Nambe
The Nambe are Pueblo Indians and speak Tewa , a language from the Kiowa-Tano language family . The name corresponds to the proper name and means pueblo on a round earth wall . The reserve is located in the southwest of the USA on the Rio Grande , about 30 km north of Santa Fe in New Mexico .
history
The ancestors of the Nambe came from the Mesa Verde area in the extreme southwest of Colorado . They first moved to Bandalier south of Los Alamos in New Mexico . After a long period of drought, they finally came to their present residential area in the valley of the Rio Grande around 1300 AD. In the early 17th century, the Spanish conquistadors tried to impose their religion on the indigenous people, which finally led to the Pueblo uprising around 1680 and in the bloody course of which the Spaniards were expelled. But after twelve years they came back to subdue the Pueblo Indians again. In search of a location in the Pueblo that could be more easily defended against the Spanish, the Nambe left their village in 1694 and moved to the top of the nearby Black Mesa . Together with allies from neighboring tribes, they successfully withstood three attacks by Diego de Vargas' troops here. After staying in this mesa fortress for nine months, they finally gave up and returned to their village. Still, the uprising was a long-term success for the Pueblo Indians. The Spaniards never again tried to force their religion and culture on the Indians with such brutality as they did before the uprising.
Way of life and culture
It appears that there is little difference between the Nambe village and any Spanish-American rural community in the Rio Grande valley. Only the kiva immediately identifies the place as an Indian settlement. The extensive remains of old walls suggest that Nambe has shrunk considerably in size since it was founded in the early 14th century.
Mixed marriages with the local Spanish-American population are responsible for the fact that tribal authority was weakened and the Indian way of life was gradually lost. Despite a recent revival of old ceremonies, typical of a general trend in many Rio Grande pueblos in recent years, there is a risk that Indian culture, as in Pojoaque, will eventually disappear entirely.
Because wage labor is the most important source of income in the nearby cities, less than half of all registered Nambe Indians live in the village. The chances of sufficient income in the reserve are very slim, although some money can be made from farming and ranching.
Nambe Falls is a picturesque recreational area that was developed by the pueblo and opened to the public. At the end of the 20th century there were about 400, 190 of them permanent residents in the 77 km² reserve.
literature
- William C. Sturtevant (Ed.): Handbook of North American Indians , Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington DC
- Alfonso Ortiz (Ed.): Southwest Vol. 9, 1979 ISBN 0-16004-577-0
- Alfonso Ortiz (Ed.): Southwest Vol. 10, 1983 ISBN 0-16004-579-7
- Tom Bathi: Southwestern Indian Tribes , KC Publications, Las Vegas 1997
See also
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Tom Bathi: Southwestern Indian Tribes. Page 27. KC Publications, Las Vegas, 1997 ISBN 0-916122-01-8