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June 15, 2005 As a child I lived eight years in the southwestern United States, in Arizona and New Mexico, which at that time were very sparsely populated. During my three years in New Mexico, I had the good fortune to visit four Indian pueblos: Acoma, Isleta, Taos and San Ildefonso. Although some of my memories are a little confused, as this was around 1950, some are still very vivid. Inasmuch as I myself am part Indian, though my circumstances were far removed from those of the Pueblo Indians, I was keenly interested in seeing their living conditions. The word "pueblo" is merely a Spanish word that means "people" or "town", and was applied by Spaniards to the towns that Pueblo Indians lived in, which contrasted with the more savage way of life of other Indians in the vicinity, such as Navajos, Comanches, Utes and Apaches. Pueblo Indians constitute a cultural rather than ethnic or linguistic community. In other words, they probably came from diverse populations that settled in the same region and adopted the same way of life. Their original homeland included parts of Utah and Colorado, but today they are largely confined to Arizona and New Mexico, where pueblos number about 25. Their languages form six groups; Tewa, Tiwa, Towa, Keres, Hopi and Zuñi. In 1540, at the time of the arrival of the famed Spanish explorer, Francisco Vásquez de Coronado, there were about 50,000 Pueblo Indians living in more than 100 pueblos. According to the US Census Bureau's figures, it was only in the 1980's that Pueblo population again reached the 50,000 mark, having dipped as low as 11,000 by 1910. In the 450 years between 1540 and 1990, under ordinary conditions, Pueblo population could be expected to have at least quadrupled, which would have meant a total present population of 200,000 or more. Their failure to reach this level of population has been due, of course, to slaughter and epidemics caused by Hispanic and Anglo-Saxon invaders, as well as territorial encroachments. So their history is something of a tragedy. Pueblo Indians were among the few, or perhaps the only, Indians north of México to depend for their livelihood primarily on agriculture, employing irrigation in their largely arid homeland. They grew maize, squash, beans, melons, cotton, tobacco and other crops, and supplemented this by hunting for bison and jackrabbits. They did not develop the wheel, as is well known, but this was probably because there were no animals available for drawing wagons. One may wonder why American Indians did not domesticate bison, since assuredly these massive, handsome beasts would seem perfect for pulling plows. The answer lies in the nature of the animals themselves. Bison are simply not susceptible of domestication. It's been tried again and again. As I mentioned in my article called "Mustangs: Evolution and History", it was only with the intrusion of Coronado and his compatriot, Hernando de Soto, into Indian teritory, that horses were introduced. So pre-Columbian Indians were porters and pedestrians by and large. Pueblo Indians had domesticated only dogs and turkeys, and kept eagles as a source of feathers. Pueblo Indians spun and wove from native cotton and yucca fiber, performed skilled leatherwork, and made tools and jewelry from stone, including turquoise, shell and bone, but they began to use silver and other metals only with the advent of Europeans. The Pueblo Indians, along with all other Indians in what is now the US, had no system of writing. Only the Indians of México and Central America, and not those of Perú, achieved this. The typical dwelling place in a pueblo is a sometimes whitewashed adobe or stone apartment building, which may be from one to five stories tall. Characteristically, the roof is supported by log rafters called "vigas", from Spanish, which project 1 or 2 feet out of the wall, and are thus visible from without. The most remarkable buildings are in the pueblo of Taos, north of Santa Fe, just south of the Colorado border. This is a lofty area in the Rocky Mountains, at an elevation of about 7600 feet, with deep canyons afforested with pine and other conifers. Today there are also a modern city, a ski resort and an artists' colony in the vicinity. The pueblo is still inhabited and attracts many tourists, but this actually amounts to a demotion from the original independence of these people. Taos pueblo probably dates back 1000 years or more, and may be the oldest architectural undertaking in what is today the US. In a pueblo, there was usually a "kiva", or assembly chamber, sometimes to be entered only by descending a ladder from the roof. As I recall, the kiva was usually decorated with murals, some of which had been restored. The pueblo at Acoma, 60 miles west of Albuquerque, lies atop a "mesa" or plateau, with nearly vertical cliffs on all sides. This location was, of course, selected defensively, with access to the top provided only by a single hand-carved staircase ascending hundreds of feet from the plain below. Today, there is also a Roman Catholic mission church at Acoma, and though the Catholic Church speaks of bringing Christianity to the Pueblo Indians, Christianity was originally forceably imposed upon them, and accompanied by the "encomienda" and the "repartimiento", which ultimately came to mean forced payment of tribute and forced labor. Indians originally conceived of a sort of synthesis of animistic and Christian ideas, but their arrogant Franciscan taskmasters wouldn't hear of any compromise. Just how meaningful baptism at gunpoint is, is a question I'll leave to theologians. Anyway, revolts were put down with considerable carnage. Isleta is just south of Albuquerque, while San Ildefonso is just north of Santa Fe, which itself is 65 miles north of almost centrally located Albuquerque. These pueblos also featured apartment buildings. As I recall, there were abandoned apartment buildings in one of the pueblos I visited, typical adobe structures, but with broken walls and missing roofs, probably in disuse for several generations. At that time, you could find arrowheads on the ground, and I managed to collect a few. Nowadays, they're probably all gone, or, at least, their abstraction is prohibited. New Mexico and Arizona were part of the spoils of the US conquest of 1846-1848 known as the Mexican War, which in reality was a landgrab. New Mexico became a territory in 1850 and a state in 1912. Arizona became a territory in 1863 and a state in 1913. The Hopi are in Arizona. Though I have been in the vicinity of their reservation, I can't recall with certainty that I visited the site. Of course, as a grammar school pupil in Arizona and New Mexico, I heard much folklore about local Indians too. ------------ About the author Thomas Keyes: I have written two books: A SOJOURN IN ASIA (non-fiction) and A TALE OF UNG (fiction), neither published so far. I have studied languages for years and traveled extensively on five continents. Email: udikeyes@yahoo.com Tell a friend about this site! ------------ All articles are EXCLUSIVE to Useless-Knowledge.com and are not allowed to be posted on other websites. ARTICLE THIEVES WILL BE PROSECUTED! |
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