Taos (people)
The Taos are an Indian people of the North American Southwest and belong to the Pueblo Indians . They speak Tiwa , a language from the Kiowa-Tano language family . The name Taos is a Spanish alienation of the own name Tua and means village . The Taos and Picuris descend from the same ancestors, who settled around 900 AD in what is now the residential area. Sometime in the 12th century, these people split up and formed two separate groups.
residential area
Taos Pueblo , the residence of the Taos, is the northernmost of all pueblos and is located in New Mexico , about 50 km south of the Colorado border on a tributary of the Rio Grande . You can see the influence of the Plains tribes in the clothing, customs and appearance of its inhabitants. The Ute , Apaches and Comanches met here to exchange meat and skins for food and textiles from the pueblo. The multi-storey construction of the pueblo, designed for defense, as well as the adobe walls surrounding it, bear witness to the fact that not all previous relationships were peaceful.
history
The present village was built around 1700 after the old pueblo, a few hundred meters to the northeast, was destroyed by fire at the end of the 17th century. It is very similar to the original Pueblo and consists of two groups of houses: Hlauuma ( north house ) and Hlaukwima (south house), located on both sides of Taos Creek .
Taos was first visited in 1540 by Juan Bautista Alvarado . In 1598 it was used by Juan de Oñate in San Miguel renamed by following the Spanish custom and used the names of saints for Pueblos. There is nothing left of the original San Geronimo Mission, built in the early 17th century . The church ruins inside the walls, also called San Geronimo, date from 1706. The current church was built in 1847.
Dissatisfaction with Spanish laws led to the abandonment of their village in 1639 and the move to the Jicarilla Apaches. They built a new pueblo in what is now Scott County , Kansas , where they stayed for two years before the Spanish brought them back to Taos.
Problems with the Spanish rulers continued and Taos became a base of operations for the conspirators who planned the Pueblo uprising of 1680. On August 10th of that year warriors from Taos killed the local priest and a number of Spanish settlers and united with other Pueblo Indians to raid Santa Fe . The attack was militarily successful and Governor Antonio de Otermin had to withdraw together with all the Spanish colonists as far as El Paso in the south.
In 1692 the Spaniards under Diego de Vargas managed to recapture the province. An uncertain armistice followed, marked by minor uprisings and the temporary abandonment of the pueblos, as the population fled to the nearby mountains to avoid Spanish reprisals.
History in the 19th and 20th centuries
The only major uprising since the United States took power came in 1847. The Taos Rebellion was sparked by Mexicans who were ill-disposed towards the American conquerors and ended with the deaths of Governor Charles Bent and seven Americans. Troops from Santa Fe attacked, killing 150 rebels who had fled to the church (the ruins can still be viewed inside the wall) and later fifteen of the captured rebels were executed. The penetration of white settlers into the pueblo area led to an impending uprising in 1910, but the presence of troops prevented a bloodbath.
The problems in Taos are not only due to outside influences; Disagreement within the pueblo is a common condition. The introduction of the peyote cult in the 1890s brought serious conflict for the next fifty years.
Control of the village is in the hands of a conservative religious authority. The lack of land and limited job prospects created frustration among the younger people in the pueblo. Political weakness and economic uncertainty caused many of them to leave Taos to look elsewhere. Disagreements within the pueblo prevented the development of economic objectives necessary to meet the needs of a growing population.
Even so, Taos continues to be viewed as a Pueblo society held together by strong bonds of a common language, culture, and religion. The US census from 2000 resulted in 2,014, 1,000 of them permanent residents in the approximately 190 km² large reservation .
literature
- William C. Sturtevant (Ed.): Handbook of North American Indians , Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington DC
- Alfonso Ortiz (Ed.): Southwest Vol. 9, 1979 ISBN 0-16-004577-0
- Alfonso Ortiz (Ed.): Southwest Vol. 10, 1983 ISBN 0-16-004579-7
- Tom Bathi: Southwestern Indian Tribes , KC Publications, Las Vegas 1995
See also
Web links
- Website of the Taos Pueblos (Engl.)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Tom Bathi: Southwestern Indian Tribes. Page 14. KC Publications, Las Vegas, 1997 ISBN 0-916122-01-8