In New Mexico if you go to a Pueblo Indian event, you're bound to encounter the delicacy known as oven bread, rounds of fresh-baked white bread with a very distinctive texture and flavor unmatched by any other bread product I've had. You know it's oven bread by sight, texture and taste, and there's nothing else like it.
Yesterday we picked up some oven bread at the Acoma Pueblo feast day celebrations at their mesa-top Sky City village, Haak'u, one of the oldest continuously occupied Native American sites in North America.
Acoma is the second-best known pueblo in New Mexico, second only to Taos.
I'd never been to Acoma before, but learning about it and what went on there is something that you do in New Mexico, in large part because Don Juan de Onate's nephew Don Vicente de Zaldivar's merciless slaughter of some 800 Acoma and the enslavement of 500 more in January, 1599, as punishment for their resistance to his conquest of their mesa-top city and as revenge for their defensive killing of Onate's nephew (Zaldivar's brother Juan) and about a dozen other Spanish soldiers the month before. And we learn about Onate's order to amputate the right foot of every captured male over the age of 25. Everybody hears about the Acoma Massacre, and to this day, Onate is considered a monster everywhere except in the New Mexico Spanish community where he is regarded highly as the "last conquistador."
Oven bread is one of the many other legacies of the Spanish conquest in New Mexico, one that has been preserved and continues.
While we hear about the Acoma Massacre, little is said about an analogous episode at Taos Pueblo and surrounding areas in 1847 carried out by American conquistadors. Hundreds were killed, dozens were hanged in the plazas of Taos and Santa Fe, San Geronimo Church and most of the Pueblo of Taos was destroyed, and the entire town of Mora was burned to the ground -- among other atrocities.
But because it was the Americans doing the dirty work of killing and burning, of course little would be said about it. Much as is the case in California where the massacres went on and on and on, but today hardly anybody knows about it.
Acoma on Feast Day is crowded, crowded, crowded. We got there relatively early, traveling from Albuquerque in a van with a bunch of Cherokee elders and a 9 year-old granddaughter of one of them. It seemed already crowded when our driver was hunting for a place to park the van, but little did we know how crowded it would get before we left.
We stood in line at the cultural center at the base of the mesa to wait for the shuttle to take us up to the village, but many others made the climb on foot. I was reminded a bit of the Tome Hill pilgrimage on Good Friday (Ms Ché did it a few years ago) that is a tradition among the Hispanos and Catholics of the region -- as is the much longer pilgrimage to Chimayo.
Well, this was Feast Day at Acoma, San Esteban being the patron saint, though I didn't see him mentioned except at the mission church on the mesa. This was to my eye an all-Indian event. There wasn't even a hint of Catholic observance that I saw.
Ms. Ché said she encountered a number of her friends from other tribes at Acoma, and of course she's Cherokee as were most of those we traveled with from Albuquerque. So it wasn't just Acoma natives celebrating their feast day. Oh no. Indians from all over were there as were a sprinkling of Anglos. Fewer than I expected at any rate.
We've visited a few pueblos but not on feast day, and nearly every visitor at those times has been Anglo. But on Feast Day, I'd say a good 80% or more of those in attendance were Native, Anglos were a distinct though not unwelcome minority.
Especially if they were spending money. There were many, many booths for food, drink, jewelry and pottery sales, and many had wonderful things things to buy and offered easy credit card purchases. The only problem was that there was no wi-fi or cell phone service at the mesa top, and so it was functionally impossible to make credit card purchases. Unless you came with a bunch of cash, you were out of luck. Oh well!
I had enough for a big round of oven bread and a couple of slices of "pie," but that was about it.
Hundreds and hundreds of Indians arrived fully dressed for the celebrations and most eagerly joined the dances through the streets, It was a spectacular vision, and yet... solidly grounded in culture, history, and spirituality. Sometimes these dances are performed specifically for Anglo audiences. I don't want to say that robs them of their spirituality, but in a sense it does. The dancers go through the motions so that the Anglos can say they've been to an Indian dance... but they haven't really.
We've had several opportunities to "really" experience Pueblo and Apache dance as guest observers of Indian friends not participants, where the dances are performed ceremonially for/with other Indians, not as a show for the white folks.
Yesterday was one of them.
There were so few white folks while we were there, I'm sure I stood out among the attendees.
Eek.
Nobody pointed and laughed though...(that I know of) -- whew.
The Acoma Pueblo "Sky City" was largely destroyed by the Spanish in 1599 but it was very quickly rebuilt and reoccupied. The stories of the Acoma Massacre suggest a nearly complete extermination and enslavement of the survivors, but it apparently wasn't quite like that. Not all the Acoma lived on the mesa-top; in fact, most didn't. The defenders of the mesa were vanquished and survivors were punished, but most Acoma were not involved in the fight, and apparently they were left more or less alone. They returned to the mesa after the Spanish went back to their seized pueblo they called San Gabriel and the Acomas rebuilt the village by 1601.
In 1629, construction started on the enormous San Esteban del Rey mission church which dominates a corner of the mesa.
It is said that the church was built over the main plaza of the village and the round kiva that was within it. Could be. Spanish were frightened of kivas and native beliefs and tried without success to stamp out every sign of native religious practice. In the abandoned pueblos near our place in Central New Mexico, mission churches were built near kivas, and the kivas were used as trash dumps. In others, the kivas were burned and filled in. Very few pueblos maintained their kivas, and Spanish padres forbade their use for ceremonies. This would be a precipitating factor in the Pueblo Revolt of 1680.
Acoma participated in the Revolt, and both priests at San Esteban were martyred. Unlike many other pueblos in New Mexico, however, the San Esteban Mission Church at Acoma was not destroyed. Instead, they say it was proudly preserved by the Indians as an example of their remarkable work of building on the top of the nearly inaccessible mesa.
Acoma provided a refuge for Indians escaping the Revolt as well as those escaping the Spanish on their return to New Mexico in 1692-3. With the help of many allies, Acoma held out against the Spanish until 1698, and even then maintained a fierce resistance to Spanish impositions.
But we weren't there yesterday so much for history -- although I did want to visit San Esteban and I did -- as we were there for a contemporary experience of a thriving (well...) Indian Pueblo community.
They say there are five or six thousand Acoma today, and I swear they must all have been atop the mesa -- they and all their friends and family too. Nearly all the houses were occupied, and nearly every Dodge Caravan in New Mexico had been commandeered to transport families with trays and boxes of food up the newly built (1950's) road to the turn around at the top of the mesa.
As we were waiting for the shuttle back down, a trio of Franciscan padres appeared -- I assume they hiked up from the valley below.Would they be conducting services at the church? Would they lead the procession of the saint through the streets? I dunno. We didn't stay to find out.
When we left we went down to the Sky City Casino for lunch. And contemplation.
Today we had oven bread for breakfast.
Showing posts with label Pueblo Revolt. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Pueblo Revolt. Show all posts
Sunday, September 3, 2017
Tuesday, August 25, 2015
Resistance Art -- The Art of Resistance (or "Why don't you put a feather on it?")
Yesterday, I spent a good deal of time at the Museum of Contemporary Native Art in Santa Fe, a project/program of the Institute of Native American Arts -- where Ms Ché is now a student.
The whole place has a fresh-new feel and the art on exhibit is much edgier than that of the recent past or even longer ago (I can't recall offhand when I first visited the museum, but it's been years and years). Candice Hopkins is the new curator, and I'm sure it is her vision more than any other that has guided the re-vision of the exhibits at MoCNA, and that vision is one of continual resistance by Native people and particularly Native artists against the impositions of stereotypes and expectations.
Consequently, there is much resistance art on view. I wish I could illustrate this post with images from the exhibitions, but as a rule, MoCNA does not post many pictures of what's on exhibit, indeed, sometimes there are none at all.
What is "resistance art?" I supposed it depends to a certain extent on one's own perceptions of resistance. In order to arrive at a realistic definition, we may ask: "What or whom is being resisted, by what or by whom, and to what object -- if there is one?"
Many artistic forms and expressions can fall into the resistance category, even when the artist is not consciously trying to create resistance art. Among the most commonly recognized forms of resistance art is the poster highlighting a particular issue, rebellion or campaign. One of my all time favorites is "Beat the Whites with the Red Wedge" (El Lissitsky, 1919), propaganda art produced to help inspire the struggle against the White Russians in the aftermath of the Bolshevik Revolution.
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| Beat the Whites with the Red Wedge (El Lissisky, USSR, 1919) |
In the case of the exhibits at the Museum of Contemporary Native Art, many of the pieces of resistance art are the works of honors students at IAIA or of alumnae of the Institute. Some of it is straightforward and in-your-face, some is subtly subversive. The point of much of it is the rejection of stereotypes of what "Indian art" is supposed to be as well as challenging expectations of who qualifies as an "Indian artist." These seem to be constant themes within the fairly small Indian arts community, especially in Santa Fe and New Mexico in general where Indian art and artists have a very prominent position and role in the highly competitive art market.
On the other hand, much of the resistance art on exhibit at MoCNA deals with specific issues in the ongoing Native struggles for dignity and justice in the context of constant predation and expropriation by the dominant culture, whether it's war, poverty, abuse, abandonment, dispossession or what have you.
Indian artists fight stereotypes, and they also fight for what's right.
David Bradley, for example, has produced an enormous body of resistance (fine) art that mocks and disparages, indeed insults, the "Disneyfication" of Santa Fe in particular, the Southwest in general, as it molds and shapes everything to attract and please the tourists who flock to the region every spring and summer -- and the poseurs who settle in for the long term. Bradley currently has a major exhibit at the Museum of Indian Arts and Culture in Santa Fe. Resistance art that he did early on, collages of various "Indian" ideas and struggles, are on display at the MoCNA.
And example of one of his statements of resistance is his Land o' Fakes Museum Currency:
Virgil Ortiz has been creating subversive images of his re-visioning of the Pueblo Revolt of 1680 -- translated into contemporary iconography -- for years. His vision is encompassing. He uses every bit of his talent, skill, connections and imagination to create what is becoming an enormous body of resistance art that focuses almost entirely on the most successful Indian resistance action in North American history.
Why would he do this? Isn't it just "style," "fashion," or "entertainment?"
I say no, not at all. Virgil uses the elements of the high-style and fashion world he once served in the Donna Karan studio in order to highlight something that's often forgotten about Indian history -- the Pueblo Revolt -- and to send a clear message to his high and mighty clients that it can come again.
In effect, he becomes a translator, an interpreter of the Revolt, both for the benefit of young Indians who might not otherwise find the events of so long ago interesting or relevant, and for the education of a clientele that instinctively believes they are the Masters of the Universe.
Virgil left New York and the high-fashion industry he'd been eagerly accepted into in order to return to Cochiti Pueblo where he was from -- something that was in and of itself an act of resistance and rebellion -- where he develops his re-vision and the themes of revolt and rebellion based on what happened to chastise and drive the Spanish out of New Mexico in 1680. An aspect of that re-vision was the Venutian Soldiers concept of 2012, which was -- I think -- the first gallery exhibit we attended after moving to New Mexico in 2012.
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| Venutian Soldiers c. 2012, Virgil Ortiz |
Virgil now has a major exhibit at the Denver Art Museum.
Through similar images -- in ceramics, leather and fabric, paint, video and film, and whatever other materials and means Virgil decides to use -- a picture emerges of his vision that ought to give some of his expensive clients pause. I'm not sure it does because I still see some of them parading around Santa Fe in the Virgil Ortiz creations, many of which are the figurative equivalent of daggers and arrows to the hearts of those who wear them. It's all highly subversive but in a way that -- perhaps -- his targets can't understand at all, any more than the Spanish were able to comprehend what Po'pay and the other Pueblo rebels were up to in advance of the Revolt itself. They thought they knew... but they were wrong...
At the IAIA Scholarship Dinner Virgil and Rose B(ean) Simpson, presented a collaborative performance piece that took these resistance concepts several steps further, but I'm convinced most of those who saw it had no idea what they were seeing. To them, perhaps, it was something charming, even cute. But to others, it was as strong a statement of resistance to the status quo as had ever been presented in that context.
At the Museum of Contemporary Native Art, Rose and Virgil have extended their collaborative efforts with an installation of even more elements of the re-visioning and translation of the Pueblo Revolt theme. There are manikins wearing costumes Virgil created for his characters and also, importantly, ceramic "masks" for each of eight named characters in the story of the Revolt (c. 2180). I put masks in quotes because they are more like three-dimensional head-shots rather than face coverings, though they are called masks in the exhibit. To me they are quite disturbing -- which is, I think, what they are supposed to be -- because they do not depict humans. They are from another realm altogether, and I'm not at all sure they are benign.... they wouldn't be, would they, if they were representations of the forces of a future Revolt.
But then, most of what's in the Redness exhibit is disturbing. Deliberately so. Resistance art? Absolutely.
Carmen Selam is a young artist whose work I was able to purchase at last year's IAIA open house. The piece I bought was a print called "Indian Red":
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| "Indian Red", Carmen Selam, 2014 |
Throughout my indigenous life, I have lived with elements of racism over the duration of my existence. The misappropriated usage of Native American imagery can be seen as a metaphorical modern day scalping. There was once a time when gathering pigment for the earth was a long and arduous task. This pigment, carefully selected was used to make paint that we used in ceremony and on the war field. We gathered the elements from the earth that my ancestors were buried. It was honorable to wear paint, eagle feathers, amongst other things. However, these days, it is not the same. The scapegoat for blunt racism is often disguised by the cloak of one word: honor. Often times we are dishonored in the name of honor by non-natives appropriating our sacred motifs and regalia as Halloween costumes, sports logos, and corporate emblems. My piece Indian Red is a reflection of the idea that the pigment and color of our skin is seen as a commodity by the red-lipped, twenty-something, non-native hipsters, who don the plastic war bonnet and faux war-paint.Resistance art? Of course. What else could it be?
There are many other Native artists whose work is on exhibit at the Museum of Contemporary Native Arts and elsewhere in galleries and museums around the country and particularly the Southwest, much of it resistance art -- but some of it not.
There's a joke that goes around in the Indian arts community: "Oh, yer stuff ain't sellin'? Why don't you put a feather on it? That's what they like to see, you know?"
Yep.
That's what they like to see. They don't -- usually -- want their Indian stuff to bite, if you know what I mean. But what I've been seeing more and more of, encouragingly, is Indian resistance art flourishing in galleries and museums, where some of the wealthy and powerful might see it. Whether they understand it or not is another question. But it really doesn't matter.
What matters is that artists are once again rebelling and resisting the pressure to conform to stereotypes and expectations. Artist rebellions typically presage popular rebellion, and I think we're getting closer every day.
Friday, November 29, 2013
Francis
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| St. Francis of Assisi by Cimabue (detail) c. 1280 |
This Pope in Rome continues to cause a ruckus by speaking out about the heretofore Unspeakable matters of inequality, money and greed, destruction of the planet for profit, and so on. Matters best left to those who Rule us, not to those who merely Reign.
This Pope is a Jesuit who took the regnal name of Francis in honor of St. Francis of Assisi, the saint for whom I have long expressed a certain affinity.
Now that I'm in New Mexico full time, I discovered it was sometimes difficult to find images of the Umbrian saint for devotional or decorative purposes, for he seemed often to be absent from shops and museums. Even at the Cathedral Basilica of Saint Francis in Santa Fe, where we often go -- though not generally for religious purposes -- it's surprising how low-key representations of the Saint are. There are a few statues of St. Francis and a ceramic tile mural, but they are off to the side, out of the view of parishioners and tourists who come up the steps to the magnificent bronze doors of the Cathedral. There are a handful of statues of St. Francis scattered around the city of Santa Fe, but unless you're eagle eyed, you may miss them.
One finds San Pasquale, San Ysidro and of course the Virgin of Guadalupe practically everywhere, but St. Francis? Not so much.
It took me a while to realize some of the reasons why.
St. Francis, and particularly the Franciscan missionaries who came to New Mexico with the Conquistadores, have at best a mixed reputation in these parts. At best. In some respects they are widely admired, but just as surely, they are likely to be despised and held in contempt. The Catholic order in charge of my local parish is Carmelite. Franciscans tend to be almost in the shadows.
Part of the reason has to do with the Pueblo Revolt of 1680 triggered in part by abuses committed by Franciscans against the Pueblo Indians, abuses which I won't catalog here but which were too frequent, too horrifying, too often inexcusable. Franciscans did this to the Native Peoples? Yes they did, and they were rewarded with massacre when the revolt came. A monument to the martyred Franciscans stands on a height above the city to this day.
But after the reconquest of the territory from 1691 to 1695 or so, the Franciscans, while returning to minister to their savage flock, stayed out of the spotlight and ultimately lost power over the Natives, as their continued resistance and the mood of the Spanish Crown toward the Franciscans led to their decline and near-demise in the New World, not just New Mexico.
Other saints were far more immediate for the Spanish colonists, and the Indians had little regard for Francis thanks to the depredations of the Franciscan missionaries. Only fairly recently have Franciscans returned to New Mexico in significant numbers. Most of them serve the poor and dispossessed.
We pass by a Franciscan friary in Albuquerque practically every time we go to town, so today I made a modest donation to their work. The least I could do.
Meanwhile, His Holiness continues to ruffle Vatican feathers and American bishops face a dilemma.
Wednesday, August 22, 2012
Pondering the Pueblo Revolt of 1680
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| Illustration from Susan Wallace's "The Pueblos of New Mexico," c. 1883 |
Humility is not one of their endearing qualities. Some have suggested it's not one of mine, either.
I note with some amusement that the "issue" of Black Bloc participation in Occupy has pretty much evaporated. Oh. My. And we were just beginning to have some fun with it. Of course Occupy itself is not quite what it once was, and suggesting that Black Blocs are in any way a significant component of Occupy or have ever been a significant component is silly in the extreme. Hedges embarrassed himself, Zeese embarrassed himself. The topic has been dropped. And we go on.
But the Pueblo Revolt of 1680 is looming larger in my consciousness than Hedges, Zeese or Occupy for that matter.
It's only partially due to my brief encounters with Virgil Ortiz and his Venutian Soldiers last week in Santa Fe.
We haven't completed our move to New Mexico yet, and I'm still learning about the society and culture we are joining. There are many safe-havens for Anglos in New Mexico, and if they don't want to actually be part of the culture and society there, Anglos can -- and many do -- stay apart from it. New Mexico has been called one of the most racist and segregated states in the Union, and I suppose in a way it's true, as there are any number of quite distinct communities that don't have that much to do with one another if they can avoid it. New Mexico has long celebrated its "Tripartite" culture -- Indian, Spanish and Anglo -- and it is sometimes the case that there seems to be neither communication nor understanding between them. At other times, there is no obvious barrier at all.
Where we're moving to, in the East Mountains, is in some respects one of those Anglo safe-havens, but its history is filled with conflict. This has not been a quiet land over the many centuries of human occupation, in fact it has only been partially and temporarily quiet in recent times. While I call it an Anglo safe-haven, its population is surprisingly mixed, though quite small by modern American standards. So far as I can tell, no more than 10,000 or perhaps 12,000 people total live in the East Mountains (which includes the eastern slopes of the Sandia and Manzano Mountains and the western margins of the Estancia Valley and the Galisteo Basin), and with the exception of a few very small towns, they live scattered on mostly small acreage -- though there are some enormous ranches (estancias) in the area as well. The total population I estimate for the East Mountains today interestingly mirrors the estimates of anthropologists for the number of Pueblo People living in the area prior to the arrival of the Spanish.
There are pueblos -- or rather the ruins of pueblos -- all over the place. There are no active pueblos in the East Mountains, but there are some magnificent ruins. There are also many sites that are little more than traces on or under the ground that indicate former habitation by Pueblo peoples.
The pueblos of this region were abandoned in stages over time during the 1200's and 1300's, depending on conditions, some were reoccupied during the 1400's and 1500's, some abandoned again, but all were abandoned in the 1670's; most of their inhabitants merged with the pueblos of the Rio Grande Valley or farther west. It is said that the largest contingent from the Salinas Pueblos which were scattered toward the southern end of the Manzano Mountains merged with Isleta Pueblo just on the west of the mountain slopes. But refugees from the Salinas Pueblos seem to have wound up joining most of the active Rio Grande Pueblos as well as pueblos further west in the tumultuous period just prior to the Pueblo Revolt of 1680.
I have a feeling there weren't a lot of Salinas Pueblo refugees for the other pueblos to absorb. Too much had happened prior to the abandonment of the Salinas Pueblos -- too much disease, abuse and starvation -- for there to have been many survivors. The records are unclear about how many Indians left the Salinas Pueblos. At the same time, the Galisteo Basin Pueblos were also abandoned though they were reoccupied briefly after the Pueblo Revolt. As with the Salinas Pueblos further south, the number of Galisteo refugees is unclear, but it probably wasn't many.
They left under the watchful eyes of their Franciscan priests and Spanish military officials. They were starving, bereft of possessions, beaten down, and I'm sure many never made it the twenty or thirty miles over the mountains to their refuges along the Rio Grande.
The story of what happened to the Salinas and Galisteo Pueblos is somewhat murky in that the records are incomplete, but the outline of the situation is plain enough. The Spanish sent priests to convert the inhabitants of the pueblos, the people submitted more or less cheerfully (though under what kind of duress we can only imagine), and for a brief time there was something close to harmony among the priests and the peoples of the East Mountain Pueblos. (This of course excludes the episodes of punishment for defiance that the Spanish periodically inflicted on the Pueblos in order to assert their dominant position in the Order of Things.)
Then a severe drought came on, starting in the 1650's, the way they have done in these arid regions for thousands of years. Springs dried up, crops failed, starvation stalked the land. The Pueblo peoples had been dealing with these conditions for many generations; they knew what to do, spiritually and physically. They were prevented from doing it by the priests and the Spanish soldiers backing them up. Not only were the people forced to stay at the pueblos even though they were starving and too weak to defend themselves from Plains raiders, they were punished severely for calling on their own Native gods and spirits in their hour of need.
There's a striking story of a kiva (a generally circular underground gathering place for community and religious purposes among the Pueblo peoples and their ancestors) at one of the Salinas Pueblos -- I forget which one now -- that was built next to the church. When it was excavated in the 19th century, it was found full of trash, something that seemed distinctly odd to the excavators, but then its location next to the church was also odd. It was surmised that this kiva had been built simultaneously will the church as a temporary expedient to ensure the Indians came in for baptism. Once that job was done, the priests, it was suggested, forbade further use of the kiva, ordered its roof demolished, and had the pit filled with debris so that it could no longer be used for religious observances. There are many other stories around New Mexico of kivas being disrespected in just that manner during the first phase of Spanish colonization in the area.
Indians were punished harshly and frequently for even being suspected of practicing their own religion. Sometimes the penalty was death -- on occasion by burning -- sometimes whipping, sometimes incarceration and physical humiliation. All the regalia and votive offerings for the Pueblo religious observances were repeatedly confiscated and burned. Shrines were desecrated.
As these policies were implemented ever more severely, the physical conditions of the pueblos and their inhabitants deteriorated. Going along with the Spaniards, even if they did provide solace for the soul through Mass and Holy Communion, was turning out to be a losing proposition. Rebellion was not infrequent and was met with ever harsher repression.
Even though they were starving, Indians were forced to work on the ranches that Spaniards had begun to establish in the area. They were forced to build massive churches in which the survivors of the Spanish exploitation and abuses were forced to listen to pious fictions of eternal salvation and damnation.
Finally, even the priests realized that the Indians had suffered enough and they prevailed upon the civil authorities to allow the transfer of the remnant population to the Rio Grande Valley Pueblos. By that time, hundreds had died of starvation, perhaps more from disease.
The Salinas Pueblos were never reoccupied, at least not by Pueblo peoples. It is said that Kiowa and Comanche made temporary abode in the ruins from time to time, but there wouldn't be permanent settlements in the Salinas area again until the late 1800's and early 1900's. In the Galisteo Basin, the Village of Galisteo was established as a Spanish settlement along Galisteo Creek in 1816 or 1819. The Indians who had returned to the Galisteo area after the Reconquest were decimated by disease and the survivors eventually were transferred to other pueblos by the 1740's.
The major Pueblo Revolt took place in August of 1680, either during the continuing drought or shortly after it ended (accounts differ). Several hundred -- up to 400 -- Spanish settlers were killed, the rest were driven out to the sounds of mockery and derision from the Indians who successfully reclaimed their lands and independent existence, the only time that happened in North America prior to the modern era.
The leader of the revolt was one Po'Pay, from the San Juan Pueblo (Ohkay Owingeh), a seer and a holy man who had been seized by the Spanish and whipped in the Plaza at Santa Fe for "sorcery" -- along with close to 50 others in 1675 when the Spanish crown once again ordered the suppression of Native beliefs and religious practices. Po'Pay, along with others, vowed and plotted and eventually took revenge and drove the invaders out.
Ultimately, of course, the Spanish came back, but on very different terms than previously. There would be skirmishes and battles between the Pueblo Peoples and the Spanish for years after the reentrada of 1692, but eventually an uneasy peace would be established among the Spanish and the Pueblo Peoples such that the Pueblos maintained their cultural integrity, their land, and relative autonomy during the remainder of Spanish rule of the Southwest. Even when Mexico declared its independence from Spain, and even when the United States seized the Southwest from Mexico leading to strenuous efforts to "de-Indianize" the Pueblo People, they maintained their cultural integrity and their land. To this day, the Pueblos assert their autonomy (often financially supported by casino revenues) and maintain their cultural integrity.
It's a remarkable survival that is rarely understood by tourists who flock to the 19 remaining pueblos in New Mexico to obtain souvenirs and take pictures of the charming dancing Natives.
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| Dancers at Okay Owingeh Pueblo, New Mexico |
I've constantly heard from the Indians that they never had any problem sharing land and produce and shelter with the Spanish or anyone else for that matter. There was -- or could be -- enough for all, even under difficult conditions. The Indians had long since learned how to live in nearly complete harmony with the rhythms of the Earth and one another -- even if from time to time that harmony was broken by conflict. The Navajo and Apache and the Plains tribes are supposedly the blood enemies of the Pueblo Peoples, and yet they have long lived together, sheltered and protected one another, and traded with one another. Conflict between them was been frequent but temporary, and neither tried to rule over the other as the Spanish -- and later Americans -- insisted on ruling over the Indians.
From all accounts, the Pueblo Peoples were prepared to treat the Spanish invaders the same way, and the Americans as well. Live and let live, share and share alike, fight when necessary, but not forever. These are concepts that were alien to the Spanish and are alien to many Americans; they must rule, and if they cannot rule they must destroy. When the Indians fought back, the Spanish pitifully wailed that they were the "victims" of "savages." To the Indians, the "savages" were the Spanish (and later, the Americans) because of their utter lack of dignity, decency, propriety, humility and sense of community. In a manner of speaking, though they sought to sell soul salvation, they had no souls themselves. Indians saw them as bereft and to be pitied.
The Pueblo Revolt of 1680 was briefly successful in driving out the Spanish, but from the long distance of history, it's not entirely clear that driving them out was more than a temporary goal ("to teach them a lesson," perhaps, in humility.) Since the reentrada of 1692, many of the Pueblo Peoples have made common cause with the Spanish, adopted Spanish names if not customs, intermarried with Spanish settlers, and otherwise found ways to accommodate Spanish society and culture while maintaining the integrity of their own Pueblo society and culture. Indians and Spanish settlers united to drive out the American invaders (unsuccessfully) in 1847, and ever since they have tended to support one another's claims against the Americans, often successfully.
For someone like Virgil Ortiz and other Pueblo people, Pueblo society and culture are the primary ones in the Rio Grande Valley and much of the rest of present day New Mexico (Apaches and Navajos have their own areas and are welcome to them). They set the standard for culture and society in their realm. Others are welcome as long as they respect the dignity and customs of the Original People. It's easy -- or it should be.
But it is a lesson that seems to take forever to learn.
Sunday, August 19, 2012
"This is the world you're joining..."
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| Venutian Soldiers, creation and photo by Virgil Oritz |
"Better make sure it's what you want."
That message and image came across very strongly during our whirlwind week in New Mexico.
It was an experience I don't think we'll soon forget. It was altogether an astonishing time in the Land of Enchantment. Our encounters with the arts -- literary, visual and performing arts -- seemed to go much deeper this time than in the past when we've tended just to skim along the surface of things. This time, we felt like we were very much a part of the arts/cultural scene, and the question was, "Is this really what we want?"
There was some disappointment this trip to be sure, as certain practical intentions went unfulfilled and some things seemed to go haywire, but there was so much unexpected richness of experience in contrast to what didn't go right. That's pretty much the way things go in New Mexico. As I said at some point in the adventure, "Pressure doesn't work in New Mexico."
We've been involved in one way or another in New Mexico's writers and literary community for quite some time, but we've stayed on the periphery of the rest of the arts scene, particularly in Santa Fe, since an early encounter with some of the patrons of the Santa Fe Opera decades ago.
We came to understand at that time that we were dealing with a very rarefied realm of almost inconceivable wealth and patronage. It's a realm that we mock for its pretensions, and yet without it there would be a much more -- subdued, shall we say -- arts and cultural community in Santa Fe and New Mexico, and I'm not sure that we would want that or that the world would somehow be a better place with less arts and culture in the City Different and much of the rest of the state.
The Virgil Ortiz reception we attended on Thursday (August 16) was a distinct contrast to the book signing we went to the day before, and to me the contrast was a demonstration of one of the many dichotomies in New Mexico that are reflected in arts and the arts and cultural community.
Things are changing, and Virgil is on the edge of that change, as he's been taking New Mexico Pueblo traditions and turning them inside out and upside down for quite a while now. His Venutian Soldiers are... well, let's just say, "eye openers." They are not a complete break from the past, far from it. It's not his intention to break from the past, it's his intention to illuminate the past through contemporary imagery and iconography, and I think he succeeds in ways no one can yet fully appreciate.
Virgil is not all that young -- he's in his 40's -- and he's been around for long enough, typically in the heady realm of high fashion, that he runs the risk of becoming jaded about everything. But he doesn't seem to be falling into the trap of ennui.
The reception included a smattering of Old Farts like me, lots of fashion fan-boys and -girls, many of them Natives, a handful of academics, and quite a few people who had known Virgil for many years. It was a vibrant mix that even attracted the police for a time. The police presence was a distraction from the festivities to say the least, and yet it seemed strangely in keeping with the whole feel of the evening. That story will have to be told, but not just now...
What seemed missing from Virgil's reception was the Wealthy Patron factor. That seems odd when I think about it... I can't recall seeing even one of the usual Santa Fe Major Arts Patrons in attendance, though there may have been one or more there and I didn't notice. It was that kind of event. So much going on, you're bound to miss something.
Yet the day before, at the book signing, it seemed that in addition to plenty of artists, there were more than a few of the Patrons who keep the whole scene going. Perhaps they felt safer...
Virgil is dealing with some of the fundamentals of the Pueblo People and Pueblo history in New Mexico and he isn't holding back, at least not that I can see. As he says, the whole idea of the Venutian Soldiers series -- which includes pottery pieces, statuary, and photographs at this point, but which is intended to include a film or video production and an illustrated story/graphic novel -- is to highlight the 1680 Pueblo Revolt, "the First American Revolution."
The Pueblo Revolt has never been an easy topic in New Mexico as for many residents it is still living history, especially among the Spanish and Indians. Our place isn't far from the Salinas Pueblos on the east side of the Manzanos, and those ruins when first encountered don't really clue you in to what happened, you have to do some digging and studying to understand it. The Salinas Pueblos were abandoned sometime in the 1670's, probably around 1676 or 1678, not long before the Pueblo Revolt of 1680. They were abandoned due to a number of factors: drought, disease, attacks by Plains tribes, abuse by Spanish clergy, starvation. I'm sure there was more to the story of their abandonment than that. But I have long felt that it was the stories from those pueblos that set the stage for the revolt so soon to come along the Rio Grande and beyond.
The Pueblo Revolt was a success; the Spanish were thrown out of New Mexico and the Franciscan clergy paid a heavy price in blood for their decades of exploitation and abuse of the Pueblo people and the suffering they caused among those who only wanted to be left alone.
Virgil has made telling that story his life's work. Many other Native artists, maybe most, never mention it and never refer to it in their work. It's as if it never happened, though everyone knows it did.
When I first saw Virgil's pieces for the Venutian Soldiers exhibit, my interpretation was that he was making mock of the high fashion world he's been involved with for quite a while. The models are stunning in costume as Venutian Soldiers and in person signing posters at the reception. Dolled up as "Venutians" they certainly have the appearance of being some sort of fever dream of an overheated fashion imagination. I knew nothing, initially, about the 1680 connection at all; I saw them for what I saw, unfiltered as it were. And I saw them as a not-very-nice comment on the nature of the fashion industry.
Well, they may be that on one level, but there is so much more I would come to find out.
In Virgil's retelling of the Pueblo Revolt, his Venutian Soldiers are contemporary Super-hero versions of the Pueblo warriors who evicted the Spanish from New Mexico all those many years ago. He's re-conceiving the historical struggle of his people in contemporary -- and visually compelling -- terms that can appeal simultaneously to a wide range of modern spectators.
The arts patrons of Santa Fe may have stayed away from Virgil's reception because they might not have felt safe there.
I could spend quite a lot of time on the question of the very wealthy patrons who are the underlying reason why there is so much art in New Mexico. Without the patrons, the arts would have a very different character and might be much less prominent in New Mexico culture.
Virgil comes from a long line of Cochiti Pueblo potters and artists and has been active in the field of the arts and fashion for decades. He's using what he knows deep in his soul, dressing it up in contemporary clothing (or rather lack...) and telling us a story that most of us have no idea of.
In that, he's taken a step way beyond where most of the Santa Fe Indian artists have chosen to stay.
And he seems to know it's not going to be easy... The struggle has just begun.
For us? Is this the world we want to be part of?
Do we really have a choice?
Thursday, April 19, 2012
On Violence and Resistance
Theodor de Bry, Ilustración de la Brevísima de De las Casas, c. 1552
The various Spanish entradas into New Mexico were accompanied by so much grotesque violence that it ought to shock the conscience of even the most hardened would-be conquistador. Today, of course, Americans are pretty much inured to the cruelties of Our Valiant Troops as they march in conquest around the globe, slaughtering and dispossessing the gibbering Natives along the way, while teaching them -- of course -- the benefits of Democracy. Not unlike the Franciscans who accompanied the Spanish Conquistadors, teaching the Natives to welcome the benefits of the one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church and of course to submit to the rule of their distant but always merciful overlord, the King and Emperor Whoever-it-Might-Be in Spain.
The scene above is not specifically from New Mexico, but it might as well have been. The report is that in the winter of 1541, Francisco Vasquez de Coronado and his multitudinous seekers after Cibola and the remaining Gold of the Indies decided to camp in the Rio Grande Valley, in the province of Tiguex, near modern-day Albuquerque. They demanded supplies of the Natives, which were mostly given though with some grumbling. When the weather turned cold -- and it does get cold in the Albuquerque area to this day -- the Spanish demanded that the Natives closest by vacate their pueblo and turn it over to the Spanish for their comfort and convenience; the Natives could go live with their friends in other pueblos in the region. The Natives vacated as demanded and the Spanish moved in.
The Spanish let their stock and horses graze over the Indians' harvested fields of corn -- thus consuming the fuel (dried corn stalks) that the Natives used for heat and cooking during the wintertime. The Indians captured some 40 of the free-roaming animals, mostly horses and mules, and according to reports, they killed them all. In addition to supplies and shelter and the consumption of winter fuel, the Spanish demanded women, and if they weren't sufficiently forthcoming, the Spanish took what they wanted. This was the proverbial last straw.
Naturally the Spanish proclaimed that the Natives had "declared war." Spanish conquistadors being peaceful and all.
The Spanish assaulted one pueblo after another, driving the residents to assemble in and fortify the one remaining pueblo where the Indians held out for two months against Spanish aggression. Finally, they negotiated a surrender of sorts, with promises from the Spanish of no reprisals, and in fact of "pardons" to the rebels.
What that meant was that two hundred of those who surrendered would be burned at the stake as a "lesson" to other Pueblo peoples. What would happen to the survivors was undetermined until they tried to flee, at which time they were slaughtered in their multitudes.
All of the Tiguex pueblos in the Albuquerque area were abandoned and some were destroyed altogether during the winter of 1541, but Coronado and his murderous band of thieves, er "Conquistadors", withdrew from New Mexico in 1542 after failing to find the fabled remaining Cities of Gold (but he did see the Grand Canyon and buffalo herds). He was a broken man, so they say, and never fully recovered from his failure. So we are supposed to feel sympathy for him. He did his best in a Glorious Cause, and only killed those Natives because he was provoked. You see. He took their supplies, their houses and their women because he needed them. Simple.
What actually happened during the winter of 1541 is still subject to considerable dispute in New Mexico, in part because the Tiguex pueblos were all reported to be occupied and prospering when the Spanish came back to reconnoiter in the 1580's and they were still apparently doing fine when Juan de Oñate came a-Conquering again in 1598, and they were still going strong until the 1620's when Spanish diseases started decimating the Natives, ultimately reducing their populations to only a handful compared to previously. The Tiguex pueblos would finally be abandoned during the Pueblo Revolt of the 1680's, though two -- Sandia and Isleta -- would be restored after the de Vargas Reconquista of 1692, and Indian refugees would be invited to return from their scattered locations around the territory.
After all, the Spanish needed laborers.
To this day, Coronado, Oñate, and de Vargas, so celebrated among the Spanish in New Mexico, are regarded with contempt bordering on fury by the Pueblo peoples for their cruelty and duplicity. While it is not completely clear what really happened during the Coronado sojourn in the Rio Grande Valley -- thanks to the fact that the Spanish had a tendency to wildly exaggerate their exploits (including their murderous rampages) and the Indians were reluctant to talk about it afterwards -- it's obvious from some of the remains that still litter the ground around the former pueblos that something terrible happened that winter and that likely many people suffered. The only problem the story as it was told in Mexico after Coronado's return is that burning two hundred people at the stake is no easy task, the Spanish were notoriously lazy when it came to performing "work", and the Indians were decidedly resistant to taking orders from their New (but at the time temporary) Overlords.
The point is that this first Spanish entrada, and all the subsequent ones were accomplished with almost inconceivable levels of violence by the invaders and any sign of even peaceful resistance by the Natives was brutally and murderously crushed. In other words, no matter what the Indians did -- including submission, or the appearance of submission -- the Spanish would treat them violence. The question for the Pueblo peoples then and now is how do you survive under the circumstances? Apparently they found some kind of answer, because they have not only survived but in some respects they have flourished; today the Pueblo peoples form the base and the backbone of New Mexico's unique culture and society.
This is no small accomplishment.
The Pueblo Revolt turned the tables on the Spanish in 1680, leading to the deaths of many Spanish and the expulsion of the remainder (actions that were patterned on the behavior of the Spanish toward the Indians). And it seems that "doing unto the Spanish" what the Spanish had done to the Indians, even if ultimately the Spanish were allowed to return, was sufficient to change the relationship between the Indians and the Spanish enough to develop a kind of mutual if grudging respect for one another and one another's presence and culture that endures (tentatively) to this day.
Anglos tend to be outside this whole cultural and social dynamic, and I make no pretense of understanding it more than superficially -- if that.
Humility about things we don't really understand is not generally something Anglos display with confidence, yet those of us who have so much to learn would do well to listen more than speak about such matters as the relationships between the Spanish and the Indians in New Mexico. It's certainly not what we may think it is, and it probably isn't anything like what it looks like to us.
So it's with something of dismay that I present the following video of Chris Hedges and Kevin Zeese pontificating at a gathering in Washington, DC, on the question of nonviolence particularly as it relates to the behavior of "Black Bloc Anarchists," which clearly they know nothing of.
Or if they do know something of that which they speak, they are deliberately obfuscating for the purpose of propaganda, demonization, and scapegoating. In other words, they appear to be on a mission to civilize and control the "natives" -- as it were -- and to expel (or otherwise deal with) those who refuse to submit to their authority.
Not unlike the Spanish priests and conquistadors back in the day.
And note, please, that the largely older and very Anglo (ie: white) crowd -- this event, remember, is taking place in Washington, DC -- cheers and applauds the assertions of Authority and the pontificiations of the Missionaries from the pulpit (in a manner of speaking).
They are certainly hearing what they want about the nature of "revolution" and the priority of "nonviolence."
Which, by the way, the speakers are only interested in to the extent they can control and direct the actions of others -- or eliminate them.
The obsession with Black Bloc that seems to animate these speakers and this crowd is in many ways the same sort of obsessive need to control The Other that was so prominent in the Spanish conquest of the Americas and the subsequent British and American fascination with doing likewise. Taking territory and treasure is certainly part of the process of conquest, but often as important, if not more important, is the control of the behavior of others, of the Natives as it were, and failing that (or sometimes as a consequence of the ability to control them) their extermination.
The Anarchists, Black Bloc or not, have been demonized by Hedges and Zeese and their ilk as The Other, to be feared, denounced, expelled and eliminated from the Occupy Movement, and I would suggest the reason is simple: they've been successful.
The success of genuine Revolution is not at all what Hedges and Zeese and their followers want, at least not the success of a genuinely populist and largely anarchist Revolution. There is almost nothing more fearsome to them. What they want, if I can carry the analogy to the Spanish Conquistadors and their religious advocates a little farther, is to be able to order and control the lives of others even more thoroughly than present governments do, and to become those governments.
This is a form of Revolution, to be sure, but it is Revolution by imposition from the top down.
The notion that Anarchism and/or the Occupy Movement as a whole is somehow or can somehow become a violent insurrection because somebody somewhere sometime ago threw a bottle or broke a window is absurd on its face. Yet Hedges and Zeese and their followers at this event (as well as a whole cohort of "nonviolence" advocates) continue to insist that a broken window or a thrown bottle is the most serious offense possible if it occurs in connection with Occupy. The violence of the state or the implicit violence of their demonizing and eliminationist rhetoric is nothing compared to the overt "violence" of a thrown bottle or a broken window. After a while, this sort of ridiculousness becomes tiresome. But they are preaching to a choir of believers, and that's the most important -- and potentially dangerous -- thing.
One of the points often made by the Anarchists who are and have always been at the core of the Occupy Movement (unlike Hedges and Zeese) is that prefiguration, anticipation, and modeling what kind of future we want to see is an important, indeed fundamental, aspect of the Occupy Movement. It's the central element of the Revolutionary nature of Occupy, and it is the most threatening to the Powers That Be. That's why there had to be such a coordinated and brutal suppression of the Occupy encampments, for they are the "models" -- or at least the beginnings of the models -- of what can be and ought to be in the future.
We find with Hedges and Zeese and their followers, however, that the kind of future they are modeling is more like that of a Medieval Inquisition. Hedges, especially, is becoming more and more like a Savonarola. As you see in the video, He and Zeese sit in judgement of their nemesis, the Black Bloc, and declare from their pulpits anathema upon them, just as the Spanish priests railed against Native observances, always leading to more or less brutal suppression -- until the Natives fought back using Spanish terror, demonization, and expulsion tactics against them.
That changed the dynamic.
In the modern situation, there is no necessity to fight back against Hedges and Zeese and their followers because they have little or no power over the Movement -- regardless of their desires and demands. It is their powerlessness over the Movement that seems to be driving them to ever greater levels of rhetorical excess.
The question is whether the Movement in its collective wisdom will find ways to change the dynamic between the ruling corporatocracy and the People such that the corporatocracy must "respect" the People rather than continuing on the course of mindless destruction and exploitation.
The Pueblo People found a way to change the dynamic between themselves and their Spanish overlords by assaulting them with their own tactics: they learned and used the bloody and violent means of the Spaniards against them and drove them out of the region. The consequence was that they found themselves becoming too much like the Spaniards, however, and in the end, they decided it was better to preserve what they could of their traditional way of life and to go forward on a new path with the Spanish rather than in constant conflict and opposition to them -- or in intentional or unintentional emulation of them.
The Pueblo Peoples of New Mexico are the descendants of the legendary Anasazi who built the proud ruins in the Four Corners region of Arizona, New Mexico, Utah and Colorado. Despite extreme natural and human pressures over many centuries, they are extraordinary survivors, and we'd all do well to consider their example.
Sunday, April 8, 2012
Once The Revolution Begins
Part of the Pueblo Revolt display at the New Mexico History Museum, Santa FeDoes it seem like times are very strange? A between-times?
I went to a book signing yesterday, met some of the authors whose work is focused on New Mexico, northern New Mexico specifically but not necessarily exclusively (this is New Mexico and one does what one inclines toward...) and it was odd and rewarding at the same time. Which things tend to be around here.
One thing I noticed at this book signing is that the authors were mostly older and Anglo, which isn't that surprising, but yet it seems a bit odd. This isn't like Florida, and it does snow here. Sometimes quite a bit.
And many of those I run into at events and memorials I attend in New Mexico are originally from California, often enough from Southern California, from around Los Angeles or the Central Coast area, places that I know very well, places I left long ago yet have returned to many times over the years. It never occurred to me to eventually settle anywhere but here, though.
Here in rough and hardscrabble high-desert New Mexico where I thought I saw a white buffalo yesterday, but it was only a rough and hardscrabble white bull out in the field that seems to go on forever until it touches the mountains on the west. There ought to be buffalo around here, and I assume there once were, but there never were any in California; too many mountains to climb and deserts to cross to get there.
Ranchers run cattle on these high desert plains. One ranch close by has a herd of prized Angus which they feed with the hay they grow on their irrigated fields. Irrigation is not unknown around here, but most of the ranches rely on the highly variable and often unreliable monsoon rains to grow enough forage for the stock, or in some cases to grow crops. Yes, beans and corn and squash are grown around here and they grow very well when they get enough water, but there has been a several year drought -- again -- that has made stock raising, let alone crops, somewhat chancy to say the least.
I have not known the ranchers in these parts to complain about it very much, though, unlike ranchers and farmers practically everyplace else I've ever been who complain about everything all the time as if they had nothing else to do.
Drought is part of the cycle here, and when I was talking to one of the authors yesterday, she made a profound observation: "You adapt."
Yes. Well.
You do.
And once the revolution begins, you can't control the outcome.
In 1680, for example, Popé led the Pueblo Revolt against the Spanish colonists who had been abusing the Indians for generations, since they first penetrated El Norte under Coronado in 1540, stealing, slaughtering and destroying with abandon in their mad quest for gold -- which the Indians here did not have.
There's a large Pueblo ruin just west of Albuquerque that I didn't even know was there until I read about it in the Archaeology magazine last month. The exact site has been kept secret from the public since the City of Albuquerque acquired it in the 1980's.
They say that Coronado laid siege to this site called Piedras Marcadas and ultimately destroyed it, but views differ on that point. Many metal items and weapons parts dating from the 16th century have been found at the site, so it is likely that Coronado did indeed assault the place, but he and his people assaulted many Pueblo sites along the Rio Grande, destroying some but taking over others so as to have shelter and food during their travels through the region. Or simply because they wanted to.
The Indians have always fought back in their own way. Even when such gross slaughter and plunder as that of Coronado and then Oñate was going on, the Indians did not simply yield. They fought back, and it made a difference. Fighting back is a way of life among the Natives and the locals.
There are some in the "nonviolence" community who simply can't grasp the thought and the theory of fighting back. Especially when faced with overwhelming force arrayed against you. Submission, it is declared, will lead to victory. Except it doesn't. Not always. Nor does fighting back. The trick, if there is one, is knowing what to do when.
They say that Popé's Revolt was in essence a religious crusade against the alien and cruel Spanish invaders, particularly the Franciscan priests and their vicious ways of stamping out Native observances. First, the rebels killed all the priests, then they went after the settlers, and eventually they drove them all out of New Mexico... for a while.
It has been pointed out that Popé, for all his drive and determination to cleanse the Rio Grande Valley and the rest of Occupied New Mexico of the Spanish, was himself a highly Hispanicized Indian, and his revolt was very much like something the Spanish might have done under similar circumstances. This is not to disparage him in any way, nor to discount what he and his comrades were able to do. Nothing else like it happened in the history of relations between the Indians of North America and the European invaders over all the hundreds of years that those relations have been going on.
And yet the Spanish came back. The mythology says that the "re-entrada" -- or rather, reconquista -- was peaceful. Hardly. Several thousand Indians are said to have been slaughtered and their pueblos put to the torch as de Vargas made his way up the Rio Grande in 1691 and 1692. They laid siege to Santa Fe and ultimately were able to reclaim the city, but not without considerable bloodshed among its Native defenders. Santa Fe was not much of a city in those days, and even now Santa Fe is hardly a metropolis, surprisingly perhaps, given its global romance and renown; when a novelist wrote about the "seven story building that overlooks the Plaza" not long ago, I had to laugh. Not only are there no "seven story buildings" overlooking the Plaza, so far as I know, there are no seven story buildings in Santa Fe at all.
It's not that kind of place. Now, Albuquerque, that's different. Skyscrapers galore. Well. What we would call skyscrapers in these parts.
That is of course an old and very famous photo of Central Avenue in Albuquerque looking east from Carlisle toward the Compared to the festivity of Central Ave seen in this picture taken in the late sixties, the street seems deserted today. There are remnants of the signage, but much is missing. It's been cleansed of the taint of what used to be; even the Aztec Motel is gone but for its sign.
Of course Central Avenue is the Old Route 66 through Albuquerque and beyond, and in the late 1960's it was still the main highway -- and main street -- through Albuquerque. Much of the allure of the Mother Road still endured, as in traces it does to this day.
The Spaniards came back in 1692, but there were more revolts of the Pueblos, right up until the American conquest in 1847, when the Taos Revolt (that included Taos Indians and their Hispanic allies) was brutally suppressed by American troops. Still Taos Pueblo endures (though much of it was destroyed in the suppression of the 1847 revolt, it was restored and is today a tourist magnet.)
Today's Pueblos are undergoing a transformation -- some would call it revolutionary -- thanks to the advent of tribal casinos which have helped provide the Pueblos and other tribes with revenue to improve their living standards. In other words, they can become as materialist as they want. The interesting thing is that most reject the Anglo form of materialism and individualism and maintain close connections with their culture and traditional ways. The casino revenue helps make life easier, that's all.
Who would have thought that this would be the result of the ongoing struggles of Pueblo peoples against their oppression? Or that the revolt/revolution of 1680-92 would lead to this, but there is a direct line from what was to what is, and unlike many other places in the United States, that line is easily recognized in New Mexico. People's memories don't fail them here -- though everyone makes up stories about their history.
As I was chatting with one of the authors yesterday, we found we had many things in common, surprisingly or maybe not so much, and we talked about Berkeley and the Free Speech Movement, the various radical and revolutionary aspects of the era, especially in California. And she said, "You know, a lot of what used to be in California is still present here in New Mexico." I said, "I know." She said, "Maybe that's why I was drawn here." I said, "I know that's part of why I was."
She said, "There are so many stories people tell here."
There are.
They are amazing and wonderful and some of them are true.
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