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| Sangre de Cristo Mountains, Santa Fe, New Mexico. |
In 900, Native Americans first settled the
land of the oldest US state capital, Santa Fe. Pueblo villages rooted there in
1050-1150. In 1607, Spanish soldiers and politicians claimed the city for New
Spain. For eighty years, Spain sent soldiers and priests to suppress and
replace Pueblo culture with Spanish culture and Catholicism. In 1680, the Pueblo
Indians revolted and pushed out the Spanish colonists. Twelve years passed. The
Spanish returned and re-conquered the territory. Violent cultural conflicts
quieted in a peaceful surrender by Santa Fe’s original inhabitants. But the
culture wars continued. Native crops and ways yielded to European priorities
to the detriment of indigenous culture and faith.
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| Cathedral Basilica of St. Francis of Assisi from the Museum of Contemporary Native Arts. |
The
city’s ghosts are palpable. The layers of bones that lie dormant beneath Santa
Fe include a burial ground of indigenous origin and the remains of slaughtered Native,
Spanish and Mexican people. During World War II, Santa Fe held 4,555 men of
Japanese heritage imprisoned. The buildings are gone, but the scars remain. These
men were taken without warning from their families. They were Buddhist and
Christian leaders in their communities, scholars, teachers, businessmen, sons,
husbands and fathers. Their forgotten internment adds another layer of injustice
perpetrated on Santa Fe’s soil by the demon of ideological conviction harnessed
with fear.
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| Parking lot in Santa Fe. Click here for a short PBS video on the internment. |
Santa
Fe, which means “holy faith” in Spanish, reminds me of Bethlehem where a
succession of conquerors of divergent cultures and faiths each added a strata
of architectural dominion. Each victor built atop its predecessor’s construction to mark
homage or destruction of the original cave where Jesus was born. Somehow,
despite this architectural jousting, the original idea that human beings are
meant to have a divine origin remained. Even when the buildings were razed, a
robust oral tradition kept alive the knowledge of the starlit cradle.
It
took me several days and many miles of walking around Santa Fe and its dry riverbeds
to grasp how I could approach its hallowed ground with the baggage of my mostly
European ancestry. Great Spirit speaks through the land, the power of the
stones, and the clarity of desert light. City building codes harmonize
construction with Pueblo nuance. Local inhabitants echo and beckon a common
ancient origin through art. They honor those of Spain who brought peace, those
from Mexico who brought justice and the contemporary Native artists that recall
their ancestors and look to build a wise future for all children. There is a
lively Asian community.
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| "Woodland Child in Gas Mask" by Naomi Bebo. (MoCNA) |
The
small joys and deep suffering of thousands, in graves known only to the ghosts, have penetrated and emerge from the earth who is in constant conversation
with the sun. Shadows project ochre, sienna and umber. Through glossy thorns, cactus
speaks in rosy yellow blooms and wine red hips. In the creek bed, aspen shimmers
gold against viridian pine boughs. Before tumbleweed rolls from its earthbound
roots, its mustard blossoms render seeds that draw birds into its wiry arms.
The birds feast. The tumbleweed releases them back to the sky in freedom.
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| Before the feast. |
Perhaps
in our swift passage through this life we can only hope to have the faith of a tumbleweed
or to grasp peace with the conviction the eagle summons from a shaman to fly.
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| "Dream of Flight" by Lincoln Fox. (Albuquerque International Sunport) |
