For desert peoples, water is life.
One of the ironies of life in the desert is that it is not always dry and dusty, barren and bleak. There are discrete seasons — although, depending on where you live, they don’t necessarily track what people in other parts of the country regard as “seasons.”
In our area, we’re fortunate: We do get the usual four seasons of Spring, Summer, Fall, and Winter, although the lines between them are not always so clearly delineated, nor do they necessarily occur on precisely the same sort of schedule, as is found in parts of the country where the weather and climate are less extreme. Here in the higher elevations, I’ve seen 60 degrees in January, snow in June, nearly 40 below in November.
But we do get one other season that is absolutely necessary to survival here, for all forms of life: Monsoon season.
It’s here with a vengeance.
Coming originally from another part of the country, growing up largely invisible as a people to everyone else, nothing in the public schools was cast in terms of our identities and cultures, except in the most stereotyped of ways. We learned nothing of substance about tribal nations, either our own or the hundreds of others around the country. We did learn about a kind of storm called a monsoon, and that it occurred in a particular season — on the other side of the planet, in a place inhabited by the other kind of Indians. As with so much else we “learned” in the old days, even what we were taught about weather was wrong: I was taught that monsoons occurred only in India, not that it was weather phenomenon found in regions all over the globe.
Moving to the so-called desert Southwest was a revelation.
I was accustomed to the storms of the Upper Midwest, which could be violent in their way, but were more often simply prolonged and deadly for that reason alone, particularly with regard to blizzards and ice storms. Back then, the region’s weather rarely involved the kind of downpour known as a cloudburst, or even hail, much less tornadic activity. Sustained winds of much more than a breeze were unknown to me.
In New Mexico, weather is very different, and the weather patterns can be widely variable from one part of the state to another. I’ve experienced highs of nearly 120 degrees (actual temperature, not heat index), lows of minus-40 and more. I’ve lived through weeks of sustained winds in excess of 50 miles per hour, with gusts of more than 75 mph (and driven in some of them too; it can be deadly to be stuck on a highway in crosswinds like that). I’ve seen wildfires destroy thousands of acres of land and everything in their path; flooding rains with slides and washouts; baseball-sized hail that destroyed an entire year’s worth of crops; blizzards dumping snow in excess of three feet. I’ve even been on the edges of numerous tornadoes over the years, all of which thankfully missed me and mine, but for hail and wind damage emanating from the storms’ edges.
Still, there’s always been a rhythm, a pattern of sorts, to the weather here. We knew when to expect particular types of extreme weather, and could plan accordingly. Now, with climate change bearing down on us, it’s getting more extreme yet, and far more unpredictable. That makes it far more dangerous, even for those of us accustomed to it.
Yesterday was an example. The chance of rain increased steadily throughout the day, and we knew that we would get something in the broader area, even if nothing more than a sprinkle or two directly over us. The thunderheads began building in the morning, and by early afternoon, the Western sky was a dark violet gray. A beautiful color, but one that holds incredible power and ferocity.
Wings went into town to run a couple of errands. The distant thunder had already begun, but by then it was moving closer, so I began tying up a few things outdoors, knowing that if the clouds delivered on their promise, I would need to bring the dogs inside, and likely have to do it fast.
I ran out of time.
I got the dogs inside before the storm really hit, but had no time to move some of the equipment. It was, in fact, the second-worst monsoonal storm I’ve ever experienced. The first was when I was young; we were living in a small house trailer, and the hail and wind on the edge of two tornadoes broke out all but two of the panes of the jalousie windows in it while I huddled in a corner join of the kitchen cabinets with the wall, face hidden from the flying glass, mimicking the duck-and-cover instructions from the grade-school nuclear drills of my childhood.
The rain came down so hard and so fast that, during a slight lull when I went out to check on the horses and retrieve buckets to catch leaks, there was already six inches of standing water on the lawn. Inside, it has sounded like the proverbial freight train, and that was only the sound of the rain itself roaring down on us. The thunderbirds lost the balls of their lacrosse game; they all fell out of the sky to pelt us, and it sounded as though they launching boulders at us with trebuchets. And this was small hail, the stones mostly dime-sized or less. But it collected like snow on the surface of the ground, and on the surface of the mini-rivers flowing across the ground outside. And again, we were lucky: only one broken window of sorts, the bathroom ceiling vent that opens like a skylight; three roof leaks. The storm continued unabated for nearly an hour at this level of ferocity, an unusually long stretch. When it began to subside, the rain and wind and thunder and lightning continued, in waves of varying strength density.
We went outside afterward to look. pools of ice everywhere, collected hailstones, on the ground, in some places, several inches deep. Streams marking winding paths through the horses’ pens. Three inches of mud collected and blocking the gate to the chicken coop; we had to shovel it away before we could go in to feed them for the evening. The ditchers running with water, high and hard and fast, depositing at least a foot of water in the center of the pond. The tilled hill up the road on the opposite side, entirely white, as though blanketed by snow. Piñon Road, the dirt tribal road that marks our northernmost boundary, washed out.
Piñon Road washes out at least once a season. Normally, it’s not a big deal; once the storm stops, so does the flow, and it all runs into the river across the road, clearing itself up.
Not yesterday.
I’ve never seen it like this. This is why such storms are accompanied by flood warnings, the kind where people are told not drive (and some people refuse to take it seriously, much to their peril). The water was running more than a foot deep, so hard and fast that it created eddying rapids that tore away whole chunks of the soil and sent everything, large rocks and all, churning and crashing down to pool at the far side of the highway. The water rushing across the highway itself was easily a foot deep, and moving with such rapid violence that human calves and ankles are not designed to withstand it. Tribal officials closed the road, and yet, there they were, tourists, visitors, and county residents (probably largely transplants and part-years, judging from the vehicles), driving around the roadblock and getting out of their cars with the thought of wading in to take photos. Getting to the edge of the swirling waters cured the wading ambitions. Fast.
Wings tried to get video with his phone, but between the continuing rain and the thunder and lightning, nothing cooperated. When we headed back to feed the animals for the night and get inside, Thunderbird was aiming lightning bolts at the earth around us on all sides. The clouds were once again whirling above in tornadic patterns as workers brought in earth-moving equipment to clear the enormous (in every sense of the word) pile rocks from the roadway, and ditch the verge to channel the water off the road and into the river more quickly. Piñon Road is likely not passable yet this morning, even with the best four-wheel drive. The thunderheads to the west have already formed into a solid bank this early in the morning, and the forecast for thunderstorms has steadily increased from 50% to 80% in just the last three hours.
Water can kill you.
Water is life.
With life in the desert, for any species, the question has always been: Can you adapt? If you can adapt, you can survive.
The people here have lived in this place for more than a thousand years. I don’t mean “lived” in the sense that they camped here periodically on a nomadic quest for sustenance; if you want to count that sort of habitation, their history goes back thousands of years. I’m talking about living in the sense of an organized, structured, permanent community, complete with brick-and-mortar multi-level homes and a fully developed system of agriculture. Over the span of more than a millennium, surviving not only the ravages of weather and climate but the existential threat of colonialist invaders, the people unquestionably have certainly learned to adapt.
The heavy snows of a good winter provide the mountain snowpack that, with the spring melt and runoff, feeds the Rio Pueblo that runs through the old village and serves as its residents’ water supply. The lakes and rivers in the area mountains are sources of fish, including the local trout, the feed the people. One of the lakes is the people’s most sacred place, and it’s no coincidence that the rains arrive in conjunction with the coming ceremonial season. The people have long since learned to respect water’s power along with its blessings, and they know how to handle it.
Water is life.
Wings has, packed carefully away, a large and very, very old black and white photo, one from a good hundred years ago, at least. It’s not sepia; it’s gray, and so softly edged that it looks like a painting. Two young women of the Pueblo, in traditional dress with the old-style high moccasins, blankets, and shawls, are in the woods fetching water. One holds the traditional micaceous olla (the Spanish word for water jar) in front of her; the other balances hers in the old way, on her head. They clearly knew they were being photographed, and probably posed for the shot. But both look a bit like does, their eyes a haunted by the presence of someone unexpected. Someone who probably should not have been there in the first place. Still, today, the image is a beautiful reminder of the timelessness of some traditions.
Those traditions are still practiced today, even if the dress is a little bit more functional, the images are in Technicolor, and the outside photographers are no longer allowed. And people still use the traditional micaceous pots and bowls and ollas, even as they use buckets and pails and other receptacles, too. the potters here make their pottery in the old way, and it gets used: for cooking, for eating, for drinking, for bathing. Art and existence, inextricably intertwined.
An example is the pot above — more precisely, a bowl. It’s made of the local micaceous clay that is TAos Pueblo’s own trademark, hand-coiled, polished to s silken smoothness. This one was designed to be decorative and practical at the same time: perfect symmetry in the lower bowl; a solid, sturdy, smooth lip that extends on one side into a flared mouth for pouring, a gentle, subtle spout that gives it a ewer-like appearance.
From its description here on the site:
This beautifully crafted pottery bowl is perfect in shape, with a ewer-style mouth at one side of the rim for pouring water, etc. Made of the local micaceous clay and smoothed to silky sheen by Lawrence Lujan (Taos Pueblo). It stands some 4.5″ high by 9.5″ across at its widest point, which includes the mouth (dimensions approximate). Another view shown above.
Micaceous clay
$185 + shipping, handling, and insurance
Special handling required; extra shipping charges apply
SOLD
It’s an unusual design, since most pottery made for sale is made with that market in mind: buyers who want a decorative piece of art to put on a shelf.
This is art as life and life as art. Just like the water it was made to hold.
Because here, water is life.
~ Aji
All content, including photos and text, are copyright Wings and Aji, 2015; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owners.
