Taos

Same trip as my previous post, but worth its own, was our couple of days spent in Taos.

Just a mile from downtown, replete with artist galleries and a beautiful plaza of its own, is the Pueblo de Taos, year round home to only about 150 people of this Northern Pueblo tribe.

The structure you see below has been continuously inhabited for approximately 1000 years.


There is no electricity, plumbing, or running water.

Red Willow Creek supplies their water. Sammi sits on a bridge over the creek here.

And shooting with the multi-storied abode behind him, my Dad took this picture of my mom and me some 30 years before.

The horno ovens (the little mounds) you see are still a primary way to cook here, since keeping the heat outside the house is ideal, especially in the summer.


The wood there right behind Nick's feet covers the horno's opening in order to keep critters from finding their way in for shelter.

One of major sources of income for those who live full-time in the Pueblo are sales to visitors of pottery, jewelry, as well as moccasins, boots, and drums made from animal skins trapped from the land. Oh, and fry bread! Mmmmmm.

There are also artists of many contemporary mediums with their work hanging inside the shops.

Their trademark is the avoidance of coloration, other than that which occurs naturally, such as the mica flecked pottery. (I guess the doors don't count?)

It is estimated this structure is one of the most photographed and painted buildings in the Western Hemisphere. I guess it helps that it's been around for 1000 years to be appreciated.

Visitors are allowed to tour a limited portion of the Pueblo, including the chapel and the cemetery, but the vast majority of the land (99,000 acres) is strictly off limits to outsiders, including the sacred Blue Lake, whence the people and the tribe were born, according to their tradition. This land was only recently returned to them, in 1970, following 64 years of fighting for its return since the 1906 act that incorporated the Blue Lake area into the National Forest Service.

While only 150 people live within the main Pueblo, nearly 1900 tribe members live across the Taos land.

Until this past century, there were no doors. You had to climb up an exterior ladder and then down an interior one to reach the home. When attacked, the exterior ladders could be pulled up quickly.

The buildings are made entirely of adobe: dirt, water, and straw, sun baked into bricks feet thick. They keep you cool in the summer and warm in the winter. The roofs are made of vigas (the large logs whose beams are exposed from the inside) with thinner flats of wood (usually pine or aspen) on top of them. The outside of the buildings are regularly maintained by new mud layers plastered on. There are no connecting doorways inside from house to house. Most houses are only two rooms, one communal living/sleeping area and another for food preparation and eating.


We aren't sure whether this is a door leading to a small storage area or something else, but it was perfectly Sammi-sized.

The ruins of the church that bore witness to the 1680 Pueblo Revolt, when Indians overthrew the Spaniards and reclaimed power. It was destroyed in that battle but rebuilt shortly after. It was destroyed a second and final time during the 1847 Taos Revolt, when the largest U.S. cannon available was wheeled up to her front doors and opened fire on revolting Indians, who didn't fare nearly as well as in 1680.


The St. Jerome Chapel was built in 1850 to replace the one destroyed during the revolt of 1847. This one was made famous by the Ansel Adams photograph of 1942.

On the second evening, before we headed down to Santa Fe for the rest of the vacation, we attended the Indian dance, held nightly at the motel by a Taos Indian family in traditional garb.


At the end, guests are invited to join in. Dad, who competed as a kid in Indian dancing, still had his moves. Sammi and Nick just held on and tried to keep up.