Raices 2015

Courtesy Library of Congress/John Collier, Jr. CollectionPatricio Lopez, left, and his father Juan clean beans in their Trampas kitchen in 1943.

Raíces2 0 15 Tr a d i c i o n e s • T he Ta o s Ne w s

2 Raíces

Courtesy of the Ernest Knee CollectionMabel and Tony Luhan

Forever groundedOur roots run deep and strong

Our raíces (roots) are not only where our ancestors came from or ended up, but what happened to them on their journeys.

What was discovered, altered, preserved and endured stretches, bends and absorbs much like roots of a tree

reaching out for nourishment and growth.

Raíces anchor us.

Northern New Mexico inhabitants remain steadfast as conservationists of history, stewards of tradition, celebrators of those who came before us and lovers of a good story.

Raíces are all around us every day, from the petroglyphs at the Orilla Verde Recreation Area to the ancient hunting tools found buried under our shoes.

The lives of Arroyo Hondo men who sacrificed all to defend us in war are now immortalized in their hometown, thanks to the vision, energy and heart of one man. And days

of yore captured on film of a Northern New Mexico family and town are still vivid to one of its subjects.

Ingenuity and necessity spawned the Molino de los Duranes Grist Mill and new transportation routes.

The mountain slopes that cradle Taos provide shelter, jobs and recreational opportunities dating back to the New Deal era and the erection of the Agua Piedra cabin.

Another architectural gem immersed in history is the Mabel Dodge Luhan House, which has served as a residence and in modern times, a gathering place for artists of many disciplines.

These stories presented in this 15th installment of Raíces are our conscience and the echoes of those that came before.

— Scott Gerdes, special sections editor

‘In different hours, a man represents each of several of his ancestors, as if

there were seven or eight of us rolled up in each man’s skin, — seven or eight ancestors at least, and they

constitute the variety of notes for that new piece of music which his life is.’

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

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After nearly 100 years building Taos, you could say our roots run deep. An honest day’s work, a firm handshake, and a fair price. That’s what we believe in.

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StaffRobin Martin, owner • Chris Baker, publisher • Joan Livingston, editor • Chris Wood, advertising manager • Scott Gerdes, special sections editor Michelle M. Gutierrez, lead editorial designer • Virginia Clark, copy editor • Karin Eberhardt, production manager • Katharine Egli, photographerCody Hooks, J.R. Logan, staff writers

Contributing writersCindy Brown, Andy Dennison, Teresa Dovalpage, Cassandra Keyes, Jordan Miera

Contents

Tradicioneshonrar a nuestros héroes

F I F T E E N T H A N N U A L

4

Rock art: Petroglyphs of Taos by Cody Hooks

6

Agua Piedra Cabin by Cindy Brown

12

Molino de los Duranes by Andy Dennison

14

Flashbacks: A young boy and a photographer by J.R. Logan

16

Honoring Hondo veterans by Jordan Miera

18

The Mabel Dodge Luhan House by Teresa Dovalpage

8

Archaeological artifacts by Cassandra Keyes

4 Raíces

Rock art Petroglyphs of Taos’ borderlands

By Cody Hooks

Down in the Río Grande Gorge just a little south of Taos and near the southern end of the Río Grande del Norte National Monument is the Taos Junction Bridge. A few steps past that is Vista Verde trail, an unassuming

footpath in an otherwise brilliant landscape. There, an ancient and deep past lies almost hidden in plain sight.

Under the blazing New Mexican sun, they are almost impossible to see. But with a little cloud cover, these markings — petroglyphs — come to life. Petroglyphs are symbols, images and sometimes words carved, pecked and scratched into the black basalt of Taos’ volcanic flows and rifts. Some are dots and lines, others clearly human. Still others detail down to the day when a particular Spanish settler made their way through the gorge.

People will casually call petroglyphs “rock art.” But in a constantly changing human landscape where borders, cultures, economies and religions of different nations meet, mingle and intertwine, petroglyphs are among the most concrete of histories that tell of Taos’ past.

Since humans started moving through the Río Grande Valley at least 12,000 years ago, they’ve been leaving their marks on the rocks of the Gorge.

The oldest glyphs, so called “archaic vocabulary,” come in long series of dots, concentric circles, zigzags, random lines and some plants and animals. Made by hunter-gatherers, the style lasted until about 1,000 years ago.

Merrill Dicks, archeologist with the Bureau of Land Management in Taos, cautioned against trying to interpret the meanings of such old glyphs. “That gets into shaky ground,” he said. “But they establish a long record of folks affirming their connection with the landscape.”

At the end of a little walk on the Vista Verde trail is what Gary and Dorothy Grief, citizen-archaeologists with the Taos Archaeological Society, call Ancient Rock. The circles, wheels and spirals on the face of the boulder may be markers for a solar calendar used long ago. “You can tell they’re old,” they said, “because of the patina covering the glyph.”

Much of the rock art on the Río Grande is pecked into the black basalt, a tough geologic canvas. People made these images by meticulously chipping off the black patina, or desert varnish, on the surface of the rock to reveal a starkly lighter layer beneath. Over time, as the iron and manganese of basalt react with air and water, the black varnish returns and the glyphs blend evermore flawlessly back into the environment.

The Río Grande-style of glyphs began to

appear when Pueblo people settled the area. Their agricultural lifestyle translated to symbols of corn and cloud terraces, sunlight and rainbows, to name but a few examples. Of course, with different groups living alongside each other for centuries, Dicks said the line between the petroglyph styles of hunter-gatherers and settled people is anything but black and white.

From the the late 1600s onward, the Comanches traded, raided and fought their way to become a North American empire that stretched from southern Canada to northern Mexico. Oral histories and the colonial written record even tell of the Comanches in Taos. But archeologists couldn’t reconcile that history. The Comanches, it had seemed, left no physical record of their Northern New Mexican sojourns.

Just a few years ago, Columbia University anthropologist Severin Fowles and a group of students took a little extra time to really look at certain “scratches” on the rocks along Vista Verde. They are faint, single lines that most people assumed were graffiti. Meticulously recording each line and running them through computer programs, they found depictions of shields, parfleches (buffalo-hide bags), and scenes of skirmishes, horses and teepees.

Fowles consulted with the Jicarilla Apache, Utes and Comanches, three tribes who were known to visit Taos in the early 19th century. Through long conversations and sharing photos and sketches back

and forth they realized they’d found something huge in the archaeological record — actual evidence of the Comanches’ time in Taos.

Horses weren’t widely found or used in American American communities until after the Pueblo Revolt of 1680-1692, but they are found aplenty in the steppes of the gorge. There are depictions of idly grazing herds and mounted warriors in battle. But one image is missing from the glyphs — guns. Guns weren’t widespread among tribes until the middle of the 18th century. Once they were, though, guns showed up everywhere in the rock art, especially that of the Plains Indians. Those two clues, corroborated against historical evidence, suggest the Comanches likely made their camps and their rock art in the Taos Gorge during a brief 50 years around the turn of the 18th century.

Like other Plains groups, the Comanches were used to making their rock art in soft limestone, where a simple line would show in stark relief. But that technique on Taos’ black basalt made for far less visible glyphs.

But why weren’t those glyphs noticed, let alone understood, for so long? Oftentimes, you can’t see something if you don’t already know it’s there. Such was the case for the Comanche glyphs, scattered alongside the pecked glyphs of the Río Grande.

Katharine EgliA teepee petroglyph on a rock near the La Vista Verde trail in the Orilla Verde Recreation Center.

Katharine EgliGary Grief points to a petroglyph of a war scene off the Valle Verde trail in the Orilla Verde Wilderness Recreation Center on Sunday, Aug. 2.

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Of course, Comanche, Pueblo and Spanish people weren’t the only ones who left parts of their world traced into the basalt of the Taos Gorge. Hippies, drawn to Taos in the 1960s, left plenty of their own. And along Vista Verde, not but a few

feet away from dozens of other hundred-year-old glyphs, someone left a more recent carving of a pickup truck and a cell phone.

But the rock art of Taos is endangered. Dicks talked of professionals who go out into the night with diamond saws and loot the glyphs, a trade that’s highly illegal and can

easily lay waste to these outdoor museums already facing run-of-the-mill graffiti, defacement and the steady wear of time and battering of elements.

As with any gem on public lands, it’s possible to love them to death.

The magic place that is the Río Grande Gorge is just one of the reasons the area was set aside as the 242,500-acre Río Grande del Norte National Monument in 2013 by President Obama. “These are fragile environments, archaeologically as well as ecologically. We want people to enjoy it, but we have to preserve and protect the landscape,” Dicks said.

In 500 years, the monument itself will be part of the archeological record. What will it say, he wonders, of the people of Taos and the United States that a ribbon of the Río Grande — and its petroglyphs, those enduring testaments of the fluid borders of Taos — was set aside to be enjoyed, studied and protected for future generations?

— As with any gem on public lands, it’s possible

to love them to death.

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Katharine EgliGary Grief walks toward a petroglyph of a war scene off La Vista Verde trail in the Orilla Verde Recreation Area on Sunday, Aug. 2; If you look hard, ancient petroglyphs can still be seen on the rocks along La Vista Verde trail in the Orilla Verde.

6 Raíces

By Cindy Brown

The log cabin at the Agua Piedra Campground is part of the lasting legacy of the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC). The CCC was formed in 1933 as an early New Deal program. The intent was to provide employment and stimulate the economy,

while improving the nation’s forests and other public places. In Taos, the CCC and other New Deal programs were responsible for many improvements to the forests and state parks, along with the construction of rock walls, bridges, adobe school houses and special projects like the Agua Piedra cabin.

The log cabin was constructed in the 1930s and served as a warming hut for one the earliest ski areas in New Mexico. “Visitors used the cabin … to warm up by the fireplace and eat snacks, while drinking hot chocolate after a day of skiing. By 1940, the area had become a popular ski hill …” says information from Carson National Forest (CNF). “The Agua Piedra Ski Club was formed in the late 1930s by skiers from the local communities of Las Vegas, Taos and Peñasco, and it later came to be called the Tres Ritos Winter Sports Area.”

There was a rope-tow ski lift powered by a gas engine that ran between 1940 and 1952, as well as a second lift that operated for several years. The lifts provided access to the Cordova Canyon race course and ski slopes as well as other trails located nearby. Lift tickets cost 25 cents per day.

The Agua Piedra cabin and ski area changed the landscape and had far-reaching effects into the future. Sipapu founder Lloyd Bolander learned to ski here before establishing the resort area at Sipapu.

Local men were hired to build the cabin and their lives and those of their families were changed forever. One of these men was Alfredo Dominguez from Chamisal. Dominguez was the grandfather of Anna Dominguez, a rangeland management specialist at the CNF. Anna Dominguez has collected stories about her grandfather from her family. She came to understand that her grandfather had a hard life and was independent at 7 years old, out on his own working as a shepherd. She says that Grandfather Alfredo was “excited and eager to work on a community project. He was an individual thinker and doer, eager to accept change as it was occurring.”

Anna Dominguez says that with the coming of the CCC, the wage economy was introduced to the area, which had previously operated on a more traditional system of barter.

She tells the story of her grandfather’s first day on the job:

“My grandfather was eager to work for the CCC. It was a rare opportunity to have work in the community for wages. It was also exciting to experience and learn; to do something different than agriculture-related practices. The people of Chamisal had experienced minimal influence from the industrial world, only one man had a truck in the area, in which he transported many of his neighbors.

“My grandparents did not have a clock to know precise time, but they woke up early in the morning to prepare lunch and cover his boots with gunny sacks to protect them from the mud. He walked to the neighbor’s house in the dark and woke them at 3 a.m. He realized he was an eager early bird. This is how important the first day of CCC work camp on the Agua Piedra cabin was to my grandfather. Many of our Dominguez family reunions were held in the cabin, in which the story was retold.”

Alfredo Dominguez continued to earn a living by working for the Forest Service as a firefighter until his retirement. Anna Dominguez says that she remembers a consistent greeting behavior of her grandfather when she

Agua Piedra cabinLasting legacy

Visitors used the cabin … to warm up by the fireplace

and eat snacks, while drinking hot chocolate after a day of skiing.

By 1940, the area had become a popular ski hill …

Courtesy of Carson National ForestUndated image of the Agua Piedra cabin as a warming house.

Cindy BrownThe stone fireplace in the Aqua Piedra cabin.

7Raíces

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Cindy BrownThe Agua Peidra cabin today.

Courtesy of Carson National ForestThe Agua Piedra cabin in 1940.

visited her grandparents’ house as a child. “He would sit down by the wood stove, pull out his wallet and intently give us each a dollar with a happy, humble nod. I understood these were special dollars, as a kid, but now I know how special they really were. He was giving a part of himself to us with the dignity and honor of earning that dollar.”

Through the CCC program, the local people learned new skills and the influence of the wage system over barter increased. The projects left a lasting legacy of improved parks areas, restored forests, and also established a base for the growth of the recreation industry near Taos.

An existing ethic of protecting the resources of land and water was reinforced by the New Deal programs. The tradition of training youth with skills to care for the land

continues in the form of learning from family, as well as being part of programs like the Rocky Mountain Youth Corps.

As Anna Dominguez says “Many of these projects were efficient in using the available earth resources of rock, earth and wood, along with the human resources of labor, intellect and cooperation. The cooperation between coordinating agencies and youth groups has the greatest opportunity to influence the earth garden.”

Today, the Agua Piedra cabin is used for family reunions, weddings, picnics and other events. The cabin is located at the Agua Piedra campground and trailhead, on State Road 518, approximately 25 miles southeast of Taos. For more information and reservations, visit reserveamerica.com.

‘He would sit down by the wood stove, pull out his wallet and intently give us each a dollar with

a happy, humble nod. I understood these were special dollars, as a kid, but now I know how special they

really were. He was giving a part of himself to us with the dignity and

honor of earning that dollar.’— Anna Dominguez

8 Raíces

By Cassandra Keyes

Living in the Taos area it would be hard to not have some familiarity with the region’s archaeology. Black-on-white pottery shards are ubiquitous and easily recognizable. Projectile points and other stone tools are frequently seen in shadow boxes. The Taos Pueblo, whose

architecture is characteristic of Native peoples throughout the Southwest, is the nation’s oldest continuously inhabited community dating back at least 600 years. But the Upper Río Grande Valley has seen seasonal influxes of nomadic tribes and bands for roughly 10,000 years. The artifacts they left behind are evidence of their presence, and they provide some indications of their way of life as it changed and evolved over time.

Before people began settling down in multistory mud apartments and growing corn for subsistence, they were small, itinerant clans of hunter-gathers. “Archaic foragers roamed over this ancient landscape while hunting and gathering a variety of plant and animal species. These annual rounds involved a seasonal pattern of movement up and down the valley between lowland and upland areas,” says Dr. Bradley J. Vierra, an archaeologist with Statistical Research, Inc., who has written extensively about this period in Northern New Mexico. The Archaic period begins around 8,000 years ago and continues to about 1,500 years ago. In 1973, Cynthia Irwin-Williams introduced the term Oshara Tradition to refer to the Archaic period in New Mexico and Colorado and was among the first to use the archaeological record to culturally connect the Archaic to the earliest phases of recognizable Pueblo culture.

But little is known about the period that precedes the Archaic — the Paleo-Indian period. During the time from

about 12,000 to 9,500 years ago, archaeologists believed people migrated to the Americas via the Bering land bridge following herds of now-extinct giant and extraordinary mammals — mammals such as the giant beaver, mastodon, woolly mammoth and bison. Known as Clovis and Folsom, these Paleo-Indians were highly mobile, covering hundreds of miles in a year as they hunted and foraged across the land. Their toolkits were designed for efficient hunting, butchering and processing the hides of Pleistocene megafauna. The climate during this time was cool and wet, and food was varied and abundant during the warmer months.

The climate, vegetation and landscape, however, changed dramatically in the roughly 2,000 years that separates the Paleo cultures from those of the Early Archaic. In fact, the cultural connection between the two resides in an archaeological gray area. Within the Upper Río Grande, the shift towards a drier climate coincides with the drying up of several nearby major bodies of water. The transition towards a warmer and drier climate had a profound effect on residents, who now relied on a new mix and new distribution of plant and animal resources. “Early Archaic foragers were experiencing more restricted movement and hunting a wider variety of large, medium and small-sized game,” says Vierra. Evidence of this is often seen on the ground as nondescript piles of chipped stone. These lithic scatters are what make up the majority of Archaic archaeological sites, which are fairly common in the Upper Río Grande.

The earliest phase of the Archaic period is known as the Early Archaic. Early Archaic sites within the Upper Río Grande date to as early as 8,000 years ago. Hunters of the Early Archaic used Jay and Bajada points, which are large-stemmed points designed to withstand multiple hunts.

Rather than hunting large game in an open prairie setting, like their predecessors, hunters of the Early Archaic began spending more time in the woods targeting medium and small-sized game. And rather than following the herds across the plains, their seasonal settlement pattern shifted to a north-south pattern within the Northern Río Grande.

Following the Early Archaic is the Middle Archaic (6,000-2,500 years ago), there was yet another shift in environmental conditions, this time towards a more favorably wet habitat. This allowed for the expansion of piñon-juniper forests within the Northern Río Grande. Hunting strategies once again evolved to fit the new landscape.

“It may be during the Middle Archaic that fall hunts in the Río Grande Valley were becoming less successful, so these hunter-gathers would have shifted their residence to the uplands where they could collect piñon nuts and hunt deer,” says Vierra. Along with a change in hunting strategies came new stone tool technologies. Points get smaller and there is some notching happening later. But most notable was the development of blade serration. These changes could have allowed for more successful hunts in the upland forests.

Archaeological artifactsBig game nomadic hunters became cultivators of corn

‘Early Archaic foragers were experiencing more restricted

movement and hunting a wider variety of large, medium

and small-sized game.’— Dr. Bradley J. Vierra

Artifacts continues on Page 10

9Raíces

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Courtesy photoThe evolution of early man’s hunting tools in the Upper Río Grande Valley.

10 Raíces

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“Serration,” says Vierra, “may enhance penetration while creating a more irregular wound that would enhance a blood trail, something important for hunting in wooded settings.”

Materials of choice changed with time as well, as people shifted their foraging and hunting tactics from the lowlands to the wooded uplands. Early and Middle Archaic hunters preferred a material called dacite (similar to basalt), which made for more durable points and reflects a north-south pattern of land use within the open lower valley. But point durability became less of a factor as people began targeting a greater variety of game. Impacting the animal effectively became more important. Obsidian gained popularity towards the end of the Middle Archaic, in part because it was widely available in the new areas being hunted. The change in material corresponds to this shift in hunting tactics following a lowland-upland seasonal migratory pattern.

The earliest use of maize agriculture in the Northern Río Grande, believed to be about 3,000 years ago, corresponds with continuing favorable environmental conditions and actually marks the beginning of the Late Archaic.

Advantageous climatic conditions continued until about 1,800 years ago. Within the Upper Río Grande, people began following a lowland-upland pattern of land use restricted to the immediate valley. During the early summer, Vierra says folks were exploiting Indian ricegrass, then moving on to the upland forests for wild onions, berries and wild potatoes in the late summer, and then down to the low woodlands in the fall for pine nuts, acorns, yucca and cacti followed by overwintering near permanent water sources. The projectile points also become varied and specialized.

“This diversity of Late Archaic point types presumably reflects the implementation of a variety of hunting tactics designed to efficiently procure specific types of game,” Vierra says. These point types set the stage for the bow and arrow.”

The limited addition of maize to the diet is thought to be one of the reasons people stopped wandering and decided to settle down. According to Irwin-Williams, “It presented a relatively concentrated, relatively reliable and seasonally abundant resource, which could for the first time provide a source of localized temporary seasonal surplus.”

This seasonal surplus no doubt allowed for larger group size and seasonal gatherings. Over time (1,800 years ago to roughly 1000 AD) regional population grew and dispersed.

Within the Upper Río Grande there is evidence that favorable campsites were increasingly occupied for longer amounts of time, and eventually these favored spots became permanent residential settlements employing more of a farmer-forager strategy of subsistence. Climatic conditions around 1000 AD allowed for the growing of maize at 7,000 feet and by 1200 AD the ancestral Puebloans of the Northern Río Grande had developed their own system of survival and community. There is evidence at Pot Creek, for instance, of pit houses being built during this time, to be replaced by above ground structures that look more pueblo-like in the 1200s and 1300s. The trend towards small agricultural villages is thought to be a cultural response to climate, continuing population growth and availability of resources.

The advance from small bands of peripatetic hunter-gatherers to sedentary agricultural communities was long and gradual with myriad advancements in tool technologies, hunting and foraging strategies, and social organization. Change in climate reflects humans’ ability to adapt, evolve and progress. And while the archaeological remnants of the Paleo and Archaic people may not be as elaborate or obvious as those of their Pueblo descendants, they are nonetheless important in understanding and interpreting the region’s past.

Artifacts continued from Page 8

EARLY ARCHAICMIDDLE ARCHAICLATE ARCHAIC

Raíces2 0 15 Tr a d i c i o n e s • T he Ta o s Ne w s

Jordan MieraOne section of the Hondo Hall of History and Heroes and Honor.

12 Raíces

By Andy Dennison

One of the many foreign items that came up the Río Grande with the Spanish was wheat seed.

This domesticated grain, traced to prehistoric times, quickly joined corn as one of the staple foods for the initial

settlers of the 1700s. Small fields sprouted up all around Taos.

Into the 19th century, Taoseños hand-ground the raw wheat into flour on flat stones called mano metates, which was sufficient for the consumption of a family or two. The flour became tortillas and breads as an essential source of protein for the early Taoseños.

“Anywhere you could get water, wheat was grown,” said Corky Hawk, chairman of preservation for the Taos County Historical Society.

By mid-century, however, the population of Taos Valley had grown so as to increase agricultural production beyond original subsistence levels. The metate couldn’t keep up with all that wheat, and the first molinos – mechanized grist mills – came into existence to serve what was known for a while as the Breadbasket of New Mexico.

“We don’t know for sure since most of them aren’t around anymore, but there were likely a bunch of molinos, along most of the acequias in Taos Valley,” said Hawk. “It quickly outdistanced the distilling of whiskey as the valley’s leading industrial activity.”

One such grist mill was the Molino de Los Duranes, which served the valley of the Río Ranchos del Río Grande – today’s Ranchos de Taos and Talpa. It still stands, four walls of hand-hewn logs stacked atop a mud and rock foundation, on the north side of the Camino Abajo de la Loma.

Hawk and others have been instrumental in garnering

preservation grants from the Healy Foundation and the state Historic Preservation Division to conduct an engineering study and determine how to best save the 135-year-old structure for posterity. Their efforts have received awards from the Taos Mountain Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution and the State of New Mexico Cultural Properties Review Committee.

Named for the family that operated it, the Ranchos grist mill was built in 1879, according to tree-ring dating, and operated into the 1930s. The last miller was Innocencio Duran, who took over operation from his grandfather who built the mill.

“From all reports, he was a kind and generous man to all who needed to use his family’s molino,” said Yolanda Romero y Santistevan, a descendant of Duran.

While wheat was the main raw material, corn also was reduced to corn meal at the molino.

Able to grind up to 300 pounds of flour daily, the mill’s design came from the small villages of Spain – and before that, Alexander the Great. Measuring 20x20 feet with two floors, the structure’s top floor had two large millstones of local basalt. Each was cut and carved into a circular shape, then stacked horizontally on top of each other and centered around a vertical Ponderosa pine axle. The top stone rotated while the other was stationary.

On the bottom floor was a waterwheel with grooves cut into its top. Water was diverted from a nearby acequia and its flow accelerated down a flume, or canoa, onto the waterwheel. Wheat came in on the upper floor and, as the top millstone rotated, the wheat got milled into flour between the two stones and deposited into a granary bin nearby.

“The miller could make adjustments for the amount of grain that was coming into the molino,” said Hawk. “If things got too fast, he would close the headgate and stop the flow of water.”

Historians contend that the millers were the first entrepreneurs in this part of the country, grinding wheat and corn for those who lived nearby. According to records, they took 10-20 percent of the flour or corn meal as payment for use of the molino, which operated from the August wheat harvest until the water in the acequia froze or stopped flowing. Expenses were not minor, however, as millstones had to be replaced frequently, and the log walls had to constantly be chinked with mud to keep dust, wind and bugs out.

Local milling began to dwindle as the 20th century arrived. Larger and more efficient mills came into being, like Alexander Gusdorf’s four-story, steam-powered mill on the plaza in Ranchos. Motorized vehicles and better roads made transportation to and from far-off markets cost-effective. Fully-stocked grocery stores sprung up around Northern New Mexico, and the new cash economy made the molinos obsolete, especially as more and more irrigated land got subdivided and less wheat grew in the fields.

“For more than 50 years, molinos were a significant part of an economic system that helped make agriculture as successful as it was in Taos,” Hawk said. “That’s something that’s definitely worth preserving.”

Molino de Los DuranesPreserving Taos’ agricultural history

Able to grind up to 300 pounds of flour daily, the mill’s design

came from the small villages of Spain

Sources: Charles “Corky” Hawk, preservation chair for Taos County Historical Society; Yolanda Romero y Santistevan; “Structural Evaluation of Molino de Los Duranes,” by Druc Engineering, Santa Fe

Courtesy of Taos County Historical SocietyMolino de los Duranes as it stands today.

13Raíces

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Courtesy Taos County Historical SocietyThe southside view of the Molino de los Duranes grist mill.

14 Raíces

By J.R. Logan

In January 1943, an ambitious young photographer named John Collier, Jr. hitched a ride into Las Trampas while traveling with a priest. The trip was part of an assignment from the Office of War Information, which was looking for images to use as propaganda during World War II. While Collier

was ostensibly there on official government business, he seemed mesmerized by what he found in Trampas, which he described as the “center of this mountain region and full of oldness.”

Later in his career, Collier emphasized the importance of using photographs as a method of cultural resources. The dozens of photos Collier took of Trampas and of the Lopez family are an early indicator of that later work. The candid pictures give a unique peek at everyday life in rural Northern New Mexico before it was truly invaded by the modern world: gathering wood by wagon, sorting beans for dinner, spinning wool by the fireplace.

Patricio Lopez was 7 years old when the strange gringo with a camera showed up and spent a few days poking his lens at the family. Seventy-two years later, he’s still in Taos County. Now living in Questa, Patricio Lopez spent a morning going back through Collier’s photographs on his front porch.

Here’s a little of what he remembered about life back then.

Photos 1-3: Everybody had a good axe, and they took very good care of their axe. They’d sharpen it on one of those grinding stones where you use your feet to turn the wheel. Very strong handles that didn’t break that easy.

All the wood was got during the winter time, as far as I know. We’d have to go a mile and a half, two miles, maybe, at that time to get wood. Going south of Trampas, and also east of Trampas.

I remember the old timers used to know exactly how to split a piece of wood. They knew exactly the grain of the wood. Once they got started, they used a lot of wooden wedges. And wood, during the winter time, it’s a lot easier to split than in the summer time.

They used to find dead logs, dead trees, and when they dropped them, a good majority of the time a log would break in half or a certain amount of splitting took place.

Usually when they’d drop the log, then they hooked it on to a team of horses and they would drag it home.

Splitting wood or cutting wood. That was something we kids used to do. I imagine I did spend a lot of time with an axe.

People used to work maybe 14 hours a day. Not just our family. Everybody used to. They were very busy. Very committed to do what they had to do. That was mandatory. That was a way of life. A way of survival I suppose.

They were pretty tough hombres, I’ll tell you. The way they handled things. My dad was just no bigger than my size — 5’6” — but strong. More than a mule.

Photos 4-5: That’s me cleaning beans, peeling potatoes. They raised a lot of beans. You pick them up, you go through process of cleaning them up, put them in storage so you can get what you need for your meal. They had two kinds of beans back then. One was pinto beans, the other one they called it bolita. One was supposed to be better than the other.

My dad had maybe 40 acres. We used to plant wheat barley, oats, alfalfa hay, stuff like that. And we used to raise just about anything and everything. Like red beets and carrots and lettuce. They used to grind a lot of corn — blue corn and white corn — flour that went to a mill. They would probably have 400 or 500 pounds of flour by the end of the year. It was separated into different stages: the good, the better and the best. And the rest when to the animals.

That’s one thing about people back in the old days. They were so proud of their team of horses. Everybody was always comparing about who had the best team of horses. The strongest, how much they could pull.

They used to butcher a lot of hogs in October, November. They used to have a little house where they used to hang all their meat and kept it frozen during the winter time. Whenever they needed meat.

During the fall, they used to gather all the corn, and on top of the corral, they used to load up that thing with corn. And we used to clean it during the night time. After supper, the whole family’d get together up there in the dark and shuck the corn. There were other things we did in the day time, and it was a few more minutes to do work.

Photos 6-7: I guess that’s me. I kinda liked that hat. I’ve been looking all over the country for one of those things. Apparently it was something that was available at that time, because I’ve seen a few kids from that time wearing the same hat. That hat was never left behind.

People used to dress up pretty much the same. There was no difference. Everybody used to wear, what do you call them, pecheras. There was a general store in Trampas. They

FlashbacksA young boy and a photographer

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15Raíces

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sold just about anything and everything that was needed back then. But they were all the same. You see the pants. It’s the same kind of pants. Everybody — from the oldest to youngest — used to wear the same thing. I would imagine some of those shirts were homemade.

Money was something that we never saw as kids. We were very proud of what they had, and I can see that in my hat. I was very proud of my hat.

Photos 8-9: You can see there was no electricity. There was no water. The lighting of the room was either with the light of the fireplace or by kerosene lamp. Kerosene was very important at that time. They were very conservative with those lamps because of the lack of kerosene. They had a little container, half-gallon container,

they used to make sure it had kerosene in it all the time, make sure that it never ran out.

There was no running water, so you had to go get your water from the river. It was quite a ways, I’d say, to go get your water.

They didn’t waste. They had to haul it that far, they weren’t going to waste it.

When mom said, go get some water, the kids didn’t say no like they do now, they had to jump up and do it. There’s not ‘wait a minute, why do I have to do this?’ When they were told to do something, there was no way out of it, you had to jump up and go do it.

When mom said, go get some water, the kids didn’t say

no like they do now, they had to jump up and do it. There’s not

‘wait a minute, why do I have to do this?’ When they were told to do

something, there was no way out of it, you had to jump

up and go do it.

8 9

16 Raíces

By Jordan Miera

Joseph Garduño has created something to honor both Arroyo Hondo and the veterans from the village who have served in the military. He has arranged for photos of veterans ranging from World War I to the present day to hang in the Arroyo Hondo Community Center. Garduño calls the display the

“Hondo Hall of History and Heroes and Honor.”

About eight years ago, Garduño returned to his hometown of Arroyo Hondo with Rosie, his wife, after 54 years of living in Glendora, California. He worked there as an engineer.

Garduño served a tour of duty in Korea with the U.S. Army. He was there for two years during the second half of the 1940s, before the Korean War started.

In 1999, Garduño wrote a book titled “Arroyo Hondo With its Beautiful and Magnificent People — Past, Present and Future” (Maverick Productions, Inc.; Bend, Oregon). In it, he lists four Arroyo Hondo veterans who gave their lives in World War II:

• Esmel Herrera, son of Albino and Silverita Herrera• Leopoldo Martinez, son of Nicolas and Rosanita Martinez• Alberto Rael, son of Silverio and Refugio Rael• Eliseo Sanchez, son of Gregorio and Aurora Sanchez

In the book, Garduño also recognizes Paul Vigil, son of Simon and Genoveva Vigil, a man from Arroyo Hondo killed during the Korean conflict.

He also recognizes Eugenio Romero, son of Alfredo and Rosita Romero, who was taken prisoner of war at Bataan in the Philippines during World War II. According to a display hanging in the Hall of History and Heroes and Honor, Romero survived the Bataan Death March, returned home and died Pearl Harbor Day, Dec. 7, 1981.

“These seemingly ordinary HONDO residents accomplished extraordinary things in the U.S. Army,” Garduño wrote in his book. “They defended liberty and preserved our values and made America the world’s best hope for freedom and peace. We call them our exemplary heroes. They paid with their lives.”

After the book came out, a group of people from Arroyo Hondo, led by Isabelle and Carlos Rendon, made a framed display honoring those men. That display hangs in the Hall of History and Heroes and Honor now, and it is the same display that provides the additional details about Vigil. It provides images of each of the six men mentioned in the book Garduño wrote, along with their birth and death dates, the names of their parents and other information.

The poster, made in 2001, also features a painting with

the American flag, a church building, a bald eagle, airplanes and an ocean. It also carries an inscription: “They stand in the unbroken line of patriots who dared to die, that freedom might live and grow and increase its blessings. Freedom lives, and through it, they live in a way that humbles the understanding of most men.”

Garduño knew those men, although they were older than him. They were the only men in the Hall of History and Heroes and Honor who died in the service. Garduño has met and knows many of the other veterans with photos in the hall, and two of them are his cousins.

According to Garduño, he was invited to attend a Veterans Day meeting at the Arroyo Hondo Community Center, Nov. 10, 2013. All veterans who attended that meeting received a certificate of appreciation from the Arroyo Hondo Community Association recognizing their military service.

When Garduño was at that meeting, he thought it would be a great idea to gather photos of all veterans from Arroyo Hondo who have served since World War I and honor them. He mentioned that idea to others, who agreed it would be an excellent thing to do.

Garduño took the lead and began gathering those photos, and he estimates that around 100 pictures of veterans have

Honoring Hondo veteransJoseph Garduño’s patriotic project

Jordan MieraJoseph Garduño stands in front of the Hondo Hall of History and Heroes and Honor. The photographs on the left honor Arroya Hondo World War I veterans.

17Raices

been collected and are currently on display. Each veteran, with the exception of two, has one photo on display. The two veterans with more than one picture have two photos each, each in two different stages of life or service.

“Everybody who knows about it — they’re very happy that somebody started doing that, because it was about time somebody did something,” Garduño said. “But everybody has been cooperative, and they like the idea.”

He has not yet been able to collect photos of all veterans. Various factors have made that task more difficult: many of the veterans have already passed away or moved out of state,

and their family members are difficult to find. He is waiting on photos of at least 20-30 more veterans.

Garduño thanks Elijia Medina-Espinoza, Pasquala Medina, Isabelle Rendon, Ray Trujillo and Genara Sanchez for their help. They helped spread the word of Garduño’s efforts.

Photos of Arroyo Hondo’s past and history hang on the wall opposite of the photos of the veterans. Garduño put those photos up as well.

The Arroyo Hondo Community Center is not open all the

time. To see the Hall of History and Heroes and Honor, call Garduño at (575) 776-3010. He will open the community center. He also encourages Arroyo Hondo veterans and their families who currently do not have photos displayed to contact him.

“My humble wishes [are] that other communities will do the same thing for the veterans, like what we’re doing in Arroyo Hondo,” Garduño said. “The many places like Ranchos de Taos, Arroyo Seco, Peñasco, Taos — they all have veterans. They should do what we’re doing here in Arroyo Hondo.”

Jordan MieraOne section of the Hondo Hall of History and Heroes and Honor.

18 Raíces

By Teresa Dovalpage

Declared a National Historic Landmark in 1991, the Mabel Dodge Luhan House is more than a historical place; it is a living, breathing haven for all creative types. Inspiration is everywhere, from memories of famous guests like Willa

Cather, Ansel Adams, Georgia O’Keeffe and Thornton Wilder, to the soothing sounds of the acequia that runs through the property under cottonwood trees. Workshops and educational conferences take place year round, and the property lives up to its reputation as a hotbed of visual and literary arts.

The many names of a houseThe sprawling hacienda began as one big house named

“Los Gallos.”

Mabel Dodge Luhan and her fourth husband, Tony Luhan, started building it in 1918 and finished the first living quarters in 1920. It originally had six rooms, but a sunporch and more rooms were added over the years. There she lived, sometimes in the company of famous guests like D. H. Lawrence and O’Keeffe, and hosted salons with prominent intellectuals of the time until her death in 1962.

When Dennis Hopper purchased the house in 1970, after he filmed “Easy Rider,” he renamed it “Mud Palace.”

“I used to come by in the ’70s and traded gemstones with the jewelers who stayed here with Dennis Hopper,” said Charles Franchina, also known as Taos Trader Chuck, who currently works in the Mabel Dodge Luhan House kitchen. “The place was always full of people — filmmakers, hippies and musicians among them.”

In 1977, the property was bought by George and Kitty Otero, who did massive renovations of the place and renamed it “Las Palomas de Taos,” a nonprofit organization that offered workshops all throughout the 1980s and ’90s.

Lois Palken Rudnick writes in “Utopian Vistas: The Mabel Dodge Luhan House and the American

Counterculture,” that Las Palomas was recontextualized as a “psycho spiritual center” where Jungian dream analysts Pat and Larry Sargeant offered workshops on self-integration and Natalie Goldberg’s writing workshops attracted people from all over the country and beyond.

Currently owned by The Attiyeh Foundation, based in California, the property was renamed once more, becoming The Mabel Dodge Luhan House. It has retained nonprofit status and functions as a historic inn and retreat center, where more than 20 workshops are offered every year.

The Mabel Dodge Luhan HouseStill a living, breathing artistic hub

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Katharine EgliThe famed Mabel Dodge Luhan House in Taos has served as a residence and an artist’s retreat.

19Raíces

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The workshopsBonnie McManus, the Program Manager and workshop

coordinator, speaks enthusiastically about the mission of the center.

“With our retreat-style meetings and literary and artistic workshops, we continue to carry out Mabel’s legacy to keep her home as a hotbed for the arts,” she said.

They host around three workshops every month.

“Our most popular ones are those focused on writing, mixed-media art or yoga,” said McManus.

The Annual Taos Writing Retreat for Health Professionals is now going on. Started by writer, filmmaker, and teacher Julie Reichert, Ph.D., in 2000, the workshop has been taking place steadily for the last 16 years at the Mabel Dodge Luhan House.

“I started it with writer David Morris as a writing workshop for medical practitioners,” Reichert said. “It’s not only for doctors and nurses, but for anybody who works in health care and wants to explore the power of narrative writing.”

“This retreat has been like the meals we have eaten here every day,” said Dr. Catherine Brandon, a participant from Ann Arbor, Michigan. “Very nourishing, plenty of it and great variety. They will be in my heart and my hips for the rest of my life.”

Chef Melody Sayre, author of “From Taos with Love:

Recipes from the Land of Enchantment,” uses mostly local products to prepare tasty, nutritious menus for the retreat participants.

“We serve three meals a day,” she said. “So I incorporate many salads, soups and healthy dishes that give them energy to create.”

Strong women in chargeNoreen Perrin is the financial manager of the organization.

“Something very interesting about the house is that the people who are running it are very strong women, just like Mabel, and that has been the case for quite a few years,” she said.

Julie Keefe came to the Mabel Dodge Luhan House for the first time to take Amy Bogard’s workshop, “Creating the Illuminated Travel Journal” in 2011. She returned later as Bogard’s assistant and, in April 2015, she left her job as a management/program analyst for the federal government and became the general manager of the property.

“This is my dream job,” she said. “I love working here and supporting the mission of the house, which is to educate people while taking good care of them in a beautiful environment.”

New building and new blogDespite the fact that it is almost a century old, the Mabel

Dodge Luhan House keeps growing. A new space called “The Meditation and Yoga Building” is currently under construction.

“Many people who come here want to practice yoga,” said McManu., So, we plan to set up a permanent space equipped with yoga mats always ready for them. We will have yoga instructors available as well.”

Writer and editor Liz Cunningham, in charge of Community Engagement, has just started a new blog on the organization’s website.

An invitation to TaoseñosAs an educational institution, the Mabel Dodge Luhan

House welcomes local literary organizations that can get a discount when they rent their space.

“We have also hosted activities organized by SOMOS, Holy Cross Hospital, the Fire Department and other associations,” Keefe said. “They can use our ‘log cabin,’ a smaller meeting place in the Historic House, or the Juniper House classroom, which can accommodate up to 60 people.”

“This is not a museum, but an active learning center,” McManus said. “People are welcome to come and visit us. We have self-guided tours where they can learn about the history of the place and its impact on Taos’ literary and artistic life.”

Coffee and homemade cookies are always available in the dining room.

“Come by and try them,” she said.

The Mabel Dodge Luhan House is located at 240 Morada Lane, Taos, NM 87571 • (575) 751-9686 • mabeldodgeluhan.com

Katharine EgliAn inviting room in Mabel Dodge Luhan House; dining room at the Mabel Dodge Luhan House.

Raíces

- Ancient Indian Proverb

Taos Mountain Casino is proud to honor those who both exemplify the best of the past and who help us weave it into the future.

These people are our own links in what continues to be an unbroken circle of tradition at Taos Pueblo.

“The way to overcome the angry man is with gentleness, the evil man with goodness, the

miser with generosity, and the liar with truth.”

Raices 2015

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