Taos Pueblo

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Taos Pueblo

Name

Taos Pueblo (pronounced TAH-ohs PWEB-loh). The term “Taos” comes from a Spanish word meaning “in the village.” The Spanish term “pueblo,” which means “town” is used to refer to both the people and the buildings in which they live. The Taos referred to themselves as “the people.” In the Tiwa language the Taos Pueblo are called Tua-tah, meaning “our village.”

Location

The Taos Pueblo, a federal reservation, is located in northeastern New Mexico. It sits on a plateau at the base of Mount Wheeler in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, approximately 70 miles (113 kilometers) north of Santa Fe.

Population

In 1680 there were an estimated two thousand Taos Pueblo. In 1864 there were only 361. In 1930 there were 694. In the 1990 U.S. Census, 1,875 people identified themselves as Taos Pueblo. The 2000 census showed 1,877 Taos Puebloans. According to the Bureau of Indian Affairs, tribal enrollment in 2001 reached 2,443.

Language family

Tanoan.

Origins and group affiliations

The origin of the Taos people is uncertain, but may be traced back to the Anasazi or Chaco peoples. The language of the Taos is most closely related to that spoken by the Picuris, Isleta, and Sandia Pueblos. The Taos have maintained generally good relations with neighboring Pueblo peoples, as well as with the Ute, Apache, and Navajo tribes.

The Taos Pueblo may be the most photographed and most easily recognized pueblo in the world because of its beauty and perfectly preserved condition. Since the arrival of the Spaniards in the sixteenth century, when the Taos people were raising cattle and doing limited farming, the pueblo has been subject to periods of Spanish, Mexican, and American rule. Its people have been at the forefront of revolts against outside domination and have twice rebuilt their city when parts of it were burned by outsiders. The strong sense of community and interdependence among the Taos people has helped them preserve their traditional way of life with only minor changes through the centuries.

History

Emerges as trading center

Although little is known about the history of the Taos Pueblo before the coming of Europeans, their tribal tales tell of a long period when the tribe roamed the plains near New Mexico’s Sangre de Cristo Mountains. Archaeologists (scientists who study ancient cultures by examining the things they left behind) estimate the tribe arrived in the area some one thousand years ago. The first pueblo may have been built in the mid-1300s, less than a mile north of its present-day site.

By the time Spanish explorer Francisco de Coronado (1510–1554) arrived in 1540, Taos was already a thriving trading center. Coronado wrote then of the wonders he saw. The many-storied adobe (pronounced uh-DOE-bee) buildings, large circular places of worship, a low adobe wall encircling the original village—all of these things still exist in Taos. (Adobe is a sun-dried mud made of a mixture of clay, sand, and sometimes ashes, rocks, or straw.)

Many other Pueblo peoples and members of several different tribes, including the Comanche, the Apache, and the Navajo (see entries), traveled to Taos to trade animal hides, meat, blankets, and vegetables. Long after the Spanish arrived, these trade fairs continued to flourish. In later years non-Indians also took part in the fairs.

Important Dates

1540: Spanish explorer Francisco de Coronado arrives in Pueblo country.

1598: Juan de Oñate sets up a Spanish colony and builds San Geronimo Mission at Taos Pueblo.

1680: The Pueblo Revolt pushes the Spaniards from the region for 12 years.

1847: Another Pueblo rebellion leads to the assassination of the American territorial governor. In retaliation U.S. troops destroy the mission at Taos Pueblo, killing 150 Taos Indians.

1970: The U.S. government returns sacred Blue Lake to Taos Pueblo.

1996: The Taos receive 764 acres in Wheeler Park Wilderness, including a trail connecting the pueblo with Blue Lake Wilderness.

The Catholic religion by force

In 1598 Spanish explorer Juan de Oñate (1552–1626) arrived in the Pueblo area, intent on making the Native people part of a Spanish colony. When he established his headquarters barely 50 miles (80 kilometers) south of Taos, a long, difficult, and often violent period in Pueblo history began.

One of Oñate’s goals was to convert the Native Americans to Christianity. Mission San Geronimo was established at Taos, and a Catholic priest took up residence there. Anyone caught participating in Native rituals was punished and fined. While Taos residents adopted many Catholic rituals, they secretly practiced their traditions as well.

Natives overthrow Spanish for a time

Drawn together by religious oppression and other threats to their ancestral way of life, the various Pueblo tribes began the Pueblo Revolt of 1680 (see Pueblo entry). Popé (died 1692), a medicine man from San Juan Pueblo had earlier fled from the Spanish oppressors and sought refuge at Taos, where he planned the revolt. At dawn on August 10, 1680, all of the Pueblo groups struck at once. They burned the mission at Taos and killed more than seventy settlers, including two priests. The Spaniards left the area and did not return for twelve years.

The Spanish reestablished their colonies in the Pueblo region in 1692. The Taos Pueblo resisted and staged another revolt in 1696, but the success of 1680 was not repeated. The Spanish military quickly forced the Taos to surrender. So began an uneasy peace between the Native Americans and the colonizers that extended over the next 150 years.

Death and destruction

During that time control of the region passed from Spain to Mexico and then, after the Mexican-American War (1846–48), to the United States. The Mexicans were unhappy with this transfer of power and persuaded the Pueblo peoples to help them stage a revolt. The Revolt of 1847, which originated at Taos, led to the assassination of the American territorial governor. The U.S. Army responded swiftly.

Upon learning that the American Army was approaching, more than seven hundred Taos Pueblo barricaded themselves inside the San Geronimo Mission. U.S. troops, unable to break through the walls of the mission, bombarded it with gunfire and set fire to the roof. In the resulting bloodbath more than 150 Taos Pueblo lost their lives, and the mission was destroyed. The next day Taos surrendered, and the long process of rebuilding the pueblo began.

The battle for Blue Lake

Since that time the battles fought in Taos have been legal, rather than military, ones. The most famous was the battle for Blue Lake, the spiritual home and sacred ceremonial site of the Taos people. In 1906 Congress seized much of the Taos homeland, including Blue Lake, and made it part of Carson National Forest. Tourists visiting the site prevented the Taos people from making their annual pilgrimages to the lake.

The Taos reacted to this threat to their religion with a court battle that lasted for fifty years. It finally ended in 1970 when the U.S. Senate voted to return Blue Lake to the Taos people. The settlement marked the first time that land—not money—was returned to an American Indian tribe upon the completion of a court case over lost territory.

In 1996 the Taos gained 764 additional acres in the Wheeler Park Wilderness. This area contained a trail, Path of Life Trail, from the pueblo to Blue Lake Wilderness. The tribe also purchased Moreno Ranch, adding 16,000 acres to their holdings.

Religion

The traditional Native religion continues at Taos Pueblo in modern times, but it is cloaked in secrecy. The Taos Indians forbid any disclosure of their religious practices, and very little information has been published about them. Scholars say that a lot of the written information about the religion is unreliable.

Most of the pueblo members consider themselves Catholic, and many attend church services regularly. There has been much blending of the Catholic and Native religions over time, but they are still considered separate. The church and kiva (circular adobe structures partially below ground used in Pueblo religion) hold equally prominent places in the village, and the Taos people see no conflict in practicing both religions.

The spiritual leader of the Taos tribe is the cacique (pronounced kuh-SEEK), who is also a society leader. Only a man can hold this lifelong position. Other important religious leaders are the chiefs of the six kivas. Kiva groups run ceremonies, dances, and seasonal rituals. Though women may belong to kivas, only men participate in the sacred practices.

Language

Tiwa is the native language of Taos Pueblo. It is a dialect (variety) of the Tanoan language family. Other pueblos that speak Tiwa are the Picuris Pueblo, Sandia Pueblo, and Isleta Pueblo, but the language varies at each location.

Most pueblo residents spoke English by the end of the twentieth century, but many of the elders still spoke Tiwa, and it is also used in Taos ceremonies. Still an unwritten language, Tiwa has been passed down orally for generations. The pueblo’s day school is engaged in efforts to teach Tiwa to Taos youth. Classes are conducted by those who still know the language.

Taos Names for the Moons

Most Native Americans looked to the moon to tell passage of time. Each moon was named after a specific event that occurred during that time of year. January, for example, was called the Man Moon because men bathed in frigid streams and exercised outdoors during this cold month to strengthen and toughen their bodies. December, Night Moon, meant the nights were the longest that time of year.

January: Man Moon
February: Winter Moon
March: Wind Strong Moon
April: Ashes Moon
May: Corn Planting Moon
June: Corn-tassel Appear Moon
July: Sun House Moon
August: Autumn Moon
September: Leaf Yellow Moon
October: Corn Ripe Moon
November: Corn Harvest Moon
December: Night Moon

Government

Taos Pueblo is an independent, self-governed community. The government is run by a tribal council, a governor, and the office of the war chief. The tribal council, the highest authority, has more than fifty male elders who serve for life. Council members include major religious leaders and all former governors, lieutenant governors, the war chief, and the lieutenant war chief. The governor, the war chief, and their staffs are appointed by the tribal council and serve one-year terms of office.

The ten members of the governor’s staff carry on the day-to-day affairs of the pueblo and deal with village and church matters, law and order, roads and water issues, and non-Native American relations. The war chief and his twelve staff members deal with land and natural resources, hunting and grazing, crop and boundary control, and protecting the mountains and lands outside the Pueblo walls. As part of the government, the tribal council founded a central management system to handle any federal programs and funds that are not overseen by the governor’s or war chief’s offices.

Economy

In early times

The Taos Pueblo sits at a high altitude in the New Mexican mountains and has a short growing season. The tribe based their early economy primarily on hunting and gathering, with limited farming. They hunted deer, bear, turkey, antelope, elk, and buffalo regularly and conducted massive rabbit drives, which required the participation of every man who knew how to shoot with a bow and arrow.

The Taos reservation boasts 10,000 acres of land that can be irrigated. The people raise hay, alfalfa, and vegetables in addition to the 430 head of cattle and 800 horses that graze on the 49,000 acres of rangeland. The 16,000-acre Moreno Ranch was set up to raise bison. For the most part, though, the cattle raising and farming of earlier years has been replaced by work for wages and income from government grants and self-help projects.

In modern times

Tourism is now the main source of income for the Taos economy. Because it has been declared a National Historical Landmark and a World Heritage Site, many people travel to see the pueblo every year. The tribe charges entrance and parking fees as well as fees for taking photographs. Tribal members serve as paid tour guides. A plaza of shops and restaurants gives tourists opportunities to buy traditional foods and crafts. The Taos Indian Horse Ranch provides tours and horseback riding. For more than twenty years the people have held an Annual Taos Pueblo Powwow, which includes traditional singing and dancing. Other dances and ceremonies are also open to the public each year.

The Taos Pueblo Enterprises promotes tribal economic development and manages tribally-owned businesses. Small businesses owned by tribal members produce such handcrafted items as deer horn sculptures, pottery, silver and turquoise jewelry, blankets, tanned buckskin moccasins, and drums. Taos Mountain Casino opened in late 1997, and the tribe planned to also open a full-service bingo hall.

Although tribal lands are rich in game and forest products, the tribe considers them and the mountains surrounding them as sacred. They do not allow timbering, mining, or grazing on most of the lands, preferring to keep them as a religious sanctuary. At one time the tribe allowed gold mining, but by the mid-2000s the only mining was for adobe materials (sand and gravel) and stone for building. In 2004, they received almost $250,000 from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to improve game management on their lands.

Daily life

Buildings

The buildings that lie on both sides of the Rio Pueblo are classic examples of pueblo architecture, and some families still reside there. But the majority of people live in single-family homes located outside the pueblo wall. Built with modern materials, these houses have stucco (cement-plastered) exteriors to make them look like traditional adobe buildings.

Clothing and adornment

While Taos Indian dress has changed considerably since Spanish colonial days, some traditional elements remain. Men still wear the mantas (blanketlike cloaks) that were first observed by the Spaniards. Once the mantas were made from buffalo hide, but by the 1900s white cotton was preferred. In modern times machine-made blankets are commonly worn.

Men used to wear rough cloth leggings fastened to the waist by a cord. They wore them with a cotton loincloth (flaps of material that covered the front and back and were suspended from the waist). When Western-style pants were introduced, Taos men cut out the seats to turn them into “Indian” leggings.

As they still do, Taos men wore their hair in two braids, one behind each ear. Many Taos women still wear their hair in the traditional style, long and loose with eyebrow length bangs. Older women twist their hair into chignons (buns).

Women wore traditional pueblo dress, consisting of a sleeveless print dress attached over one shoulder and worn over a long-sleeved white cotton garment. They fastened a thick woven belt around their waists. They wore buckskin boots that often reached mid-thigh. Both men and women also wore heelless shoes.

Food

The Taos ate traditional Pueblo foods, but by 1936 their principal crops were corn and wheat, which the men cultivated, while the women tended small vegetable gardens. To supplement their food supply, they raised livestock, including chickens, cattle, and pigs.

In the late 1990s the Taos grew beans and pumpkins, tended fruit trees, and raised a small herd of buffalo, but they relied heavily on store-bought groceries as well. The people of the pueblo have, however, maintained the tradition of using outdoor adobe ovens called hornos to bake bread.

Education

The pueblo has a Head Start Program and an elementary day school operated by the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Students may also attend public and private schools in the nearby town of Taos, New Mexico, or an Indian boarding school in Santa Fe. The University of New Mexico opened a campus at Taos, and students who go on to college receive tribal scholarships.

Healing practices

Unlike most Pueblo tribes, the Taos did not have curing societies. Instead they relied on individual healers. Working for four days at the patient’s home, the healer sang medicine songs, brushed eagle feathers over the patient, and sucked out disease-causing foreign objects from the body. Since witchcraft was considered the source of sickness, it was part of the healer’s job to figure out who sent the sickness and to spit a special type of medicine to ward off witches. They used plants and animal blood to make medicine.

Modern-day Taos receive their medical care at the Taos/Picuris Health Center and nearby hospitals. Special clinics offer information about diabetes and women’s and children’s health issues.

Arts

The Taos are known for their skilled use of leather in crafting boots, moccasins, clothing, and drums. They also create unusual pottery flecked with mica and fashion jewelry from silver. In modern times many craftspeople add modern touches to the traditional arts for unique designs. The tribally owned Tesuque Pueblo Flea Market, the Santa Fe Indian Market, and the Eight Northern Pueblos Indian Market provide outlets for artists to sell their crafts.

Oral literature

The Taos have always enjoyed telling tales during the long winter evenings. They typically begin the stories by naming a character and stating where he lives. Some of the most popular characters are Yellow Corn girl, Blue Corn girl, Magpie-tail boy, and Coyote, the trickster. Tales are passed down orally from generation to generation, and the people often adopt stories from other cultures.

Testing for the Baby’s Father

Many Taos tales star the trickster, Coyote, or the characters found in this story, Magpie-tail boy, Blue Corn girl, and Yellow Corn girl. Because the Pueblo language is not written, stories must be shared orally if they are to be passed down to the next generations. In addition to the traditional storytelling venues, many reservation schools are now having elders tell these stories to students in their native Tiwa language.

Magpie-tail boy was living with his daughters, Blue Corn girl and Yellow Corn girl, and the people [of Taos] were living. And people asked them to marry, but they would not take them. Blue Corn girl was the elder. She got a baby without anybody knowing her. The people said to look for the father of the little boy who was growing very fast. So the people called her to find out the father of the child. They called Magpie-tail boy, too, with his two daughters and they asked him who was the father of the child. Magpie-tail boy said he did not know how she got the baby. They sat all around and they told Blue Corn girl to put the child in the middle to see which man he would go to. The boy paid no attention to the men, he just played in the middle. Just when the sun came up he ran to the place the sun shone on. When he ran they all said, “He is the son of our father the Sun.” The little boy began to sing and it began to rain. While he was singing, he was dressed up nicely in buckskin. The rain filled up the house and the men said, “Please, our son, make the rain stop.” But he would not listen. And they stood up because the house was full of water. He kept on singing and he began to climb up the ladder, and the house was full of water and drowned those people who had been mean to his mother. And from those who survived come the people who are living now.
Parsons, Elsie Clews. Taos Tales. New York: The American Folklore Society, J. J. Augustin, 1940.

Customs

Secrecy

The Pueblo people have always been very secretive about the social organization and customs of their tribe, because harsh punishment traditionally resulted from speaking too freely in front of outsiders. Religious ceremonies are closed to outsiders, and photography is not allowed at public dances or in sacred areas. The annual pilgrimages to Blue Lake are private; no non-Native is known to have ever participated.

Naming

Historians say that formal rituals to find the proper name for a child were never observed at Taos. Rather, any friend or relative could suggest a name for an infant. Once the name was determined, a male relative would present the child to the Sun and/or the Moon and pray for good luck and long life for the child. All infants were dedicated to one of the six kivas (places of worship). A short time after the birth, a member of that kiva would arrive to give the child its kiva name. This ceremonial name was only used during the sacred activities of the kiva.

Adolescence

Kiva spiritual training took place when a boy was between eight and ten years old. His initiation period lasted for 18 months and ended with a pilgrimage to Blue Lake. During training the boy was required to live within the walls of the kiva.

Although girls were also dedicated to a kiva, they did not undergo initiation. Instead they participated in an adolescence ritual that began with their first menstrual period. The girl was then confined for four days in the ground-floor room of her home, required to grind corn in silence, and was not allowed to be touched by sunlight. On the fourth day the childhood braid was removed from her hair and her bangs were cut. After this ritual had occurred the girl—at this point eligible for marriage—could also go to Blue Lake.

Festivals

Various annual festivals and dances are important to the Taos way of life. These community events have continued mostly unchanged for centuries. They include the Deer Dance; Christmas festivities in December followed by Three Kings Day in January; the Feast of San Diego, held on November 12; and the Corn Dance, which takes place in June. The festivals feature dancing, relay races, and pole climbing competitions, which visitors may attend. But the sacred rituals associated with the festivals are open only to participating tribal members.

The 1970 return of Blue Lake inspired the Taos people and made them even more determined to preserve their traditional religion and culture. The tribe’s most important ritual is the August pilgrimage to Blue Lake. Blue Lake is believed to be the Earth’s navel, from which the Taos people emerged. It is a sacred site that provides more than just water; it has great spiritual meaning as the source of life.

Marriage

Until recently members of the Taos Pueblo were forbidden to marry anyone but other pueblo residents, a practice meant to preserve pure bloodlines. Most people who marry outside the tribe choose to reside off the reservation, often many miles away. Marriages are either nonreligious or are performed in accordance with the Roman Catholic church. Divorces, once almost nonexistent, have become easier to obtain in modern times.

Funerals

Traditionally Taos held burials the morning after death. Following the burial family members remained in the house of the deceased for four days to prevent the person’s spirit from returning to the home. After the fourth day mourners placed ritual offerings—feathers, food, and moccasins—to the north just beyond the edge of town. They offered a bit of food to the spirits of the dead at mealtimes. As they still are today the dead were buried at the ruins of the old Taos mission with the head toward the south.

Current tribal issues

The people of Taos Pueblo still work to preserve the old ways. For example, it was not until 1971 that the Pueblo Council allowed electricity to be installed on the reservation, and electricity and running water are still not used within the old pueblo walls. Every able-bodied adult is expected to perform duties for the community. These include projects such as cleaning irrigation ditches, repairing fences, and plastering buildings, as well as performing ceremonial-linked activities. Activities such as these—and the teaching of the Tiwa language to their children—are community events that reinforce tribal traditions.

The Taos Pueblo is organized into a wilderness zone, religious and ceremonial zones, housing and cropland zones, commercial zones, recreational zones, and range management zones. The Taos Pueblo Environmental Office trains tribal members to manage Taos environmental lands and helps to protect and preserve the tribe’s natural resources.

In 2006 after many struggles with the surrounding communities and the state of New Mexico over water rights, the Taos committee reached an agreement with the government and other interested parties that was fair to everyone involved. Governor James Lujan Sr. summed up the results of the joint effort: “This is a good day, and this is a fair settlement. When it’s completed it will resolve the Pueblo’s water rights claims as well as longstanding water sharing disputes between Pueblo and non-Native American irrigators, and it will provide the basic rules for groundwater production in the valley without injuring surface water supplies or overburdening the aquifer.” From there the agreement required federal approval, but both sides believed the legislation would pass.

Notable people

Phillip Doren Lujan (c. 1948–), a Kiowa-Taos Pueblo Indian, has served as an attorney for various Native American legal organizations, as director of the Native American Studies Program at New Mexico State University, and as professor of communications at the University of Oklahoma in Norman, where he specialized in intercultural communication and the study of tribal governments. He also has held positions in various tribal court systems.

Other notable Taos Pueblo include painters Albert Looking Elk (1888–1940), Vicente Mirabal (1918–1944), and Pop Chalee (1906–1993).

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Bodine, John J. Taos Pueblo: A Walk Through Time. Tucson, AZ: Rio Nuevo, 2006.

Curtis, Edward. “Taos.” The North American Indian (1907–1930). Vol. 26. Reprint. New York: Johnson Reprint Corporation, 1970.

Dozier, Edward. The Pueblo Indians of North America. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1970.

Gordon-McCutchan, R. C. The Taos Indians and the Battle for Blue Lake. Santa Fe: Red Crane Books, 1991.

Keegan, Marcia. Taos Pueblo and Its Sacred Blue Lake. Santa Fe: Clear Light Publishers, 1991.

Mays, Buddy. Indian Villages of the Southwest. San Francisco: Chronicle Books, 1985.

Miller, Merton Leland. Preliminary Study of the Pueblo of Taos New Mexico. New York: AMS Press, 1998.

Parsons, Elsie Clews. Pueblo Indian Religion. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1939.

Parsons, Elsie Clews. Taos Pueblo. Menasha, WI: George Banta Publishing Company, 1936.

Parsons, Elsie Clews. Taos Tales. New York: Dover Publications, 1996.

Stubbs, Stanley. Bird’s-Eye View of the Pueblos. Norman: The University of Oklahoma Press, 1950.

Sweet, Jill D. Dances of the Tewa Pueblo Indians: Expressions of New Life. Santa Fe, NM: School of American Research Press, 2004.