It’s a deceptive word, “home”: It can refer to a physical structure; to a particular geographic area; or even to something less tangible, more cultural, a state of mind and being.
For Native peoples, it’s all of these, and more.
At Taos Pueblo, it’s also a thousand years of history.
Our cultures and traditions tend to be rooted in place: not necessarily one specific plot of square acres or miles, although there’s that, too, but more, to a larger place of the spirit. This is true even for tribes that the dominant culture has [mostly inaccurately] labeled “nomadic”; there are many reasons for people to travel far afield at any given time, but a true reading of our histories shows that there was great purpose and pattern to such travel — and very often, a single and singular place of return, as well.
Our traditions are woven deeply amidst the warp and weft of our natural world, of the land and waters and sky that sustain us in any given place. You’ll notice I did not say that they were woven into it. That was by design; to phrase it so would imply that they were added later. Our histories, our origin stories, imply (and sometimes make explicit) a much deeper connection, one in which we and our ways simply are, organically, a part of our worlds, both physical and spiritual.
It is this aspect of our cultures that makes the genocidal practice of removal crueler on a deeper level. Terrible enough to try to exterminate a group of people by dispossessing them of their homes and material wealth, then herding them like cattle into a place where they can be targeted easily, marked for death and controlled when spared. It’s another to rip them out of their bodies while doing so, and that is essentially what removal did to our ancestors: It ripped them away from Mother Earth, their own joints and joins and folds of her, in the same way that one might rip an organ from one of our individual bodies. But instead of the process killing the host (although that’s happening, too, now), it’s the individual organs that die.
It’s what makes preservation so important now, especially in a place like this, where much of the people’s essential places remain firmly in their hands (or have been recovered in more recent years). We’ve all been dispossessed of lands that were ours, ancestral places and sacred spaces alike, but some have lost far less than others. In such cases, keeping that possession from further erosion becomes an existential mission.
It’s a delicate balance, particularly when circumstances beyond our control have dictated, historically, an opening of those places to outsiders purely as a means of survival. Such openings are carefully guarded, as they should be, with strict limits placed on the ingress and egress of outsiders, and penalties for transgressing and trespassing. There have to be: Some of the most fundamental places are homes.
Indigenous homes, defined as sheltering structures in which groups of people live to varying degrees from day to day, are beautifully, wonderfully diverse. Our peoples have always made efficient and effective use of what Nature provides, and so our versions of “home” differ in size and shape and substance by what is available in a given geographic area. And so in some parts of Indian Country, the traditional home is a multi-family longhouse made of local timber. In others, it’s a tipi or wiigiwaam, a tent-like structure constructed of lodge poles and hides, used largely to provide a place to sleep and shelter from the elements for peoples who spend much of their days laboring at outdoor pursuits, and who must follow game and cycles of plant growth. For the Diné, it’s the hogan, an eight-sided single-room structure placed facing a particular direction.
And for the people of this place, it’s architecture on a scale so advanced that it must have shocked into initial silence the invaders who showed up half a millennium after the first cornerstone was laid.
One aspect of the genius of Taos Pueblo’s multistory architecture is its utter timelessness: People still live, today, in the homes that have been in their families for that entire millennium and counting. They share common walls with others, and a common sense of security and protection, but also a common history that dates back much farther than any other “home” structures anywhere on the continent.
The architecture was genius for other reasons, too, of course. The local clay from which the adobe bricks are still made is some of the world’s best natural insulation: It traps the heat from the interior fireplaces, holding it inside, in winter; in summer, it’s possible to walk over a threshold and instantly feel a fifteen-degree drop in temperature. The fireplaces themselves are an engineering marvel, too: The so-called “kiva-style” construction pushes the heat outward into home in part because it’s made of the same adobe, but also because the design and shape of it and its flue keep heat from escaping unnecessarily. It’s a collection of architectural, structural, and engineering feats that haven’t been improved on today; there’s no need.
It is this bit of history, of culture as structure, shelter, home that Martin Romero captures in his miniature Pueblo sculptures. Of the three we originally had in inventory, only one remains. From its description in the Other Artists: Sculpture gallery here on the site:
Taos Pueblo sculptor/potter Martin Romero has created a miniature Pueblo house with horno (oven), in the shape of the Pueblo’s iconic multi-story architecture. House and horno are the people’s own local micaceous clay, glowing with warm metallic flecks of sunlight. The arbor and ladders are real wood, pieces cut and meticulously stripped by hand, then fashioned into reproductions of the traditional arbors and pine ladders found at the actual village homes. Measures just over 5.5″ long by 3″ high by 3.75″ deep (dimensions approximate).
Micaceous clay; wood
$175 + shipping, handling, and insurance
Requires special handling; extra shipping charges apply
It’s especially apt that this piece should take shape out of the same clay from which its real-life counterparts are built. In this case, the clay is fired, yes, giving it a little extra shimmer and shine, as well as the occasional charcoal-colored “cloud” from the firing process — an effect often seen on the full-sized homes around the edges of the chimneys.
It’s also a faithful invocation of a full thousand years and more of history, of culture, of tradition, of identity — and an evocation of a sense of place, of home.
~ 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.
