|
There are forested mountains nearby: the Santa Fe Mountains to the north and Glorieta Mesa to the
south. But in the swale of the valley there’s grassland punctuated by juniper and piñon, like phrases in a concerto. I
listen to the voice of the wind in the trees; inhale the heady scent of pine. In the distance, ravens congregate and dance on thermals, calling to each other, discussing the day’s events.
I am not alone. The spirits of the ancient ones are watching.
On a ridge, a quarter mile distant, stands the remains of the
Pecos pueblo, just a mound of drifted sand and soil. The buildings in which these Puebloans once lived now sleep beneath this vague earthen ridge covered in gamma grasses, chamisa, and cholla cactus.
I came to the Pecos National Historic Park for a Civil War history lesson. This was where the last Civil War battle in New Mexico was fought. But I found much more – a broader
history, one carrying me back in time, some 12,000 years ago.
In the visitor center, there is a short video highlighting the history of the people who have lived here. There is also a museum
with an excellent summation of this history. Panels, intricate dioramas, and exceptional artifacts lead the visitor from the Paleo-Indians of 10,000 B.C., through the arrival of the Spanish, the
Comanche threat, and the American Period emphasizing the Santa Fe Trail, Civil War and arrival of the railroad.
The earliest people at Pecos were hunter-gatherers who eventually learned the
rudiments of farming and settled on the land, living in pit houses. Conflicts with other tribes forced changes in their life ways, and they moved to the bench of land high above the river. Here
they could defend themselves. Here they began building their pueblo.
These were the Towa people, related to the Jémez, and they called their home cicuye. Because of its location between the Puebloan nations to the west and the nomadic Plains tribes to the east, Pecos became a
trade center. With trade came wealth and, with wealth, growth.
By the time the Spanish arrived, Pecos was perhaps the largest pueblo in New Mexico. A quarter mile long and a couple
hundred feet wide, the pueblo had as many as 3,000 rooms forming a perimeter around a large central plaza. There were also fourteen ceremonial kivas.
The Spanish came to pacify and civilize the native people, applying their arrogant ideas and cruelty to force compliance. The Franciscans traveling with the army and colonists came to convert the natives from their kacina religion to Christianity. There was nearly as much conflict between the secular and religious segments of Spanish society as there was between the Spanish and Towas. Unfortunately for the natives, the government and church joined ranks in subduing them – and bows and arrows were no competition to arquebuses and canon and swords.
Having subdued the Towas, the Spanish commenced building a church. The first
was constructed around 1620, and it wasn’t your typical mission chapel. The friars wanted something grand and built the equivalent of a cathedral, 150 feet long from entrance to
alter. This mission church required 300,000 adobe bricks. It had walls twenty-two feet thick and roof beams as long as forty-one feet. With six towers and a crenellated parapet, the
mission looked more like a fortress than a church. And, of course, all the labor was supplied by the Puebloans, who had been reduced to virtual slavery.
Of the church, John Kessell wrote in his book, Kiva, Cross & Crown, “Architecturally it was unique, a sixteenth-century Mexican
fortress-Church in the medieval tradition, rendered in adobe in the baroque age at the ends of the earth.”
The Puebloans threw the Spanish out of New Mexico during the revolt in 1680, but
they came back twelve years later. And stayed. They built another church in 1717 on the foundation of the first, it having been burned to the ground, and they allegedly provided security and
justice. In some measure, they did.
As the two cultures were integrated, new threats emerged. The Plains Indians had learned how to use horses, and
the Comanche raided the Pecos pueblo frequently, when, of course, they were not in need of something and came to trade peacefully.
The constant pressures of new diseases introduced by Europeans, predation by the Comanche, and migration
to other pueblos reduced the population of Pecos until at the turn of the 19th Century fewer than 300 people remained. By the time Anglo settlers arrived along the Santa Fe Trail in 1821, Pecos was a virtual ghost town. The last survivors left the pueblo and its empty mission church in 1838, joining their Towa-speaking relatives at the Jémez pueblo, where their descendants live today.
I walked the pueblo and mission
ruin trail. It is gravel and wheelchair accessible. From the visitor center, the trail rises toward the high ground, carrying me through trees I suspect have been planted to landscape the
grounds. But they also hide the church from view, and it seems to burst into existence as I clear the last of the junipers. Sitting on the south end of the bench, its massive, ruddy-red walls
intrude into the natural surroundings. It seems out of place as much as it is out of time.
The trail circles the pueblo. Parts of it were skillfully excavated by Alfred V. Kidder over
twelve field seasons beginning in 1915. I don’t know how much he actually exposed and whether, after studying the area, backfilled the excavation. But it’s been eighty years since
Kidder’s work, and the land has returned to what it has looked like for more than a century – a grass and cacti covered mound. Some of the pueblo has remained restored so I get a sense
of how large the blockrooms were and how many could be conjoined.
One of the kivas, most of which had been filled in by the friars, has been excavated and restored. I climb the ladder into
the subterranean chamber. It’s dark and mysterious. I can see the fire pit and the ventilation hole. I can also see the sipapu, the hole from the interior of the earth through
which the first people emerged – a basic tenant of the kacina creation story. The bright sunlight forms a halo around the hatch, and I am left with the impression of climbing from the
underworld into a day bright with light and life.
Along the trail there are information panels explaining the structure of the pueblo and what activities may have occurred in various places within
it. One panel replicates the annual life cycle of the people, highlighting tasks and ceremonies from winter solstice, when the sun renews its journey through the equinoxes and seasons. In
spring, from the vernal equinox to summer, for instance, the Tano people planted corn and squash and gathered wild plants. Hunting ceased until fall, and the people celebrated the corn dance to
ensure a healthy, bountiful crop.
The last stop on the trail is at the church. It’s been there now nearly 300 years and, as I examine the ruin, I can see why. The long, side walls
are massive with only one north-side and three south-side clerestory windows. There were twin bell towers defining the facade. They hardly rose above the flat roof. Between them was a
narrow, wooden balcony accessed by climbing through a choir loft window.
Much of the front of the church has fallen into ruin, leaving jagged, exposed walls that remind me of the stairways of
Aztec temples. The building is sited in an east/west direction, with the sanctuary at the east end, typical of European cathedrals of the period. I walked the length of the nave and three steps
up into the sanctuary.
On either side are two doorways with semi-circular arches that must have been difficult to construct through the thick walls. These doors led to the convento or the priest’s quarters. I can see the remains of those quarters along with workshops, corrals, kitchen, and gardens. They are quite extensive and speak of the permanence of the Franciscans’ intentions in converting and “civilizing” the Tano.
As I return to the visitor center, my mind is flooded with questions. In the stillness of this ruin, I wonder what it must have been like at its peak – a time when men and women
labored for their families, traded with other bands, preserved their beliefs through their ceremonies. I could almost hear the chatter of people full of life, children laughing and playing, flutes
and drums leading the dancers. There seems to have been a balance, a harmony, a oneness with nature. And I sense, although the Tano are gone, that harmony persists, as if it will once again
emerge as if from a sipapu to guide the people – but, then, maybe that’s just me on a beautiful New Mexico morning.
Return to Day Trips
Return to Home
|
