Taos Pueblo

I timed my visit to New Mexico so I could catch the Taos Pueblo Pow Wow. Asking for permission to take photos in advance was not fruitful so I only have one photo of the parking crew hamming it up. The visit to the Pueblo was more peaceful, with villagers living in traditional homes that are handed down within families for generations. The stream shown below provides water for drinking and washing as it has for hundreds of years. A somber tribute remains in the crumbling cemetery filled with graves of women and children massacred by US cavalry soldiers in the old church, now in ruins. The village honors the souls of their martyrs twice during the year, otherwise the site is sacrosanct. On this more peaceful day we watched a procession of elders giving thanks for the Catholic Church’s canonizing of Kateri Tekakwitha as the first Native American woman saint.

The Millicent Rogers Museum presented a lovely collection of native pottery, jewelery and paintings. The legend of Tony and Mabel Dodge Luhan, Georgia O’Keefe, Dorothy Brett and DH and Frieda Lawrence lives on in Taos.