Arizona, New Mexico & the Grand Canyon Trips (Lonely Planet, 1st Edition) - Aaron Anderson [127]
USEFUL WEBSITES
www.gallupnm.org
www.gallupwaypoints.com
LINK YOUR TRIP www.lonelyplanet.com/trip-planner
TRIP
1 Four Corners Cruise
2 Motoring the Mother Road: Route 66
40 Ice Caves & Wolf Dens on Highway 53
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Return to beginning of chapter
Pueblo Life
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WHY GO Be it the sweet scent of frying dough or the sparkle of silver and turquoise bracelets displayed in an adobe shop window, Native American customs are part of New Mexico’s soul. On this trip the culture and history of four of the state’s 19 distinct pueblos are explored.
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TIME
3 days
DISTANCE
310 miles
BEST TIME TO GO
Jun – Aug
START
Taos Pueblo, NM
END
Zuni Pueblo, NM
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To understand New Mexico, home to the fifth-largest Native American population, you must visit her pueblos. The experience may not be the happy tourist attraction you were expecting: many offer little for visitors outside of festival weekends, serving as home to groups of long-displaced people, complete with schools, shops and gathering places. On this trip we take you to sacred ruins and ceremonial dances but also expose you to the all-too-often harsh reality of life for the average Native American living on reservation land. Poverty, alcoholism and anger are visible here. At the end, you’ll have experienced much, and gained an appreciation of the complex Native American cultures and belief systems.
One of New Mexico’s best-preserved adobe dwellings is the ultra-famous Taos Pueblo, the largest multistoried pueblo still existing in the USA. Built around 1450, it’s been continuously inhabited by the same tribe ever since and was designated a World Heritage Site in 1992. Shop for fine jewelry, micaceous (an aluminum mineral found in local rocks) pottery and other arts and crafts just outside the main pueblo entrance at the well-respected Tony Reyna Indian Shop. We like the turquoise necklaces, bracelets and rings. The general public has the best chance of seeing traditional dances in July and August, when many festivities are opened to the public. Plan your summer visit to Taos Pueblo to coincide with the huge Taos Pueblo Powwow, which features Plains and Pueblo Indians gathering for dances and workshops as this centuries-old tradition continues. Of all the pueblos in northern New Mexico, Taos Pueblo has the most events and celebrations open to the public. This age-old gathering includes workshops and dances and is open to the public. Everyone’s favorite spot for grub, Tewa Kitchen serves a host of Native treats like phien-ty (blue-corn fry-bread stuffed with buffalo meat), twa chull (grilled buffalo) or a bowl of heirloom green chile grown on pueblo grounds. Native Americans legalized casinos in an attempt to raise money for their impoverished communities, and Indian reservations are the only place you can gamble in the state. Head to Taos Mountain Casino. It’s a cozy joint, where you can blow your cash in an alcohol- and smoke-free environment – don’t expect a whiskey with your hand of cards; booze is banned at New Mexican casinos.
Don’t linger too long at the blackjack table; you have much more to see before dark. From Taos Pueblo head southeast to Nambé Pueblo. At the base of the Sangre de Cristo mountains, just driving here is amazing. The road cuts through dramatically sculpted sandstone and over piñon-scented hills. Perhaps because of the isolated location (or inspirational geology), Nambé has long been a spiritual center for the Tewa-speaking tribes, a distinction that attracted the attentions of Spanish priests intent on conversion by any means necessary. After the Pueblo Revolt and Reconquista wound down, Spanish settlers annexed much of their territory. Although the Native Americans living here lost much of their land, the place still remains inhabited and spiritually