Los Poblanos and Rio Grande Community Farms

Not far from our house, close enough to easily bike to, there is a huge farm, restaurant, and bed and breakfast. It is privately owned, and at least one of the buildings was designed by the same architect who designed the UNM library. They grow food to use in the restaurant and to sell at the farmers' market and at their roadside stand. Below are photos we took there late one afternoon. www.lospoblanos.com/ The B and B ranked 3rd on Trip Advisor. My goodness, 3rd? I would like to see which B and Bs came in first and second!

The Los Poblanos food stand is on the same property.

A friendly turkey preferred to look out of its window and incessantly gobble, trying to find some interesting conversation from the shoppers.

There was some confusion in my mind with the Los Poblanos private enterprise and the Rio Grande Community Farm and the Los Poblanos Fields. The Farm (according to their website) is a certified organic farm located in Albuquerque, New Mexico. It is run by the city of Albuquerque along with the 138-acre Los Poblanos Fields which are spread out within the Rio Grande valley and the City of Albuqueque. The City acquired the land in 1995 after a two-year campaign to preserve this last remaining parcel of farmland in the North Valley. http://www.riograndefarm.org/about/  In addition to growing food for Albuquerque's public schools, 20% of the fields is devoted to growing food for the birds, especially the sandhill cranes that migrate through ABQ by the thousands in the late fall. These 2 photos were 'borrowed' from the Internet.

UNM Campus and Library

Lee had been eager to go for a walk on the UNM campus, but we chose an afternoon that was blisteringly hot. (Are there any other kind here during the summer?)  After cruising by the famous UNM duck pond, we decided to take refuge in the library. The library is huge and built like a cathedral, but it's an homage to learning, not to religion. In this photo, Lee is dwarfed by it's grandeur.

The details are also exquisite.

In the newer addition the artistic integrity continues.

And in for a closer look:

Outside, a turtle rests on a rock trying to sun as much of herself as she can.

There is also a statue by Luis A. Jiménez, the same artist we saw in the courtyard in Santa Fe (see the Santa Fe post), but this piece had no name. It should be entitled "Working up a sweat!!"

GRAB

Albuquerque and Santa Fe are hosting a Native Cinema Showcase. Last night we went to the historic KiMo Theater to watch the documentary GRAB by Billy Luther. You can watch a trailer at www.grabthemovie.com. More about the movie to follow, but first I want to tell you a little about the KiMo Theater. 
This is copied from http://www.cabq.gov/kimo/about-the-theater

The KiMo Theatre, a Pueblo Deco picture palace, opened on September 19, 1927. Pueblo Deco was a flamboyant, short-lived architectural style that fused the spirit of the Native American cultures of the Southwest with the exuberance of Art Deco. Pueblo Deco appeared at a time when movie-mad communities were constructing film palaces based on exotic models such as Moorish mosques and Chinese pavilions.

Native American motifs appeared in only a handful of theaters; of 
those few, the KiMo is the undisputed king. 


Amen to that!! It was too dark to take photos with my cell phone, but here are a few from the Internet. You need to jump to this website to see the detail above the windows of the building. http://www.flickr.com/photos/mr_t_in_dc/4985018802/
or copy this into the address bar of your browser.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/mr_t_in_dc/4985018802/

The interior is sumptuous and no small detail has been overlooked. It is truly the most remarkable theater I have ever been in and I grew up in a theater-loving family near Chicago! Here are a very few of the details. This one is from the proscenium around the stage. This same pattern surrounds the entire stage.

This is a view of the lobby ceiling.

Above is a cell phone photo of a detail above the exit sign. There are murals, carvings, and cut-tin lamps throughout the theater. Even the seats are custom designed. If you ever make it to Albuquerque, don't miss exploring this theater!


Now about GRAB. This is an excerpt about the movie from the Native Cinema Showcase 2011 brochure. 


"Each year, residents of the Laguna Pueblo in New Mexico honor individual family members by throwing food and gifts from the rooftops of their homes to community members below. A community-wide prayer of abundance, thanks, and renewal... Luther's film chronicles the lives of three families as they make preparations to participate in this ancient tradition." 


After Lee and I took our seats a large family filled the row just in front of us. We noticed that the theater was filled with folks who seemed to know each other. In fact, people (especially gorgeous men) kept coming up to greet and hug the woman in front of me, so I tapped her on the shoulder and told her "I want to know you. You have all these cute guys coming up to hug you!" She laughed! Well, little did I know that she was one of the 'stars' of the movie. She is the potter you will see if you watch the trailer. The preparations for Grab Day included this potter, Josie Seymour, making a special pot for grab day which she planned to throw from the roof during the celebration. The tradition is that if it is caught, it is a wonderful gift for someone in the community, but if it is broken, it means an abundance of rain for the coming season. After the movie, she and her family were invited onstage. She had brought a pot with her to share with the audience community who had come to see the film. To my great surprise, she motioned to me and gave me the pot. She told me that she had decided that she would give the pot to the first person who spoke to her and that was me!! What a magical moment. I felt so very honored. As a post script, we have become facebook friends!

Sandia Crest Hummers

On the top of Sandia Crest there are a couple of visitor centers. There is one for the folks who take a tram to the top, but those who drive up there end up at a another one that is primarily a big gift shop and a little snack shop. The day that Lee and I drove up, it was very warm, and we went to the snack bar for an ice cream bar. We took our bars out to their patio to relax and enjoy the view. Yes, the view of Albuquerque spread out below is breathtaking. However, my attention was captured by two hummingbird feeders hung side by side from the patio railing. Those feeders were humming with action (so to speak). Dozens of the little birds were flying in to feed, then exiting, only to return a few seconds later for another snack. While we were there one of the waitresses came onto the patio for a breath of air and she told us that when they bring the feeders out each morning the little guys don't wait for them to be hung up, but hungrily swarm the feeders as they are being carried. She said that she can put her finger next to one of the feeding holes and the birds will mostly ignore it, but sometimes they will sit on her finger while they eat. I had to try it and it worked!!! Their little feet are so warm and delicate and I could feel the magic of them touching my skin for more than an hour later. Really, I will never forget it. Here is some video that we took.

Two architect designed homes in Albuquerque

These two homes invite you to stop, gawk, and take lots of photos. They are next door to each other and close to Central Ave downtown. Pretty remarkable aren't they!!

Santa Fe

It was a typically hot August day in Albuquerque and Lee and I decided to go to Santa Fe to enjoy some fine art and some cooler weather. (SF is usually 10 degrees cooler than ABQ.) We got lucky because as soon as we got to Santa Fe, it clouded up, cooled down to the mid 60s, and rained like crazy for much of the afternoon. Ahh.... felt like home to me! Santa Fe is a world unto itself. There is art everywhere you look, even the buildings are artfully constructed, and every thing is very expensive. And, of course, on a Saturday in August, the town is chock full of tourists! We looked at the long line at the popular Shed restaurant we had read about in our 2011 Fodor's Guide and decided to instead find a delicious and cheap fajita wrap for $5 from one of the food carts in the main square. We found a dry bench in the park under a tree and ate our lunch. Then we opened our umbrella and ran through the rain to land at the New Mexico History Museum and Palace of the Governors. There was an especially interesting special exhibit there about the African Americans' role in settling New Mexico. At 3:30, we were still hungry after our lunch and all the restaurants had shut down to prepare for dinner, but we found a bar that was open. Lucky us! The bar was part of a brand new hotel and their 'bar food' was chef-prepared. We shared bowls of Farmer's Market Soup and Posole stew along with the best tamales we've ever had. It had finally stopped raining so after eating we walked the streets of Santa Fe to look at the shops. Below are our impressions of that afternoon.

Umbrella ready, we set off on a street tour.

 This sculpture is on the wall of the Santa Fe Community Convention Center. Look closely and you will see it represents a multigenerational family with the ancestors represented as ghost-like faces at the outer rim. We thought it was interesting that every face was depicted with closed eyes, but that the eyes of the baby were wide open.

 In one of the courtyards we discovered this powerful work entitled "Border Crossing" done in 1989 by Luis A. Jiménez Jr. He dedicated it to his father,

Brain Power

Lee and I have been attending a number of lectures put on by OASIS. As published on its website: OASIS is a national education and service organization that brings people together to enrich lives and strengthen communities. We inspire people age 50 plus. www.oasisnet.org/

The native American cryptography class just described is an OASIS class. We've also attended lectures on 10 immigration myths, on unsolved mysteries of archeology, and one on astronomy. They are all presented by top people in the field, so they are extremely well organized, illustrated, and presented. It's been a lot of fun!

Last night we went to Vesta Fiesta. It was put on by the Albuquerque Astronomical Society (TAAS) http://www.taas.org/newtaas/index.php and the Open Space Nature Center, which is run by the city of Albuquerque. http://www.cabq.gov/openspace/

The event celebrates the arrival of NASA's Dawn robotic explorer to Vesta, one of the largest asteroids in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. It was once thought that these asteroids came from an exploded planet that was predicted to lie between Mars and Jupiter. However, it is now thought that the planet never formed and exploded. Instead, it never formed at all because Jupiter's huge gravity pull on the fragments kept perturbing the formation process that the other planets went through when our solar system was born. This understanding makes Vesta and the other large asteroid, Ceres, very interesting. Knowing more about these asteroids will further understanding about the early beginnings of our solar system, especially regarding the composition of the early materials that later made the planets. Until now, NASA scientists only had a very hazy image of Vesta, but Dawn, the robotic explorer, is already sending back pictures as defined and clear as those we have of our moon. Dawn just reached Vesta. It will orbit Vesta for one year and then leave Vesta's orbit and travel on to find Ceres and orbit it to collect data. You can read all about it at:

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/dawn/ceresvesta/index.html

Because the event was put on by TAAS (the Albuquerque Astronomical Society decided to include 'The' in it's acronym to avoid being the AAS society!) There were lots of telescopes and amateur astronomers to show you what to look at. Lee and I didn't stay for Vesta's rising, but we did see a binary star up close and personal. We intend to go the more TAAS events. We want to take advantage of Albuquerque's (usually) cloudless skies, but we will need to get away from the city lights to really see the deep sky. Meanwhile, Lee bought himself a lawn chair and sometimes I wake up at 5:00 am to find him missing from our bed and out in our courtyard, on his lawn chair, face to the stars, to discover whatever might be out there. This week the Perseid meteor shower will be visible in the early morning hours. The moon and city lights will obscure all but the brightest meteors, but we will look for what we can see.

The Pueblo People

A petroglyph at Petroglyph National Monument.

Josie Seymour, Laguna Pueblo potter and a principal in GRAB, is handing me the pot that she made to give to someone who attended the Albuquerque screening of the movie "GRAB," which is a documentary about Grab Day, a traditional Laguna Pueblo celebration of sharing. 
How lucky that at this showing of the movie she gave it to me!
http://www.Grabthemovie.com

For more insight about the movie and its makers and participants, go to   
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bPUH3M8HrIg

For several months after I arrived in NM I was quite confused about the Pueblo people and other native Americans in the Southwest. Who are they? Why are there different Pueblos each with its own name? How are these Pueblos related? Are the Navajo also a Pueblo people? Were there other Native American groups who lived in the area? Why is there Catholic imagery associated with southwest Native American cultures but not with the northwest Native American cultures?


It's taken many months of asking questions, reading signs, and listening to people to form a picture of the place that Native Americans hold in New Mexico's rich history. What I write here is a brief and broad brush summary of my understanding today and purposely omits some of the more controversial and emotionally charged history. It will deepen as I learn more, and I don't want to claim any rigorous research - these are only impressions. Please let me know if you find errors or disagreements. No disrespect is meant. I'm including several websites to get you started on your own research.


To begin, the Southwest is famous for Anasazi Ruins - remnants of towns composed of dwellings and religious kivas dug high up the sides of desert cliffs.

Anasazi ruins - anonymous Internet photo

These civilizations date back thousands of years. A sign at the Petroglyph National Monument in Albuquerque explained that the term Anasazi was derived from two Navajo words meaning “enemy ancestors” or “ancient enemy.” Therefore, to many modern Pueblo people, the term Anasazi is culturally insensitive and inappropriate to use when referring to their ancestors. The Pueblo people prefer 'ancestral Puebloan' when referring to their ancestors. Nevertheless, from what I understand, it is not clear if there is any lineage between the 'Anasazi' people who left their aerial homes and today's Pueblo peoples.


The Pueblo people are so called because these groups of Native Americans created villages of adobe homes. Pueblo is Spanish for village or town. Their communities were sustained by dry farming (no irrigation). Surprisingly, even though Pueblo groups in New Mexico are geographically relatively close to each other, they are not culturally homogeneous.There is not a single group, but many groups with different languages, customs, and religions. Today there are 19 Pueblos, and I was surprised to learn that the 5 native languages that survive today are completely different in vocabulary and syntax, which implies that there was little contact early on between the groups. 
http://www.indianpueblo.org/19pueblos/language.html



To learn more about the culture and the art we have visited The Indian Pueblo Cultural Center several times, and it's a must-see for anyone visiting Albuquerque. 
www.indianpueblo.org/


We also attended a talk by an Anglo UNM anthropologist who had been raised in a Pueblo village. She said that historically the pueblo people living near Albuquerque suffered at the hands of both the Navajo and the Apache who warred with each other and who supported those raids into each other's territory by raiding Pueblo villages to replenish food supplies and to steal women and children. 


However, the above account about the relationship of the Pueblos and the Navajo is at odds with the following quote form wikipedia:


"...the Navajo were hunters and gatherers. They adopted farming techniques and crops from the Pueblo people, growing mainly corn, beans, and squash. As a result of Spanish influence, they began herding sheep and goats, depending on them for food and trade. Navajo oral history also seems to indicate a long relationship with Pueblo people^[12] and a willingness to adapt foreign ideas into their own culture." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Navajo_people


For more information about current Navajo culture go to 
http://navajopeople.org/


Although the Navajo and the Apache share the same language history - Athapascan - early on there was a split into what is now known as Navajo and Apache. One website I found explained that the Apache were composed of nomadic tribes that subsisted as hunters and gatherers. This source claimed that they only raided others for a living when food was scarce. However, the website also noted that these people were fierce and feared warriors and further states that the Apache and Pueblo tribes co-existed until the Spaniards arrived and began enslaving Native peoples to work in the mines. 
http://www.impurplehawk.com/apache.html 


I have seen Christian imagery in the art and celebrations of the Pueblo tribes, which I've learned is there because as Spanish explorers came north from Mexico to settle territory, they encountered the Native American people and tried, often fairly successfully, to convert them to Catholicism. The two cultures co-existed, but many native americans resented the early Spanish explorers because the Spanish presence depleted their resources, and the Spanish tried to quell the expression of indigenous religious beliefs and practices. In 1680, there was a well orchestrated and successful "Pueblo Revolt" 
http://www.neh.gov/news/humanities/2002-11/pueblorevolt.html


The revolt resulted in the Spanish allowing the Pueblos to retain their religious cultural identities while at the same time  retaining many Catholic traditions. 


Today each pueblo hosts a "Feast Day" that is celebrated with traditional native american dances, but is held in honor of a particular Catholic Saint. The public is invited to these events and can attend free of charge. 


It used to be that the families in the pueblo hosted outsiders at a meal, but today, the attendance is so high that this is not practical. Instead there are many food booths along with arts and craft vendors to serve the tourists who come to the pueblo during their feast day. 


We attended a Feast Day at the Jimez (pronounced hay' mus) Pueblo and were amazed at the size of it. More than a thousand people attended to shop the booths and watch the dancers, who were arrayed in beautiful and elaborate costumes of white and turquoise accented with deep reds and browns.  Each of the women dancers wore a large headdress and each adult male dancer wore an animal tail tucked into the back of his belt. I wasn't sure if the tail was fox or coyote. 


It seemed the entire village joined into the dances because the participants took up several blocks and included dancers from the very young to those old enough to stand the rigor. The dance we saw was demanding in that the dancers were dancing in step with the beat of drums and they danced for quite a length of time. At 65, it would be a challenge for me to keep up with them. 


We were also surprised at the number of vendors there, blocks and blocks of them, and the artists came from different pueblos to sell their art at this feast. The art was beautiful - everything from clothing, to jewelry, to clay ware, and most things were very reasonably priced. I wished I'd brought more cash as very few vendors accepted credit cards or checks.


Sadly no photos were allowed under threat of confiscating any photographing equipment including cell phones. I can't find any Internet photos either, so you will just have to attend one of the feast days for yourself. 


The Jimez village we saw was made up of very modest single story adobe homes lining a maze of dirt roads. There was a large central town square which was actually a large rectangle that was 2 to 3 blocks in length. As we walked through the village, we saw at least two Kivas (places for ceremonial worship).  They could be recognized because they were a couple of stories tall, had no windows and only a small unadorned door, and we could see smoke coming out of the top and hear the beating of a drum coming from the interior. 


Lee astutely noted that there were no 'mansions' in the town. We do not know how the economic structure is set up in the pueblos or if there are taxes that support communal services such as utilities and roads. This will take more research.


One of the most famous Pueblos near Albuquerque is the ancient Acoma Pueblo built on the flat top of a high desert mesa. This pueblo is a must-see for any visitor in the Albuquerque area. To accommodate the many tourists who arrive each day, the Acoma people built a beautiful, modern visitor's center and they charge to take busloads of tourists to tour the pueblo. 


They also sell a permit to take photos. However, no photography is allowed with your own camera. You must use only disposable cameras that can be purchased at the visitor's center. I don't know why this is because it's very easy to digitize those pictures (which I did). 


It was explained to us that most Acoma Pueblo people no longer live at Acoma full time, but many maintain a home there to stay at for feast days and other occasions. The look of the Acoma pueblo was different than the Jimez pueblo that we visited in that some of the homes were built apartment-style and had two stories. However, in both pueblos the people left the natural dry look of the land without embellishment.


At the end of the tour at Acoma our guide offered to allow us to return to the visitor's center by walking down the old stairway that goes from the road below the mesa to the village above. As you will see in my photos, in places this stairway is very steep. There are handholds carved into the sides of the walls to hold onto and you need them! Our guide pointed out that for many years this stairway was the only way to get building materials, goods, and groceries up to the village. I was impressed because getting down them wasn't easy!!!


Finally, I want to add that visitors to New Mexico see photos like the ones here and get the idea that native people in the U.S. are different from other Americans, but this is not the case. The native people in NM came through the same school system that I did. For example, I was visiting a coffee shop in Santa Fe and the server/owner was clearly Native American. As I always do, I asked if they had nonfat milk for my latte. Just then someone from the shop came rushing in with a grocery bag of milk he had just bought at the store. I said, "Oh, I see the milkman cometh." The man behind the counter laughed loudly. It was a joke he got because he went to the same high school that I had where "The Iceman Cometh" is part of the curriculum. That being said, Native Americans throughout the U.S. are now reclaiming their languages and traditions, and we thank them for that. It enriches all our lives.


What follows are photos of the Acoma pueblo and the stairway we took.


This is NOT the Acoma mesa. It is much smaller, but it is a similar land form. These first two photos were taken as we entered Acoma lands and both are of the same structure.

Acoma Visitor's Center

View from the top of the Acoma Pueblo over the desert.

A view of the village. 

An Acoma home on the edge of the village. The dome shaped structure behind the house is a horno, a wood fired oven for baking bread.

Stone work on an Acoma home.

Two-story Acoma homes with traditional ladders.

Another view of an Acoma street lined with homes.

There was an old church in the village which we were not allowed to photograph. The guide told us that this balcony at the side of the church was used by the priest for sermons and announcements. Note the beautiful wooden roof over the balcony.

The best way to get down the steep parts of these stairs is to turn around and use the hand holds provided.