Hey, I know you!

 

Five minutes either way and we would have missed him.  Just like the week before when, if we had turned away for a minute from the Netflix series we were viewing, we would missed the character and scene that introduced the story’s maguffin.  And also (perhaps) gave one of us a subconscious tip on what to wear in the coming days .  The show was “The Perfect Couple” based on a novel by Summer Beach Read Queen Elin Hilldebrand and starring Nicole Kidman.  But the main person of interest to us in that particular scene was her “personal jeweler.” 

 

Our real-life incident happened at one of the least shore-like spots in the world – the Santa Fe Botanical Garden – which we had decided to visit on a recent morning to take in some of the seasonal change in the floral landscape.  We were walking along the upper level of its terraced garden-amphitheater when down below we saw what looked like a familiar face from our former home town of Wethersfield, CT.  Like when you are a kid and see your teacher in the grocery store our first reaction was, “Nah.  Couldn’t be.”  But the more we looked…  So we headed slowly down the stairs, still not certain, when he looked up, raised his arms and shouted, “Hey.  I know you!”

                 

N was not actually our “personal jeweler.”  But he definitely was our family’s “go-to guy” for all bespoke things gemological.  As he was and still is for many others in Wethersfield and surrounding towns.  He, his wife and daughter were visiting Santa Fe as part of a week long jaunt in New Mexico – first time for all of them in the southwest except for his purchasing trips to an Arizona “Gem & Mineral Show.”  They had a little time to kill before hitting the High Road to Taos that afternoon for a few days in that longtime artist colony.   So dropped into the Botanical Garden, which was a short walk from where they were staying, for a quick look-see.

                

As luck would have it (or perhaps it was predestined) Marsha was wearing a sliver and denim lapis necklace that N had designed and made for her to match a pair of earrings she had purchased in Marfa, TX.   She also had on her 40th anniversary ruby bracelet (a gift from Jim) and her replacement-upgrade wedding ring, both of which were works of his.  All of which he recognized and remembered.  They were under time constraints so after a little more reminiscing, some vacation “gotta-see” tips from us newly-native northern New Mexicans and an exchange of contact info we said our good-byes – hoping that they return to see more of our new hometown.  As we said earlier, “five minutes either way…”

                

But its not like there isn’t any jewelry in New Mexico.

                

As we learned quickly on our first visit in 1992 when wandered into Santa Fe Plaza and were introduced to the “Portal Program” of Native American artists under the portal of the Palace of the Governors (PotG) – an outgrowth of the weekly markets organized in 1936 by Maria Chabot, Executive Secretary for the New Mexico Association of Indian Affairs.  Open daily, most vendors sell from 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. and all items (pottery, some textiles, and jewelry made of traditional materials such as turquoise, coral, and silver) are handcrafted by the seller or their household members.  All the artisans are members of federally recognized New Mexican Tribes or Pueblos.   And as we were told in 1992, “they don’t haggle but they do take MasterCard.”  

 

Women selling pottery on Palace of the Governors portal during Indian Market, 1938. 

Palace of the Governors Photo Archives No. 135047

 

 

Sad to confess however that we did not purchase any Indigenous accessories from the portal purveyors on that first trip.  We are not recreational shoppers, Santa Fe was thick with tourists and the busyness of the PotG was a little too overwhelming for us.  There were however other outdoor retailers of turquoise and silver scattered around-and-about the Plaza who had considerably less foot traffic and (at least to our uneducated eyes)  good quality Native jewelry.  (Or so they assured us.) Marsha found a silver and turquoise necklace for her initial piece of New Mexico jewelry.  

                

Happy to say that over the 31 subsequent years of visits and re-lo to Santa Fe we feel that we have more than atoned for our initial avoidance of the Portal Market.  As witnessed by a recent incident at that venue wherein a jeweler at whose work we were looking realized (with some emotion) that the earrings Marsha was wearing had been made by her father.

                

What we didn’t know until now was this...

                

“Jewelry making in the Southwest has a long history, and the Ancestral Pueblo people left behind elegant necklaces of black, white, red, and turquoise beads, as well as pendants and inlaid objects.  Some of the most spectacular items were found in Chaco Canyon, New Mexico, in the site named Pueblo Bonito.” (ElPalacio.org)  

                

However Indigenous Natives such as the Navajo (Diné) and Puebloans did not use silver in their jewelry until the Spanish introduced them to the idea in the mid 1800s – more than 250 years after the arrival of Spanish settlers in New Mexico.  It began with the Navajos learning the craft of blacksmithing from Hispanic smiths in the villages of northwestern New Mexico, perhaps as early as the 1840s.  During the next 20 years these newly trained “smithies” began applying their tools and skills to the production of silver jewelry – defining the designs and techniques of Navajo silver-work for decades.  The tools of the earliest native silversmiths were primitive with most self-made from discarded scraps of iron and steel.

                

“The [Navajo] silversmithing process started by melting silver coins or other items in a pottery crucible or cupped piece of old iron placed on a charcoal forge made of mud. The smith puddled the molten silver into a simple mold to form an ingot or ‘slug.’ On an anvil consisting of a dense tree stump, hard stone, or piece of iron, he pounded the ingot into a thin silver sheet. Then using chisels or shears, he cut the desired shape from the sheet and hammered it to its final form. The smith then polished the silver with fine sand or ashes before a final buffing with buckskin.

                

“Silver craft spread quickly among the Navajo and Pueblo tribes … As the largest tribe in the region, Navajos dominated jewelry-making although a larger proportion of the Zuni population practiced the craft. Together the two tribes created the Indian jewelry legacy of the first half of the 20th century.” (medicinemangallery.com)  

                

In spite of their common origins Zuni and Navajo jewelry have evolved into easily discernible styles.  “If your jewelry has lots of silver and large unshaped stones, there's a good chance it's a Navajo piece. If it has smaller expertly cut stones, clusters of stones, or stone inlay, then there's a good chance it might be a Zuni piece.” (Palms Trading Company)  

 

 

As can be seen in the Zuni Squash Blossom Necklace that Marsha purchased here in the 1990s.  Santa Fe Plaza is surrounded by an array of stores selling Native American arts and crafts.  One day, we walked that retail labyrinth on a mission to find a Squash Blossom necklace.  We had not done any research so it was kind of learn as you go.  And what we quickly realized was that her taste in squash blossoms was definitely not “lots of silver and large unshaped stones” but rather “smaller expertly cut stones.”  Nor was it sales people who leaned in close, acted as if they were thinking deeply, wrote a number on a small piece of paper, looked you in the eyes and said, “for you” as they slid the note across the counter.  Many of the necklaces being offered were delicate enough. Most of their prices were in the right ballpark.  But that sales technique was not going to make a sale.  Finally we found a necklace that checked all three boxes.  And Marsha brought it home to Wethersfield.  And then back out here where its style fits in better with the prevailing fashions.

                

Marsha enjoys harmonizing jewelry with her clothing – which meshes perfectly with the Santa Fe Style.  And, as shown earlier, “you never know who you are going to meet.”   

                

Another example.  

                

A week after seeing N and family at the Santa Fe Botanical Garden the two of us were having breakfast at a favorite “French country style” restaurant in town and spotted actress Ali McGraw dining two tables away.  It was our second sighting of her in our seven years here.  And disappointingly she did not jump from her seat with arms raised and shout out, “Hey.  I know you!”  (We’ve been told that she has done similar things.  While walking on on the sidewalk in Santa Fe a friend of a friend received a “looking good!” shout-out from Ms McGraw in her slowly-passing car.)   

                

Maybe next time – perhaps at the Botanical Garden – and we, or at least one of us, will be dressed for it.

 

Philip's Law

 

Back in Connecticut Jim was a member of the Men’s Garden Club of Wethersfield.  One of its now deceased members – a white-maned Italian gentleman  – was fond of saying that a tree should always be pruned so that “the wind and the birds can pass through it.”  Jim was never quite sure whether what he called “Philip’s Law” was an actual arboreal advice or an aspirational aphorism.  Either way it seemed like good guidance.

Then the other morning a fast moving green-gray-and-white hummingbird, flying like it was on a mission from God, slalomed its way through our desert willow tree en-route to the adjacent orange-colored Agastache plant.  It then flitted from flower to flower sipping rapidly at each one before quickly darting on to the next.  The stems of the Agastache swayed gently, put in motion either by an invisible zephyr-like breeze or the turbulence of the tiny turbo-bird.  It was hard to tell which.

Out here it seems everybody loves hummingbirds.  Which if you know Santa Fe may be a little bit surprising.  If there are only two possible sides to an issue Santa Feans will somehow come up with five or six.  And argue them into the ground on the editorial page of the local paper.  Then refuse to compromise unless everyone gets 100% of what they want.  

But we digress.  So we repeat...

Out here it seems everybody loves hummingbirds.  And why not.  They are cute, fun to watch and demand nothing other than a constant supply of nectar plus a protein punch of small insects.  This has been a good summer for both them and their viewing public.  At our house Marsha provides the little guys with three red plastic feeding stations filled with the sweetest human-made nectar this side of the Mississippi.  Each easily accessible in the flowering crab tree on the placita (patio) of our house.  All replenished several times a week to keep them at their energy-providing peak.  We also have four agastache – three potted and one a volunteer offshoot in the ground next to its progenitor.  All seven of these al fresco dining stations draw equal attention from our near constant dawn-to-dusk inflow of hovering hummers.

 

Back in Connecticut hummingbirds were only a hope for us.  We tried red plastic feeders and several variations of a “pollinator garden” – butterfly bushes, bee balm, coneflowers, etc.  Butterflies came.  Bees came.  Cones came.  (Just seeing if you were paying attention.)  Perhaps one hummingbird came.  Although it just might have been a hummingbird-hawk moth.  Either way that encounter lasted all of two seconds.

First time in New Mexico – totally different story.  We spent several days in Taos at El Pueblo Lodge, a hotel with an outdoor pool surrounded by yellow-leafed cottonwood trees and a comfortably large seating area with lounges and Adirondack chairs.   Plus several hummingbird feeders atop poles all in a row several feet apart.  While we sat, relaxed and read we watched hummingbirds by the dozen aerially queue up in orderly lines for a quick sip at the red containers.  Pretty darn cool!

After each diner had its fill it dutifully returned to the back of the line and slowly edged forward as the feeding operation continued, probably using up most of the energy it had acquired when it led the procession.  Our own community of hummers is considerably smaller in number – two or three at a time – and nowhere near as organized.  But over breakfast coffee or lunch on our placita, equally entertaining.

The hotel is about one mile south of Taos Pueblo – one of the oldest continuously inhabited communities in the United States and the only living Native American community designated both a World Heritage Site and a National Historic Landmark.  The hummingbird occupies an important place in the culture and religion of Taos and other New Mexico Pueblos who. e.g., perform hummingbird dances and use hummingbird feathers in rituals to bring rain.  Native legend says the bright colors on a hummingbird's throat came after he fled through the rainbow in search of rain clouds to save the earth from a fire caused by an angry demon.

Taos is also home to a persistent and invasive low-frequency humming, rumbling, or droning noise audible to many but not all people – the “Taos Hum.”   According to livescience.com “a variety of theories have been offered as an explanation, ranging from the mundane to the fantastic, the psychological to the paranormal. Stoned hippies, secret government mind control experiments, underground UFO bases and everything in between have been blamed.”

Not mentioned for some strange reason is the lingering effects of the presence of the Family Trochilidae at the El Pueblo Lodge and Taos Pueblo.  Just sayin!

Hummingbirds are also a big deal in La Cienega, NM in Santa Fe County at El Rancho de las Golondrinas.  Not for their physical presence – but instead, like college athletes, for their NIL – name, image and likeness.  

One of the things we celebrate at the museum is the traditional New Mexican folk art of tinwork.  Among the early Spanish colonists were craftsmen who planned on creating works of art from silver, which they expected to find in Spain’s northernmost colony just as they had around Mexico City.  Not!  But small amounts of tin were available, which they used instead to produce religious items for New Mexican churches.

Then in the 1820s people traveling west on the Santa Fe Trail brought with them large quantities of food and goods (lard, smoked oysters, lamp oil) packed into large tin containers.  These discarded tins were a blessing to resource-starved New Mexicans who could now expand their product-line to include mirrors, candle holders, nichos and children’s toys as well as more elaborate ecclesiastical pieces.  Some of which they shipped back on the Santa Fe Trail to new customers in the eastern United States.  The craft continues today as one of New Mexico’s major folk arts.

Las Golondrinas has its own collection of early pieces – although we unfortunately do not have one like the religious-themed tinwork with the word “LARD” prominently displayed, which we have seen in the Museum of Spanish Colonial Art.   Museum guests also have the opportunity to make their own tin medallions using four different templates we provide – a rose, a floral design, a swallow and a humming bird.

In Spanish a swallow is a golondrina – after which the El Rancho de las Golondrinas was named.  A hummingbird is called a colibri.  In classic, school-taught Spanish that is.  The real world is a little more complicated.

Now neither of us speaks Spanish.  Nor surprisingly do most of the volunteers.  New Mexico is 50% Hispanic and Spanish the normal spoken language of one quarter of the state’s residents.   However not knowing textbook Spanish may not be that much of a detriment

“Due to New Mexico's unique political history and over 400 years of relative geographic isolation, New Mexican Spanish is unique within Hispanic America … unlike any form of Spanish in the world.” (wikipedia)  Among the distinctive features of New Mexican Spanish are the continued use of now-obsolete vocabulary from colonial-era Spanish; words from Puebloan languages such as cíbolo for buffalo (Zuni;) Aztec expressions used by colonists; independent inventions; and refashioned English terms, e.g. telefón.  (This should not be confused with Spanglish, which mixes English with Spanish fluidly shifting from one language to the other sometimes within the same sentence.  E.g. ¿Me enviaste el email? (Did you send me the email?) or ¿Quién me robó el mouse? (Who stole my mouse?))

One of our summer interns – a college Spanish major – tried to apply her learning to our guests with what she described as less than successful results.  

So, frequently we volunteer-interpreters simply ask our Spanish guests how they would say a particular thing.  At medallion-making asking “how do you say Hummingbird?” yielded a variety of responses  – among them colibri, tucusitos, picaflores, chupamirtos, and chuparosas.  The last two being the most frequent.  (Chupa means “suck.”  Mirtos means “myrtles,” as in the flowering shrub.  Rosas are “roses.”  Some of you may have heard of the legendary chupacabra – the vampire-like creature that kills animals such as goats (cabras) by sucking their blood.

 

West Texas, Arizona and New Mexico are at the focal point of the hummingbird’s seasonal resettlement in the southwest United Sates.  In previous years however we felt as if we were barely on the outermost periphery of that hub.  This summer we seem like an integral part of it.  We also are being visited by multitudes of finches, sparrows and other such small birds, groups of which perch on the branches of the flowering crab pecking away at the tree’s purplish-red fruits, even while the chuparosas suck away at the bright red feeders.  

Climate change?  Santa Fe is definitely experiencing warmer weather.  But seeing that slaloming hummingbird the other morning got us we are wondering if it also could be something that we ourselves have done.

We planted the flowering crab in 2022 and the Desert Willow last year – replacing a tree and a bush that were thick with branches and leaves.   Mother Nature seems to have followed Philip’s design specs perfectly when constructing both the crab and the willow.  And this summer’s hordes of hummers and other flocks of feathered foodies offer testimony to the efficacy of that “law.”  To paraphrase the advice given to Kevin Costner in the movie “Field of Dreams” – “if you plant them, they will come.”

BTW     The shrubbery that preceded the Desert Willow and flowering crab were not complete anathema to our avian visitors.  The honeysuckle bush frequently provided a place of warmth and shelter for wintering birds who having been startled by the sudden appearance of one of us would startle us in turn.  And the red maple that provided significant summer shade to our placita was the 2020 site of a well-hidden hummingbird nest, which we accidentally spotted while re-arranging the tiny hoverers’ feeding stations.  Nestling into a thick coat of invisibility can sometimes be a good thing.

Dishing Dirt

 

We have mentioned before in this space that trips to El Rancho de las Golondrinas living history museum frequently evoke (often heartfelt) personal memories in our visitors.  

Although the intensity of the emotions were a bit unexpected – this human connection with material objects from the past was not.  Back in Connecticut when we were clearing out Marsha’s mother’s house we donated several old kitchen items – bowls, etc. – to our local historical society thinking they could go into its annual “Attic Treasures” tag sale fundraiser.  Instead they found their way into the cooking area of an historical house the organization owned and opened to the public.  The artifacts were from the 1940s and 50s and thus within the lifetimes of many if not most of those who toured the building.  And generated similar, albeit less fervent, reactions.  (This was New England after all.)

Some housewares on display at las Golondrinas go farther back in time and yet still can cause these types of reactions.  Other memory triggers are the buildings themselves, sheep, burros, locations used in movie scenes and – one that surprised us – dirt floors.  “My [New Mexican] mother grew up in a house with floors just like these.” or “grandma’s house had dirt floors.”  Spoken by guests younger in age than our own son.  

We personally have never lived with earthen flooring.  Nor did our parents, who grew up in the kind of multi-story wood/cut-stone homes common to 20th century Central Connecticut cities.   As to our grandparents, born in the second half of the 19th century in Europe  – well we’re just not sure.  

Tipperary, Ireland

At that time in Poland buildings of all kinds were made of timber – roofs, walls and flooring.  Budapest Hungary was evolving from a medium-sized settlement to one of the largest cities in Europe, erecting apartments of brick and cut-stone up to four flights in height, and single-floor buildings of the same materials.  Italian housing was commonly two levels with an external masonry stairs and wood floors covered with tiles.  While in Ireland a good number of rural houses were single-room mud cabins with clay floors. So it is possible that one of our progenitors may have beat his feet in the Tipperary mud.

And what of the history of dirt floors in the New England in general?  

Fodor’s Travel Guide tells us that Plimouth Plantation and Old Sturbridge Village living history museums show the “amazing contrast between the dirt-floor hovels of 1630 and the burgeoning technology of Sturbridge, in the early 1800s.”  Ergo, those who came over on the Mayflower may have initially trod on earthen flooring – but not eight generations later.   Meanwhile in New Mexico, which was claimed as a Spanish Colony 32 years before the Mayflower touched shore, dirt flooring was still common into the 20th century.  How come?

      

 

 

Well for one thing – sawmills.  “The first colonial sawmill [in America] was erected by the Dutch in New Amsterdam in the 1620s. The first English sawmill was built in Maine in 1623 or 1624 and the first sawmill was erected in Pennsylvania in 1662.” (engr.psu.edu)  But none until the mid 19th century in New Mexico.  Again, why?

Spain viewed New Mexico as an “extractive colony” caring less about building settlements and more about transferring as much wealth as possible from it back to the homeland.  Supplying technology such as sawmills was not part of the business plan.  Especially given the difficulties of transporting such a facility by ox-drawn carts up the 1,600 mile Camino Real – the trade route on which items from Spain traveled through Mexico City to Santa Fe.  And vice-versa.   

Another reason was Spain’s unwillingness to allow its northernmost New World colony to trade with anyone except itself  – especially not the ever-expanding United States.  New Mexico lived under that embargo from 1598 until 1821 when Mexico won its independence from Spain and with it custody of Nuevo México – which it used as its contact point for commerce with the U.S. via the Santa Fe Trail east and the Old Spanish Trail west.

It was not until 1847 that a lumber processing plant arrived in New Mexico – brought by the occupying U.S. Army to be used in the construction of Santa Fe’s Fort Marcy.  It was converted into a grist mill just five years later, repurposed into a home and studio by the artist Randall Davey in 1920 and later donated to the Audubon Society of New Mexico.  

Sun-dried clay bricks mixed with grass for strength, mud-mortared, and covered with additional protective layers of mud continued to be the basis for traditional New Mexican homes.  And hand sawing could satisfy what demand for lumber there was.  Floors were made of clay that was compressed on top of a stone foundation and sealed, usually with animal blood.  (At las Golondrinas we do not “blood” the floors because of the labor involved and the amount of foot traffic.)  The Spanish had brought this adobe architectural style with them to the New World having learned it from the North African Moors who ruled Spain from 711 A.D. to 1492 A.D.  In New Mexico they came upon the remarkably similar Native American Pueblo structures begun as far back as 1150 A.D.

Then, on July 4, 1879 the AT&SF Railroad, and the associated businessmen from the East and their families came to Las Vegas, NM.  And brought with them the eastern architectural style with which they were familiar– notably multi-story stone-cut brick and lumber Victorian homes.  Plus the railroad technology to more easily transport stone-cutting, saw-milling and other technologies to the building site.  

Las Vegas New Mexico

Likewise Santa Fe was becoming “Americanized.”  “First, they introduced what came to be known as Territorial Style, buildings constructed of brick with straight walls and no step-backs [then added] Neoclassical, Greek Revival, Romanesque, Victorian, and Gothic elements to structures … front porches, pitched roofs, brick copings, and double-hung windows.” (lascruces.com)

Trains brought tourists.  And in the early 1900s Santa Fe’s “powers that be” realized the city’s “centuries-old tradition of Pueblo and Spanish architecture … was an asset they could employ to attract tourism and the flourishing economic benefits that accompany it.”  They decreed an official style called Pueblo Revival, which “imitates traditional adobe pueblo architecture, though many newer buildings use brick and concrete instead of sun-dried mud bricks. If adobe is not used, structures are built with rounded corners and thick, canted walls to simulate it.  Walls are covered with stucco and painted in earth tones.”  (lascruces.com)

Santa Fe "Pueblo Revival”

Dirt floors were not required.  And thanks to the new availability of sawed lumber they began to be replaced by wood flooring even outside of the “historic area” to which the Pueblo Revival edict applied.

But not completely.  At las Golondrinas our late 19th century Sierra Homestead area shows a family compound that would have housed a young couple with children and their elderly parents (his and hers.)   Three houses show the progression of building styles from “Grandfather’s House ... with packed earthen floors [and] logs rather than adobe for the walls – essentially a log cabin covered in mud plaster; to “Grandmother’s House” with the same type of walls but a pitched roof and wooden floor of sawed lumber; to “Mora” House a large adobe home with a pitched wooden roof, covered porch and wood flooring.  (las Golondrinas Guide Book)  A point we mention when interpreting this section is that although more modern building materials and techniques were available Grandfather still preferred living and sleeping in his earthen floor abode after eating with the family in their more contemporary accommodations.

Grandfather’s House

This practice continued well into the 20th century.  As vividly recalled by so many of our Golondrinas guests triggered by the museum’s mnemonic memorabilia. 

Beheadings and Rooster Pulls

 

One of our favorite places to visit back in Connecticut was Hartford’s historic Cedar Hill Cemetery.  Its 270 acres of landscaped woodlands, waterways, and memorial grounds provided the perfect environment for a tranquil walk on a burgeoning spring morning or brisk autumn afternoon.  We also enjoyed the programs put on by the Cemetery Foundation under the directorship of our friend B.  Especially the themed, guided walking tours highlighting the stories of those both notable and less-celebrated who are interred on the grounds, e.g.  “Mark Twain’s Companions and Cohorts.” 

One we particularly liked told of those whose demise was unusual, interesting and (sometimes) illustrative of how the customs and conventions of the time created the circumstances leading to their loss of life.  Two stories still stand out.   And although we have forgotten the names and precise dates, the general time period can perhaps be gleaned from the victims’ sense of fashion.

In the first instance a young Hartford women clad in the de rigueur hoop skirt  of the time came too close to the wood-fueled fireplace in her home.  A spark ignited a fire in the garment, which rapidly gained momentum due to the chimney effect of her outfit’s crinoline cage resulting in her immolation.

Another female of similar age and wardrobe tastes was canoeing with friends in Wethersfield Cove, a natural inlet of the Connecticut River south of Hartford.  She fell into the water, which was just barely too deep for her to gain her footing.  Constrained by the tightness of her corset she was unable to raise her arms above the water’s surface and thus could not grasp either the side of the boat or the outstretched arms of her would-be rescuers – with the expected, unfortunate result.

Tales both disquieting and engaging.  The kind that would qualify for “News of the Weird” – a column that we used to read in the Hartford Advocate newspaper back in CT.   The feature still exists as a web site of the same name – “human eccentricity without embellishment.”   A quick search for New Mexico oddities turned up this.

“22 May 1957   Approximately 4.5 mi south of Kirtland Air Force Base, a grazing cow was killed by a Mark 17 hydrogen bomb accidentally jettisoned from a USAF B-36 strategic bomber aircraft. The bomb was not equipped with components necessary for nuclear detonation at the time, but the conventional high explosives in the bomb detonated on impact, killing the cow and causing a crater about 12 ft deep and 25 ft wide.” 

Interesting, but bovine bombings were not quite what we were looking for.  Fortunately, just like on that Cedar Hill Cemetery tour, we found two winners at an otherwise serious-minded lecture presented by the local chapter of the Santa Fe Trail Association.

The organization’s area of interest is all things related to the eponymous 800-mile trade route from Independence Missouri to/from Santa Fe during 1821 to 1865.  The subject of this talk was the village of Agua Fria, a census-designated place in Santa Fe County.  Agua Fria lies on the historic Camino Real of the Interior, the 1,600 mile trade route from 1598 to 1882 between Mexico City and Santa Fe – and for 61 years the route on which goods from the SF Trail were transported south to Mexico. 

“Spain jealously protected the borders of its New Mexico colony, prohibiting manufacturing and international trade. Missourians and others visiting Santa Fe told of an isolated provincial capital starved for manufactured goods and supplies—a potential gateway to Mexico’s interior markets. In 1821 the Mexican people revolted against Spanish rule. With independence, they un-locked the gates of trade, using the Santa Fe Trail as the key. Encouraged by Mexican officials, the Santa Fe trade boomed, strengthening and linking the economies of Missouri and Mexico’s northern provinces.” (nps.gov)

Agua Fría was named Ca-Tee-Ka – “cold water” by Tewa and Tano Indians living along the Rio Grande and adopted by its 17th century Spanish occupiers.  Recent archaeology suggests hunter-gathers in the area circa 7,000 BCE and settlers in pit houses who used the domestication of turkeys as a way to replace hunter-gathering from 3,000-3,500 BCE. 

The village became an officially recorded settlement in 1693 when Captain Roque Madrid and other soldiers were given land grants on the Santa Fe River for their service in the 1692 Spanish “Reconquest” of New Mexico.   The plots consisted of long, narrow strips ensuring that each landowner had access to water for crops via a communal crisscrossing acequia (irrigation) system.  Farming was so good that for a time the small community became “the breadbasket of the City of Santa Fe.”  The shape of the parcels proved to be a problem however when they were later divided among the children of the landowners.

A company of Civil War volunteers from Agua Fría fought with the Union Army at the Battle of Glorietta Pass (3/26-3/28 1862.)  The “Gettysburg of the West” ended the Confederacy's efforts to capture NM territory and other parts of the western United States.  The Rebels were winning the fight when they were forced to retreat and abandon their entire mission due to the destruction of basically all of their supplies, which they had left unguarded.

The speaker was entertaining and engaging, the talk was informative and we were listening attentively.  But our interest really perked up when the topics turned to the beheading of New Mexico’s tenth Mexican governor, and competitive “rooster pulls.” 

As you may know Spanish cultural tradition includes what some call “blood sports” – bullfighting and cockfighting principally but also one of the two pastimes mentioned immediately above. 

But not this one.  In August of 1837 there was a popular revolt in the Chimayó-Santa Cruz area against the Mexican appointed Governor Albino Pérez in opposition to his policies towards custom officials whose corrupt taxation practices took advantage of the lucrative Santa Fe Trail trade.  Pérez attempted to raise a militia in response but on August 8th he was decapitated in Santa Fe during a raid by a group of  Indians.   His head was displayed in public in and then kicked down the El Camino Real into the Village of Agua Fria.  

The Powerpoint accompanying the talk included this photo of a polished stone plaque reading “Governor Perez was assassinated on this spot on Aug. 9, 1837. Erected by Sunshine Chapter, DAR, 1901.”  New Mexican Daughters of the American Revolution – WTH??  “Any woman 18 years or older who can prove lineal, bloodline descent from an ancestor who aided in achieving American independence is eligible to join the DAR.”  Spain financially supported our Revolutionary War – raising the money in part by taxing all of its citizens.  New Mexico was at the time a Spanish Colony and each New Mexican Spaniard was assessed two pesos.  Every Indian contributed one peso.  Ergo, many modern day New Mexicans, including Native Americans, qualify.

While this method of removal from office hopefully was a one-off, the next event was a legitimate ritual.  The calendar of saints organizes the Christian liturgical year by associating each day with one or more saints.  Many days have associated activities.  On St. Valentine’s Day chocolates and flowers are given to certain loved ones.  St. Patrick’s day celebrants quaff pints of green-colored beer.  In New Mexico, on June 24 for St John the Baptist there was the “rooster pull.”

Marc Simmons was an American historian specializing in New Mexican history, writing numerous books and a column in the Santa Fe New Mexican newspaper – the source of the following.  

“Ancient practices and folkways lend an exotic air to the Southwest and impart a sense of timelessness. They are reminders that history lies at our back door.

“One strange custom, now rare today, is the corrida de gallo, or ‘rooster pull.’ Formerly this ‘sport’ was found in all of New Mexico’s villages and larger towns. It was one of the few aspects of native life which Americans found thoroughly disagreeable.

“A traveler from the East gave a graphic description in the early 1840s. ‘A common rooster or hen … was tied by the feet to some swinging limb of a tree, so as to be barely within reach of a man on horseback. Or the fowl was buried alive in a small pit, leaving only the head above the surface.

“In either case, horsemen racing at full speed grabbed the head of the bird, which, being well greased, generally slipped out of their fingers. As soon as someone succeeded in tearing it loose from the tree or from the pit, he spurred his horse and tried to escape with the prize. He was chased by the whole sporting crew. The first who overtook him tried to seize the fowl, a fight ensured, during which the poor chicken was torn into atoms … Should any of the horsemen escape with the whole bird, he takes it at once to his lady and presents it to her. And she carries the feathered creature that same night to the village dance where she displays it as proof that her man is the best lover in the neighborhood.”

As with the gubernatorial beheading our speaker had a picture to share.  This one an action-photo from Agua Fria circa 1890.

 

 

Marsha could not have abided the earlier constraints on women’s clothing – or other things.  The idea of courting anyone with a battle-scarred chicken just seems ludicrous to Jim.  And yet we find these stories fascinating.

One good thing about history is that you can live it without having to take part in it.