The lands of the Pueblo people

On Thursday we left Chimayó and drove to Jemez Springs. On the way we took the Puye Cliff Dwellings Mesa Top tour with eight other people, led by a Native American guide who told us he played in the structures when he was a child. He spoke with pride of the fierceness of his ancestors, the Pueblo people of about a thousand years ago who protected their families from incursions by Cochise, Ute, Comanche, Navajo, and Sioux peoples before the Spanish came, and who, in 1680, staged a successful rebellion against the Spanish before being overwhelmed by the reconquest of 1692. They had abandoned these cliff villages long before that rebellion. They had migrated when their main source of water dried up, but they farmed corn, squash, and beans, and they had systems of religious practice, land stewardship, art, music, and governance.

In the main photo he’s displaying a small “pot” made by people who were about four feet tall and had small but dexterous hands and feet. They lived, if they were lucky, to be 35-55 years old. The first extra shows some of the dwellings, and that’s Sue descending the ladder in the center.

Our guide also told of volcanic activity that sculpted the area a million years ago, and after we left the Puye area, we drove past the caldera that was left after the eruptions (second extra, though only a panoramic view could give a full sense of its vastness).