EXPLORING
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By Miguel Pérez
Part 25 of a series Long before the Spanish came to New Mexico and named Indian villages after Catholic saints, long before those villages became known as pueblos, the people of those pueblos lived in cliff dwellings (mountainside caves) that still stand today — amazing monuments to an ancient civilization. When the Spanish first explored Nuevo Mexico in 1540 and came back to settle in 1598, the pueblos were relatively young, inhabited by native people who had descended from the mountains a few decades earlier. Before they relocated to villages they built on the plains along the Rio Grande, they lived in ancient condominiums that I had to explore. These are not necessarily Hispanic heritage sites, but nothing was going to keep be away from looking at our pre-Spanish sites. If instead of reading about history, you prefer walking in it, there are few places in the United States where you can travel this far back in time. As I trekked through these places, in my mind I kept saying, "Wow." So, how do you come to New Mexico and not visit one of these places? You don't! I visited two of them and I need to go back for more! They go back to “You are standing in Frijoles Canyon,” the sign says, “home of the ancestral Pueblo people. In your imagination, can you smell the piñon-wood smoke? Can you see crops growing in the field? Do you hear children laughing and dogs barking as they run and play? “ After introducing the structures you are about to visit… “These places are not abandoned, just no longer lived in. The spirits of the Pueblo ancestors still live here.’ The New Mexico Hispanic and Native American populations are so intermarried that some Hispanics also have Tewa ancestry, and they also tell you that some of their native ancestors also came down from the mountains. Some natives returned to the cliffs dwellings of their ancestors to seek temporary refuge during the Pueblo Revolt of 1680, when the natives drove the Spanish out of New Mexico and destroyed every trace of Hispanic culture, and when hundreds were killed on both sides. And when the Spanish came back to New Mexico some 12 years later, some natives, apparently fearing retaliations and another surge of violence, sought refuge in their ancestral homes again. fled into the mountains — literally! But it was not until the 1700s ... By the time the Juan de Oñate expedition came north from Mexico in 1598, the natives had established villages along the Rio Grande as it As they traveled north, visiting villages along the way, Oñate named each village after a Catholic saint and assigned a Franciscan missionary to each village. Hunting with a loaded camera |
En español: Antes de que establecieran los pueblos los nativos vivían en antiguos condominios Bandelier National Monument:
Puye Cliff Swelling:
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To read other parts of this ongoing series, click: EXPLORING NEW MEXICO
Para leer otras partes de esta serie, clic: EXPLORANDO NUEVO MÉXICO
