The original Zuni Pueblo — called Halona:Idiwan'a, "the Middle Place" — is one of the continuously inhabited communities in North America, and the Zuni people identify it as the centre of the world in their cosmology. The old village sits on a low rise above the Zuni River, its multi-storey adobe buildings densely packed and oriented according to traditional principles.
Walking through the old village with a guide gives a sense of how the pueblo has evolved over centuries: some buildings are clearly ancient, others are twentieth-century constructions that follow the same architectural logic. The Mission of Our Lady of Guadalupe stands at the edge of the old village, a massive seventeenth-century church that was heavily damaged during the Pueblo Revolt of 1680 and later rebuilt. Its interior murals, painted by Zuni artists in the 1970s, are striking — a Zuni visual vocabulary applied to a Catholic structure. Guided tours to see the murals can be arranged through the museum.