Taos Pueblo
Okay, today we start with Taos Pueblo. That’s important, because it was October 18. Martha’s birthday, and seeing the Pueblo was part of her birthday present.
We’ve been trying to get to Taos Pueblo for years. Somehow it just never worked out. We’d be in Taos (the town, that is) but we’d run out of time and have to head home. Or, we’d been in Taos and we’d head to the Pueblo, only to find that there was a ceremony under way and so the area was closed to visitors. Or...well...a thousand other things.
About the Photos: SPECIAL NOTE: I had permission to take all of these photos.
First a picture of the Pueblo from a distance. It is a remarkable thing to see in the middle of the landscape, and it says much about the skills of the people who constructed it in a inhospitable landscape with minimal resources. Second, the Pueblo and the stream which gave it life. And, finally, nothing to do with the story, but I like the shot, Martha at lunch in Leander, Texas.
But, this time, we’d checked it out. We’d been on the Web. We’d examined the Pueblo’s own webpage.(1) We knew when it was open to tourists. So, we were confident. We followed directions on our phones, and soon we saw the Pueblo. After a short while, we were there. We followed signs to the parking lot and were soon in a collection of little adobe buildings that are just outside the Pueblo proper, and, at one of them, we found the place where we bought tickets. A gentleman there told us there’d be a tour shortly. He would be leading it. It would only be a short wait.
As I say, I’ll post pictures of the Pueblo. But, briefly, it is what you expect--a multistory building and a number of smaller houses around it, made of gold-brown adobe, and framed by the vast Sangre de Cristo Mountains in the background. Through the middle of the Pueblo flows the Rio Pueblo de Taos, a heathy stream of clear water that later joins up with the Rio Grande.(2) The Rio Pueblo is what made this area so attractive. It allowed agriculture in an area which is otherwise not welcoming to human settlement.
As I said before, people have been living in the area of Taos Pueblo for a very long time--dating back, in fact, all the way to some of the first peoples in the Americas, that is, the Paleoindians who called New Mexico home as much as 11,000 years ago.(3)
But the people of Taos owe most of their history to a later group--the Ancestral Puebloans, who once lived north and west of the Pueblo. (4) The Ancestral Puebloans are a fascinating people who lived in what is now the Four Corners area, including (to quote Wikipedia) “southeastern Utah, northeastern Arizona, northwestern New Mexico, and southwestern Colorado.”
They built Pueblos, like Taos, but often much, much, much larger. We’re talking proto-cities here, and they probably would be called “cities” if they’d been closer to Europe and/or inhabited by white people.(5) At the very least, think of them as being roughly equivalent to the “proto-urban areas” of the late Neolithic.(6)
The most famous Ancestral Puebloan city was, of course, Mesa Verde, the famous Cliff Dwelling, or rather, Cliff Palace in what is now Colorado.(7) But there were others -- Chaco Canyon in New Mexico (8); Pueblo Bonito, also in New Mexico(9); and Canyon de Chelly, in what is now the Navajo Nation.(10)
These communities were linked by a complex system of roads and trade routes, and thrived until some point in the 12th and 13th centuries. Then, all of a sudden, the Ancestral Puebloans packed up and left. They simply fled. We have no idea why. Scholars have suggested various reasons -- drought, war, disease, something else? But we really don’t know. There’s nothing conclusive.
However, here’s something particularly spooky. Apparently, the Ancestral Puebloans didn’t just leave their massive cities. They did other things. Like seal up rooms...from outside!...before they left. As though they were trying to keep something *in* -- something that might otherwise follow them.
I suppose that’s actually fairly good evidence that disease may have played a role in the abandonment of the Pueblo cities. You don’t want people going back into areas that have been contaminated. That would make sense and be perfectly rational.
Still...you must confess, it’s scary. Perhaps I’ll just leave it to the quiet contemplation of some Native American (preferably Pueblo) writer who is also an H.P. Lovecraft fan and might be in search of subject matter.
In any case, the Ancestral Puebloans scattered, and founded new communities (or merged with other ones) across the American southwest. One of those was ...
Taos.
And we were about to meet it in all its wonder.
More to come.
Footnotes
1. Taos Pueblo has a pretty cool Web site. Check it out here: https://taospueblo.com/
2. “Rio Pueblo de Taos,” Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rio_Pueblo_de_Taos
3. “Paleo-Indians,” Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paleo-Indians
4. “Ancestral Puebloans,” Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancestral_Puebloans
5. Sorry to sound “woke” but it’s true. The Great Pueblos would have rivaled some Greek city-states.
6. For example, Çatalhöyük in what is today’s Turkey. It was so much like a New Mexican Pueblo that I would defy any archeologist to tell the difference at first glance. See, “Çatalhöyük,” Wikipedia, wikipedia.org/wiki/Çatalhöyük
7. “Mesa Verde National Park,” Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mesa_Verde_National_Park
8. “Chaco Culture National Park,” Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaco_Culture_National_Historical_Park#History
9. “Pueblo Bonito,” Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pueblo_Bonito
10. Canyon de Chelly National Monument, Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canyon_de_Chelly_National_Monument. Canyon de Chelly is now part of the Navajo (Dine) Nation and considered one of the great Dine homelands. But, before the arrival of the Navajo people, there were Ancestral Puebloans in the area.
Copyright©2026 Michael Jay Tucker
Care to help out?
I provide these blog postings for free. That’s fine and I’m happy to do so. But, long ago and far away, I was told that if you give away your material, that means you don’t really think it has any value.
So, to get beyond that, I’ve decided to make it possible for you to leave me a “tip” for my posts.
If you like what I write or the videos I produce, and feel you could make a small contribution to support my efforts, please go here:
That will take you to a Gumroad page where you’ll have the option of leaving me a few pence by way of encouragement.
Again, I don’t mind if you don’t. I just want to provide you with the option so that I won’t feel quite so much like I’m just tossing my works into the wind.
Either way, thanks hugely for dropping by the blog :-)
~mjt
#StampOutEnnui #MichaelJayTucker #MarthaTucker #MarthaAndMichaelChronicles #StompEnnuiLikeItWasABug #explosive_cargo #Xcargo #StampOutEnnui #MichaelJayTucker #MarthaTucker #MarthaAndMichaelChronicles #StompEnnuiLikeItWasABug #explosive_cargo #Xcargo #Saint_Michael #Michael_The_Archangel #NewMexico #Taos #Albuquerque #SantaFe #Kiva_fireplace #Ski_Area #Taos_Ski_Area #Nicolai_Fechin #Fechin_House #Eya_Fechin #Taos_Art_Museum #Vietnam_Veterans_Memorial_(New_Mexico) #Angel_Fire #Eagle_Nest #Taos_Pueblo
Comments