Taos Pueblo is the only living Native American community that has been designated as both a UNESCO World Heritage Site and a National Historic Landmark of United States of America.
Taos Pueblo New Mexico
Taos is a town in Taos County, New Mexico, United States. It is located near Wheeler Peak on a branch of the Rio Grande in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains. It is located 55 miles (89 kilometres) north-northeast of Santa Fe and is New Mexico’s highest point.
The name Taos is derived from the Spanish translation of Tiwa, the indigenous Pueblo people’s name. Taos was the site of the so-called Pueblo Rebellion (1680) against Spain, which took place in an early Spanish colony.
The Taos Trail was a branch of the Santa Fe Trail, and the town grew to become a major commerce hub. The town is actually made up of three villages: Don Fernando (often Fernandez) de Taos (commonly known as Taos); the Pueblo of San Geronimo (Taos Pueblo), and the Ranchos de Taos. Taos Pueblo’s adobe hamlet was named a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1992.
Mabel Dodge Luhan, a wealthy patron of the arts whose home became a center for visiting artists such as Ansel Adams, Marsden Hartley, Alfred Stieglitz, and Georgia O’Keeffe, gave Taos impetus as a holiday colony for novelists and painters with its beautiful adobe architecture.
D.H. Lawrence lived outside Taos from 1922 to 1925, where he wrote The Plumed Serpent (1926). The University of New Mexico looks after his ranch. A monument state park honors the frontiersman-scout Kit Carson, and the house he lived in from 1853 to 1868 is still standing.
Taos is the Carson National Forest’s headquarters, while Taos Ski Valley is 19 miles (31 kilometres) north-northwest. The neighborhood is noted for its Indian fiestas and traditional dances, as well as being a hub for artists and craftspeople.
Pueblo native american
Pueblo native americans, are North American Indians who live in pueblos, which are small, permanent villages. The majority inhabit in northeastern Arizona and northwestern New Mexico, representing the Southwest Indian culture area. Estimates from the early twenty-first century put the Pueblo population at around 75,000 people.
The Ancestral Pueblo (Anasazi) civilization is regarded to be the ancestor of the Pueblo peoples. In the same way that the Ancestral Puebloans had a lot of regional diversity, the current Pueblo peoples have a lot of cultural and linguistic variation.
Puebloans nowadays are usually classified as belonging to either the eastern or western division. The eastern Pueblo settlements, which are located along the Rio Grande in New Mexico, are made up of people who speak Tanoan and Keresan languages.
Taos pueblo history
Uto-Aztecan is distantly connected to Tanoan languages like Tewa, while Keresan has no documented relationships. The Hopi villages in northern Arizona, as well as the Zuni, Acoma, and Laguna villages in western New Mexico, make up the western Pueblo villages.
Acoma and Laguna are western Pueblo peoples who speak Keresan; the Zuni speak Zuni, a Penutian language; and the Hopi, with one exception, speak Hopi, a Uto-Aztecan language. The community of Hano, which is made up of Tewa refugees from the Rio Grande, is an exception.
Before Spanish invasion, each of the 70 or so Pueblo settlements that existed were politically autonomous, administered by a council made up of religious leaders. The kivas, subterranean ceremonial chambers that also served as private clubs and lounging spaces for men, were at the heart of such societies.
Pueblo peoples were traditionally farmers, with different methods of farming and associated property ownership customs depending on the community. Corn (maize) and cotton were grown in irrigated areas in river bottoms along the Rio Grande and its tributaries.
Pueblo tribes
Because there were few stable water sources, cultivation was less reliable among the western Puebloans, particularly among the Hopi. Historically, women conducted the majority of the farming, but as hunting became less important, males began to take on more agricultural responsibilities.
Many Rio Grande Puebloans had specific hunting societies that hunted deer and antelope in the mountains, and easterly Puebloans like the Taos and Picuris would occasionally send bison hunters to the Plains. Communal rabbit hunts were held among all Pueblo peoples, and women picked wild plants to consume.
Marcos de Niza, a Franciscan monk, claimed the Pueblo region for Spain in 1539. In 1540, the explorer Francisco Vasquez de Coronado arrived, rapidly and brutally putting down any indigenous opposition. Popé, a Tewa, led the Pueblo Rebellion against the Spanish in 1680.
The colonisers withdrew from the area for several years before retaking it in 1691. Most communities adapted to colonial authority through syncretism, absorbing, and assimilating those features of the dominant culture that were necessary for survival under its regime while preserving the underlying fabric of indigenous culture. The inclusion of sheep and shepherding to the agricultural economy, as well as the adoption of various Christian religious rituals, are historical examples of Pueblo syncretism.
Pueblo of taos
Pueblo peoples today continue to apply syncretic techniques, adopting a range of modern convenience products while retaining their traditional kinship relationships, religions, and crafts to a large extent. The village, which is also the basic governmental unit, is the focal point of social activity.
In 21st-century Pueblo communities, kinship plays a critical role in social and religious life; it can limit an individual’s prospective marriage partners and often determines eligibility for religious societies and a range of social and economic obligations.
The lineage, a group of people who have a common ancestor, is usually used to determine kinship; multiple lineages combined form a clan. Some pueblos may have had more than 30 clans at one time, according to early 20th-century kinship studies, which were usually combined into two larger divisions, or moieties.
The eastern Pueblo clans are divided into two complementary moieties, known as the Summer people and the Winter people (Tanoans) or the Turquoise people and the Squash people, respectively. Their secret organizations engage mostly with curing rituals, and these groups alternate responsibilities for Pueblo operations.
Western Puebloans, on the other hand, are divided into multiple matrilineal lineages and clans, with secret societies, each commanded by a certain clan, performing a calendar cycle of ceremonies to assure rain and tribal welfare. The kachina (katsina) religion, a complicated belief system in which hundreds of divine entities function as intermediaries between mankind and God, is still practiced by many Pueblo peoples.
