for his book on Tewa cosmologies, The Tewa World: Space, Time, Being and Becoming in a Pueblo Society, published in 1969. While this sharing of sacred practices with outsiders generated some controversy within his community, Ortiz was an early proponent of autoethnography and encouraged other Native peoples to produce scholarship on their own cultures, instead of being the object of study of outside researchers.