However our various peoples are known to the outside world, we all have our own names for ourselves. The people of Taos Pueblo are the People of the Red Willow, lives and identities inextricably intertwined with the beautiful brick-red shoots indigenous to this whole region.
Of course, the names by which Native peoples are known to the dominant culture usually have nothing to do with our intrinsic identities, and so it is in this place. The very word “Taos” is a corruption of the indigenous word for the old village, having nothing to do with the people’s identities beyond one specific location among their broader lands. it doesn’t really even sound like the word from which it’s taken, but for tongues accustomed to European Spanish, it was apparently the best they could do, and it stuck. “Pueblo,” of course, is not a Native word at all, but one visited upon the peoples all across this region by the European invaders: from their own language, “village” or “town,” from the same original root as the English work “people.” And so, in what is perhaps a an archetypal example of the clumsiness of colonialism, the colonizers hung a label on this place and its people that translates, more or less, to “Village Village.” Redundancy on top of inaccuracy, and yet, it’s the name that stuck, of course.
All over what is now the American Southwest, “indigenous” proper names, of both people and places, are actually Spanish in origin. “Origin” is perhaps the wrong word to use in this context; it refers to the label applied from without, of course, but has nothing to do with the people themselves, who have their own real names entirely apart from what is required by modern identification infrastructures, and who have their own names fro these places their peoples have inhabited since time immemorial. For some of the peoples of this area, one or the other (or both) may not be expressed for public consumption, the various peoples having long since decided that, since colonizers will do what colonizers will do anyway, some things are best kept private.
Still, it’s disconcerting to realize that people whose roots trace the topography of this land (and deeper lines, as well) have been labeled with “names” that are, largely, names of places half a [white] world away. Most of the surnames come from regions in Spain, whether states, towns, mountains, bodies of water, or other geographic markers. Others come from European [Catholic] saints — in some instances, truly awful (in every sense of that word) ironies, homages to those who would cheerfully have exterminated the people’s ancestors, and indeed in some cases did their best to accomplish exactly that. But the people have the last laugh in the end, since they are still here, as are their traditional ways, while such “saints” have been mouldering in their graves for centuries.
But one of the other ironies is that, for an invading force that worked tirelessly to divide and conquer, with the benefit of historical hindsight it comes clear that their modes and methods of labeling inadvertently highlighted the warp and weft of the weave that links all of our peoples together as extended relations.
Indigenous identities are often woven deeply with identities of place: a particular geographic area, the landmarks that are an integral part of it, the landscape and flora (and sometimes fauna) that live upon and within it. So it is with the People of the Red Willow. And so it is, occasionally, with peoples whose contemporary “names” were bestowed from without, identifiers that bring into the light, however accidentally, those peoples’ connections to their world — and, in a less concrete, more ephemeral way, to their more distant relations across this land.
A good example comes from the Mogollon country in the far southwest corner of what is now New Mexico.
Of course, they weren’t called that. That label was likewise bestowed by the invaders centuries later, to memorialize one of their own, of course: Don Juan Ignacio Flores Mogollón, who was the Spanish governor of this Spanish-claimed territory known as New Mexico (Nuevo México) from 1712 to 1715. Even then, the name was not given to the people, but to the place, and later scholars of European ancestry decided that the ones who lived there should be named for the place, which of course had been given a wholly new name that had nothing to do with the place or the people. [As an aside, I’ll use the “Mogollon” label throughout this post, since the people’s name for themselves has long since been lost to the winds of colonialism.]
Of course, the accepted thinking then was that the Mogollon were long since extinct, since 1300 C.E.. They’re not; they live on in their descendants, who are counted among today’s modern Pueblo peoples. There is ample evidence from various archaeological digs that they practiced cultural and spiritual traditions that are elemental parts of contemporary Pueblo culture, and they produced stunningly beautiful art, particularly pottery, in styles and motifs still practiced by master potters of some Pueblos.
And it is that pottery, strangely enough, that puts in a symbolic appearance in today’s featured item, despite that item being not pottery, but jewelry.
The art for which the Mogollon culture is best known is a particular pottery style that has since come to called “Mimbres.” It’s a beautiful, spare, elegant form of black-on-white clayware, featuring complex artwork rendering images of animals, people, or spirit beings and repeating geometric designs. [The Mogollon created pottery in other styles, too, of course, but it is the classic black-on-white for which they are best known, and to which the label “Mimbres” applies.]
The fact that the pottery has since been denominated “Mimbres” is interesting, too, in the sense that it came about by the same dynamic discussed above. It’s a Spanish word, and today, people (“experts”) consistently refer to the name of the pottery style as coming from the name of the region — forgetting, or perhaps not even being aware enough to realize, that both pottery and region, like the people, predated the arrival of the Spanish by hundreds and thousands of years, respectively.
Be that as it may, once the Spanish showed up, they of course “claimed” the land for God and King (and perhaps not necessarily in that order), and with “ownership” of course comes naming rights. They decided that the river near which the descendants of the Mogollon and their Apache neighbors lived should be called “Mimbres,” the Spanish word for “willows,” for the willow trees that lined its banks. These are not the shrub-like red willows of this region here in Northern New Mexico, but full-fledged (if small) trees indigenous to the area. As usual, the outsiders’ label stuck, and the area came to be known as the Mimbres region, an era of the original the Mogollon people’s existence as Mimbres culture, and their distinctive pottery style as Mimbres pottery.
In the intervening centuries since the Mogollon lived in the region as a distinct and stationary culture, their style has traveled across miles and time to manifest itself in the artwork of direct descendants and distant cousins alike. At Acoma Pueblo, potters specialize in the beautiful black-on-white style of pottery, highly sought-after in collector’s markets. To the south, across what is now the Mexican border, in the village of Mata Ortiz, indigenous Mexican potters are likewise producing phenomenal (and I use that word deliberately, to capture both its senses) pottery, some of which evokes the ancient Mimbres patterns — and some of which is made in styles that are ancient designs indigenous to Hopi, as well.
And some Native artists of the region have taken the iconic black-on-white pattern and adapted it to other art forms, including jewelry. An example is this pair of earrings from Wings’s personal collection, acquired many years ago from a relative and by a silversmith whose name has long since been lost to memory. From their description in the Other Artists: Miscellaneous Jewelry gallery here on the site:
Like ancient sherds of Mimbres-style pottery, these black-on-white ceramic earrings reassemble disparate pieces into a whole new pattern. The etched antler “stones” are set into sterling silver bezels on sterling silver posts. These are an older pair from Wings’s private collection: Pueblo-style workmanship; artist unknown.
Antler; sterling silver
$125 + shipping, handling, and insurance
It’s such a simple pattern — deceptively so. I love it in part because it is a testament to the reach of the Ancient Ones, of our peoples’ rich traditions of legacies passed down and of cultures shared.
But on this particular morning, as I look outside the window, I see another referent that brings the motif home in a very local way. On this day, when I look at the design of these earrings, the black line against the white antler, I see the same thing I see right outside my window: traditional latillas, their own ancient design, in the snow.
~ 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.
