Taos, April, 2009
on Margaret Campbell's Rambles (India), 05/Apr/2009 04:59, 34 days ago
   We visited the fascinatingTaos Pueblotoday - the longest continuously inhabited community in North America. This distinctive adobe community is believed to be 1,000 years old and is built of what is basically mud, which is worn down by rains and must be re-plastered each year. Anyone who has been a home owner can Imagine the commitment to keep an apaprtment complex in good repair for 1000 YEARSwith mud and straw as your building materials.  The community forbids electricity, running water or indoor plumbing so community members live in fundamentally the same way they have for centuries. Only, this community is right next to the dominant anglo culture, Taco Bells, Jiffy Lubes and all, and in fact the tribe has a casino 100 yards down the road on the reservation. The pueblo seems to strike the right balance, allowing visitors to walk some areas of the pueblo and take pictures, and, of course, shop. Yet, they close access for 10 weeks in the winter to observe a time of rituals and privacy and have what appear to be sensible rules about how they interact with the public:     - You pay a fee to enter the pueblo grounds but are limited in where you can walk - no access to buildings or sacred sites     - There is a fee to take photographs and further permission is required to photograph members of the tribe     - Tribal members sell crafts and baked goods in"shops" that are really just the front room of their 2-room apartments -  no commercial space Pueblo members are living at a level of"development" that most would consider impoverished, but this is clearly not the case; what discipline and generosity it must take to be a member of the community and I would guess it's considered a privilege. I wonder how this apparent harmony was established and maintained. Of course there were many years of persecution and that caused the tribe to keep the particulars of the culture secret. The visitors' brochure says that the language has never been documented or recorded and never will be - however there is actually a quite expansive description inwikipedia, created by a UC Berkeley (GO BEARS) professor whose collaborators are necessarily unidentified. One good thing that's happened in Taos is that in 1970 50,000 acres of land were returned to the tribe which had been designated as National Forest by T. Roosevelt in the early 1900's. This area includes Blue Lake and its environs, which is considered by the people to be sacred, and indeed should be because it is the source of water for the pueblo. Red Willow Creek flows out of Blue Lake and the Sangre de Cristo mountains and through the middle of the pueblo. How recently have you seen a stream flowing right through a community of 150 people that is apparently totally unpolluted? These guys are really doing the right thing protecting the land, water and animals in a pristine state. Wow.      Top is a tidy"shop" and below traditional ovens.    The community is divided into two"apartment" complexes with Red Willow Creek running between them. Top is the North Pueblo (the South Pueblo appears at the top of this post) and below is a view of kiva tops. You can see the ladders sticking up out of circular entrances to the underground chambers.  This reminds me of Chutes and Ladders ...