Feast Day

Tuesday was the feast day of Santa Clara and we drove up with Tom to the Santa Clara Pueblo to see the celebrations. Although a celebration of a Catholic Saint, it was hard to see any Catholocism in the day's festivities. Different family groups performed different dances in three areas around the center of town. They were all dressed in costumes of various kinds mostly distinguised by different headdresses. The women tended to wear plain white leather boots and an embroidered white or black dress with a colorful shawl. The men wore white boots with a ruff of skunk fur, short pants with a pelt of coyote or fox hanging off the back and a bare torso smeared with different colors of clay and draped with strings of musical shells. Both men and women often wore turquoise jewelry in the form of necklaces and bracelets as well. The headdresses for one group were colorful geometrical cut outs that stood straight up for the women, and elaborate feather headdresses with a large morning glory looking flower on the sides. Another group did a buffalo dance where the men wore headresses that appeared to be from buffalo fur with horns and they carried little lightning rods. I wondered if they weren't also going to perform at the new Buffalo Thunder casino. A couple groups also carried bunches of pine branches and the men wore garlands of pine around their necks and had rings of bells around their legs.

It was very sunny and hot and the dancers looked almost trancelike without many smiles in the heat. Drummers and chanters accompanied the dancers. The dances had some coreography to them, but mainly consisted of keeping time to the music with stamping feet. Besides the dancing, there were vendors selling food, but I think most people who weren't tourists ate at their homes. I did have though the best tamale I've had so far filled with red chili, ground pork and posole. Jake got a bowl of green chili and fry bread. There were also many people selling jewelry and other Indian art at booths. They were mainly from other pueblos I think.

About the time we had seen enough dancing a big storm cloud came up, so we left and Tom directed us to Tsankawi, a pueblo ruin on a mesa within Bandelier National Monument. Since there were no cameras allowed at the feast day, all photos are from Tsankawi in this posting. The ruins on top of the mesa are just visible as piles of rocks now and only a little excavation was ever done there. The mesa sits atop volcanic rock and the rock has many caves in it where the Indians used to stay in winter for additional shelter. Well worn paths in the rock exactly wide enough to walk in lead up to and around the mesa. In steep sections there are foot and hand holds worn into the rock and occassionally a wooden ladder. Petroglyphs appear as you round different sections of the mesa, usually more visible from a distance than up close. Because there are many fewer visitors to Tsankawi and less excavation, it feels like you've just happened on it. On the far side of the mesa where many of the caves are the traffic noise disappears and no roads or buildings are visible.