2017 TRADICIONES • THE TAOS NEWS
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Photo by Tina Larkin
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The stuff that legends are made of
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RAICES
You are holding the 17th annual installment of Tradiciones. From past to present, this special publication continues to be a recognition and ovation of the minds and hearts that mold and bless this special home in the Sangre de Cristo mountains. It is meant to provide a look into some of the area's fabled places, customs, characters, and environmental and historical movements.
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ARTES
This issue of LEYENDAS (LEGENDS) — the first in a four-part series spanning four consecutive weeks, is followed by RAICES (ROOTS), ARTES (ARTS) and culminates with the UNSUNG HEROES / CITIZEN OF THE YEAR publication on Oct. 12.
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captivating cultural traditions and stunning natural environment for today and for generations to come. On these pages — whether myth or reality — the door to imagination is kept open.
Whether mythical or tangible, proven true or still unverified, forever debated or written in stone, Taos legends never fade away. Keeping our stories alive is to know of our colorful people,
— Scott Gerdes special sections editor
3 Taos’ unsolved mystery
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14 A man with a vision By Cindy Brown
By Scott Gerdes
16 Big, woolly creatures
6 A home to return to
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SEVENTEENTH ANNUAL • HONRAR A NUESTROS HÉROES
By Scott Gerdes
By Jim Levy
18 Frontier fights
8 Sipapú: ‘The place of emergence’
By Andy Dennison
By Larry Torres
Tradiciones
12 Gold, copper, land and a bullet
Staff
By Cindy Brown
Robin Martin owner
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Chris Baker publisher
Andy Nicolais production manager
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Staci Matlock editor
Jordan Miera copy editor
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Chris Wood advertising manager Katharine Egli photographer
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Scott Gerdes special sections editor
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Karin Eberhardt art director
Cindy Brown, Andy Dennison, Jim Levy, Larry Torres contributing writers
96 Years, 3 Generations,
One Family.
CONTINUING OUR COMMITMENT For nearly a century Chevron Questa Mine has been a member of the community. Even though operations have ceased and our focus is on final remediation and reclamation, we remain a part of the area. We strive to be a good neighbor, sharing the concerns of our community, upholding safe practices at work and at home, and working to create a viable future through economic development, improving educational opportunities and by developing local talent. We continue our dedication to supporting local nonprofits to fund initiatives that strengthen and invigorate the communities where we work and live. With the strength of our non-profit partner organizations, in 2017, we are supporting programs that make a difference. We salute the organizations that represent the traditions that play a role in bettering our community.
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The fallen ‘emperor,’ Arthur Rochford Manby
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TAOS’UNSOLVED MYSTERY By Scott Gerdes
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n July 3, 1929, the bloated, fly- and maggot-infested, headless corpse of 70-yearold Arthur Rochford Manby (allegedly the body of Manby, that is) was discovered by two lawmen on a cot in his 19-room Taos Spanish hacienda. His disfigured head was on the floor in an adjoining bedroom. The only potential witnesses were two dogs in the house; one was his German police dog, Lobo. The potential suspects, however, were nearly countless. For decades, any mention of Manby’s death was said to bring bad luck. I’ll take my chances. The short, round, self-proclaimed entrepreneur from Britain, you see – who often wore English-style riding pants, a floppy-brimmed hat and a pistol around his waist – had few friends, if any. What he did have were many enemies. Some people wondered if the slippery con artist didn’t fake his own death. It certainly wouldn’t have been out of the realm of his character to pull off such a heinous act. Manby was not very well liked. That’s no secret – and that is probably putting it lightly. Some people even deemed him as the most-hated person in Taos at the time. His manner rings of being a jerk and a loner. He swindled people of their land and sold parcels he had no rights to. He made shady backroom deals regarding land grants, mines and water rights, with some accounts claiming he had corrupt Santa Fe politicians in his back pocket. Stories about him portray a cocky guy who beguiled others without hesitation. He saw the vast and wild territory of New Mexico upon his arrival in 1883 at the age of 24 and declared himself its emperor. Manby would go to any lengths to make it so. “He put himself on a pedestal,” said Taos County Historical Society President Ernestina Cordova, a manygenerations Taoseña who heard many a tale about Manby in her youth. Many native Taoseños still don’t like to talk about the stories they were told. There are books (such as “Headless in Taos” by James S. Peters) about Manby that say he was a trust-fund baby, or a “remittance” man, meaning his family would supply him with money for the rest of his life on the condition he left England never to return. If true, it seems he took them up on their offer, and it also seems his immediate family saw something
Courtesy State Archives of New Mexico, #76730
The last known photograph taken of Arthur Manby — date and photographer unknown.
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Wanda Lucero 575.737.5433 wandalucero.com
Scott Gerdes
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Arthur Manby's headstone just outisde the entrance to Kit Carson Memorial Cemetery in Kit Carson Park.
‘An inscription by Waters in his book about Manby, ‘To Posses the Land,’ to longtime friend Alan Kishbaugh reads: ‘Alan — This one is laid on the dark shadow side of the sacred mountain — Best — Frank Waters.”
the, by then, mostly reclusive and paranoid outcast legal papers related to the renewal of a lawsuit Manby lost. He had not responded to the court order. After receiving no answer, the marshall headed over to the courthouse on Taos Plaza to see if anyone around there knew of Manby’s whereabouts. As chronicled by Taos author Frank Waters in his 1973 book, “To Possess the Land,” Martinez asked Taos Deputy Sheriff Malaquias Martinez – his brother – if he had seen Manby that day. Malaquais Martinez informed Jim Martinez that a man standing with them named George Ferguson (Teresina Ferguson’s nephew) stated he thought Manby was dead, adding, “Flies are swarming all over the back screen door.” No one questioned how Ferguson was privy to that knowledge. The three men then returned to the Manby home, which is now the site of the Taos Center for the Arts and Stables Gallery right next door to the historic Taos Inn (in part the home of Doc Martin at that time). The rumor of Manby’s death spread faster than a wildfire. By the time the three men arrived at the hacienda, a crowd was already forming. Neighbor Martin was one of them.
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dark in him that they wanted no part of. Other accounts say after his parents died, Manby and three of his five brothers – Alfred, Charles and Jocelyn – embarked to America in search of new lives. Their exact arrival date to America’s shores is uncertain. And exactly what drew them to the Land of Enchantment is draped in yet another Manby shroud of mystery. There is no cloudiness, however, over what Manby dove into once he was grounded in his new Southwest surroundings: the sale of phony land deeds, alleged membership in a James Masterson-led militia group that incited the 1885 “Ratón riot” over the Maxwell Land Grant, shady ranching deals and the sale of worthless mine stocks. His main interests were in land speculation, mining (including the legendary “cursed” Mystic Gold Mine) and controlling water rights in the Taos area.
The fuse is lit Moving through the state, he began ranching and mining with Jocelyn and Alfred. They built a ranch at Castle Rock, later to be determined that it sat on the Maxwell Land Grant. After moving up to Taos, for whatever reason, he established several New Mexico land companies, including the Taos Land Company and the Colonial Bond and Security Company. One of his visions was to create gardens
and a grand hotel for tourists. As relayed by Taos historian Bob Romero, that spot became known as the Manby Hot Springs, a small group of springs that emerge at river’s edge between the John Dunn and Río Grande Gorge bridges. Manby never got the financial backing needed for such an endeavor. And, again, it wasn’t his property for the taking anyway.
matters into their own hands,” Gins said. “I’ve been told and believe Teresina and her boyfriend/husband – whatever he was – along with her ring of bandidos killed him. He was in love with Teresina, but that wasn’t reciprocated.” (Teresina Ferguson was a Tarot card reader, an alleged swindler in her own right and also a victim of Manby’s cons.)
Through manipulation, the land grabber acquired the Antonio Martinez land grant in 1913 and more and more parcels, including along Paseo del Pueblo Norte into what is now Kit Carson Park. He is credited with planting the trees there and on “Pueblo Road” (as it’s etched into his tombstone just outside the entrance to Kit Carson Memorial Cemetery) – possibly his only positive actions. Though it stands to reason he had help. Some historic accounts say Tony Lujan, husband of Mabel Dodge, chipped in.
By the time Manby reached old age, he had left quite a trail of corruption in his wake, including a rumored plus or minus $900,000 debt. It was also whispered around town that he suffered from syphilis. Even his henchmen – really another Manby investment sham and shadowy organization known as the United States Civil Secret Service Society – couldn’t (or wouldn’t) protect the odd homebody any longer.
“He and Teresina [Ferguson] strongarmed the town,” stated Taos Historic Museums Board President Margo Gins (fourth-generation Taoseña, granddaughter of Taos Society of Artists founding member Bert Phillips and great-niece of Thomas P. “Doc” Martin). Her father, William Beutler, and grandmother, Margo Phillips Beutler, told Gins stories about the man the town despised. “In a nutshell, everyone in Taos hated Manby and people in those days took
The crime scene In an effort to try and dig up (no pun intended) more information about the crime scene investigation, I simply put “Manby” into a search field on the New Mexico State Archives website, where 59 folders appeared, with a whopping majority of them being a file for either a civil or criminal case involving him. That early July in 1929, U.S. Deputy Marshal Jim Martinez from Santa Fe approached Manby’s doorstep to serve
Along with onlooker Carmen Duran, the Martinez brothers and George Ferguson bypassed the front door, walked around the high adobe wall, scaled it and entered the rear patio of the front wing of the house. At that moment, Duran announced he had a key to the back door. Again, there is no record of anyone questioning how he came into possession of it. No doubt the gruesome scene and heavy air filled with a putrid stench stopped them in their tracks. Lobo was beside his master’s body that lay on the cot. Duran led the dog outside, according to Waters, where Malaquais Martinez shot him. The other dog – unfamiliar to the men – was tied up outside, its life spared. Des Georges, a Taos politico, entered and, along with the other men in the house, formed a coroner’s jury right there on scene. The group declared that natural causes explained Manby’s demise. The matter of his head, they deduced or just conveniently decided, was from the dogs gnawing it off. After that, Jim Martinez washed his hands of it and returned to Santa Fe. From that day on, some Taoseños were convinced Manby was murdered. Others couldn’t shake the belief that the muchabhorred Englishman staged his own death. Some people are said to have sworn they saw Manby in town the next day. Even state newspapers and the Kansas City Star were covering the story. “Everybody’s got an opinion about Manby,” Gins said. “So much of it was hidden from the outside world. He was dead. He was not walking around the next day.” Forensic science was still in its infancy. There was no blood analysis, no DNA testing and Manby’s fingerprints weren’t even on file. A full-fledged mystery was born.
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LEYENDAS Courtesy State Archives of New Mexico, #76733
Det. H.D. Martin took this photograph on Aug. 21, 1929, during W.H. Robert's re-examination and autopsy at the gravesite of Arthur Manby. On the far right is Doc Martin and on the far left is Manby's dentist, Dr. Fred Muller. The concensus of the group was that the exhumed remains were indeed those of Manby.
Cause of death under contention Manby’s family sent letters to then-New Mexico Gov. R.C. Dillon asking about why there was no investigation of murder. A Santa Fe New Mexican op-ed and a letter from the British Consulate in Galveston, Texas, also questioned the quick and thin investigation. The besiegement prompted Dillon to have the body exhumed on Aug. 21 that same year. Martin said the body was indeed Manby’s. Dr. Fred Muller, a dentist, certified that the dentures were the ones he made for Manby. A blacksmith named Hinde verified that a diamond stickpin, which was still attached to Manby’s red long underwear, and three rings belonged to the deceased. The group, including Detective H.D.
Martin, who was sent by the feds, looked over the remains, noticing the top portion of the torso had been cut near the broken collar bone, two ribs were busted and there were seven bullet holes on the left side of the chest. As for the head, they reported that the lower jaw and right side of the face had been shot away, not eaten away. “Oh, it was Manby all right,” said Gins without hesitation. Gins’ father was a kid back then. He sat across the street on the wall surrounding the outside of the Phillips’ house and watched the commotion. “My grandparents had just built their house. It was named ‘La Posada de Taos,’” Gins recalled. “In that house was a cellar that is now the entrance below the dining room. The feds sent in several detectives. My great-uncle, grandfather
and others – including the mayor and some people from the Pueblo – all agreed to hide Manby’s body in that cellar. They felt the death could’ve become a problem with England. They buried it and after two days put it where it is now.” At the behest of Teresina Ferguson, three men were held for questioning, but she later inexplicably bonded them out, even though they offered no alibi for June 30 and July 1 (the suspected time frame of the crime). “I am certain that Teresina and her boys – her thugs – killed him,” Gins said. “I’m sure of that from my family’s memories, but I have no proof.” The next night after the men were freed, according to Waters’ research, Detective Martin found a threatening note slipped under his hotel room door telling him
to back off and leave Taos. He brushed it off and continued his investigation. Following leads, he concluded in a letter to Gov. Dillon dated Feb. 25, 1930, ruling the death murder with “robbery, jealousy, fear and vengeance” as motives. Martin’s suspects were Duran and his brother, George, and Teresina and George Ferguson. He ended the letter stating, “I do not see any mystery to the A. R. Manby case. If less publicity, less talk and more work was done, the guilty party could be brought to justice without much time.” But with no funds to keep the investigation going and no further interest in the case from federal agencies, the Manby death was basically swept under the rug to forever live as a real life whodunit.”
AQUÍ EN TAOS It’s not just a slogan. It’s a way of life.
It’s not just a slogan. It’s a way of life. Since 1971, Taoseños have embraced our family and business. You could say the Mountain has accepted us . . . Thank you Taos, for 46 years and counting!
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A HOME to return to
1940s - 1950s summers in Taos
Courtesy Jim Levy
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Kay Levy outside the Tony House.
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By Jim Levy
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he following piece is an excerpt from the chapter “Crack of thunder, first drops of rain” in Jim Levy’s memoir, “Rowdy’s Boy,” about his childhood and adolescence. To get from Los Angeles to Taos, my mother took Route 66, driven in the blazing heat of five summers, 1948-‘52, east in June and back again in August, the first time in a green Hudson when our mother was 40, Bunny was 9, I was 7 and infant Mary. A canvas bag bulging with water hung from the front fender of the sedan to use when the radiator overheated on hills. Mom rents an adobe in Talpa overlooking the Ranchos valley. She rolls a sprig of sagebrush between her fingers and makes me smell it. I play with a gang of Hispanic boys who are smaller and tougher than me and have no trouble throwing me to the ground. Tio Vivo is a small merry-go-round in the Plaza during Fiestas. I join other children riding little animals that go round and round: a lion, a giraffe, a hare with long ears. The animals don’t mind going in circles because that’s their job and I don’t mind going in circles because I keep passing Mom who waves and has a big smile on her face. The next two summers she rented a house in La Loma, three blocks west of Taos Plaza. The town was small, ending to the south at Jack Denver’s motel, to the north at the turn off to Taos Pueblo. There was one stop sign and no traffic lights. At night the town was dark, with just a few splashes of light from the softball game. There were no parking meters, but there were burros and horse-drawn wagons in the streets. The phone book was thin, almost a brochure, and the phone numbers consisted of three digits. Our mother laughed when she picked up the phone and a neighbor was already on the line. The fourth and fifth summers, this would be 1951 and ’52, she rented a house from Mabel Dodge Luhan called the Tony House, which Mabel had built for her Pueblo husband Tony Lujan. The house was on Pueblo land and was a controversial subject. Some people said Tony had been banned from the tribe for marrying Mabel and allowing her to build on Pueblo land. D.H. Lawrence and Frieda [his wife] had lived in it when they first came to Taos and again on a later visit. Mabel Dodge lived in “the big house” that had many pigeons. We were forbidden to go anywhere near it, but I waded up the acequia to her cornfield.
Mabel was everything people have said about her: bossy, imperial, rich. A burly woman with short hair and a large nose, she seemed to have a compulsion to slip a little bullying into every encounter. She wrote my mother, after our first summer there: “If Jimmy rides his horse through my cornfield one more time, I’m going to evict you.” Tony Lujan came over most mornings to have coffee with my mother. A bulky Taos Indian with braids, he sat before a cup and didn’t seem to drink and then, when it was empty, left. I don’t think they talked. I imagine she enjoyed the attention, but wasn’t taken in. She was a skeptical woman who no longer believed in love or passion. She made pithy remarks about people and said about Tony and his Nash Rambler, “He thinks the center line is to guide him down the middle of the road.” Frieda Lawrence visited too, a short plump woman (but soft, not hard like Mabel) whose wide mouth radiated warmth and humor. It is impossible to imagine Lawrence with her and impossible to imagine him without her. Lady Dorothy Brett came over too, a thin woman with big teeth whom people called Brett. She bothered me when she sat straining to hear in our dining room under the portrait she had painted of Toscanini who had an elongated finger pointing downward. I thought it spooky and used to make fun of it — all of us made fun of it, including Mom — but she told us to shut up about it when Brett was there. Mom was friends with Eulalia Emetaz, an elegant woman with short hair, the owner of La Galeria Escondida, the first gallery in Taos to carry modern art, and with the painter Gisella Loeffler, who bought the house next door, called the Pink House. She was pretty and loaded down with necklaces, bracelets and belts. Lawrence, Frieda and others are said to have painted the doors and walls of that house. While living at the Tony House, we rented three horses from Taos Pueblo. These were not the docile stable horses we were used to at the riding club in Los Angeles. They were small Indian ponies with mean streaks. One hated to have anything touch her ears so if we tried to slip a bridle over her head, she reared up and went berserk. We had to disassemble a bridle and reassemble it on her. The second glided over to barbed wire fences when she thought we weren’t paying attention and rubbed our legs up against them. The third swerved under low branches and tried to knock us off. My friends and I took them in stride, giving as bad as they gave — Jimmy McCarthy, Johnny Ramming, one of the Randall boys, Billy Parr and two other Hispanic boys whose names I don’t remember. One of our deplorable sports was to climb onto the biggest of the horses, four or five of us, and
‘...in Taos, I was alert to the drama of the sun, moon and stars as they crossed the immense sky. I was thrilled by the clear mornings when I roamed freely, and the afternoon thunderstorms and downpours that seemed to come out of nowhere.’
then stick her with a nail. She bucked us off, and the winner was the last boy still on. We rode into the hills bareback, with only a bridle to control the horses, up one of the long arroyos leading towards the top of the hills, and then, we turned the horses around, slipped the bridles off and gave them a kick. Free, they ran for home with us clinging to the manes as they swerved through trees and around chamisa and sage until they came to jarring halts at the corrals. The winner: again the boy who stayed on. Taos Plaza then was mostly real stores, not tourist traps. Safeway was on the southwest corner. There was a barbershop, a bar, a restaurant and the La Fonda Hotel. Some nights we went to the Plaza Theater, on the south side of the plaza. We entered off the street directly into the lobby, a cramped dim space bathed in the smells of popcorn and musty carpet, then we pushed through heavy blue velvet curtains into a cavern with over 400 seats. On the walk home from the Plaza, I often cut through Kit Carson Park, which was just a tangle of brush and trees, dodging the drunks who lay in the bushes calling out to whoever passed. The park included a cemetery where Kit Carson’s grave was enclosed by an iron fence. My friends bet me three dollars to sleep on the
Courtesy Jim Levy
Jim Levy and his steed for the day.
grave and so I took a sleeping bag and did just that, spent the night sleeping peacefully on top of Carson’s grave. Growing up in west Los Angeles, in a wooded canyon, I didn’t have much sense of the sky, but in Taos, I was alert to the drama of the sun, moon and stars as they crossed the immense sky. I was thrilled by the clear mornings when I roamed freely, and the afternoon thunderstorms and downpours that seemed to come out of nowhere. August 11, 1952, was the last day I spent in Taos as a child. I went out into the mesa between our house and the hills. Taos Mountain rose in the north; a string of extinct volcanos sat on the horizon to the west. It was warm and bright when I left the house but early in the afternoon, the sky darkened, thunder rumbled, crack of thunder and the first drops of rain released the smells of sagebrush and dust. A sleepy sexual energy coursed through me as I stood in the rain inhaling the molecules of wet earth. Then it was over; light returned, the dry air sucked up the moisture. Without my knowing it, Taos permanently changed me, aroused my senses, entered into my being and gave me a home to return to.
Jim Levy returned in 1963 and worked as a bartender for Harold Street at the Taos Inn. In the 1970s, he was the editor of The Fountain of Light and he helped Harvey Mudd renovate the Plaza Theater and worked there first as manager, then as projectionist. He was executive director of the Harwood Foundation and the Taos Art Association and worked for 35 years as an administrator for nonprofit organizations. He is the author of “Corazón (and Merkle),” which is about two dogs; “Cooler Than October Sunlight,” selected poems; “Joy To Come,” literary essays; “The Poems of Caius Herennius Felix,” the story of a Roman-Spanish poet; and “The Fifth Season,” a memoir of growing old.
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Sipapú: ‘The place of emergence’ Finding our way back to the center of ourselves
File photo
The kiva — the “Place of Emergence” — a portal called a “Sipapú.”
‘At dawn, the first light, called ‘Sun,’ rose in the morning sky, but immediately thereafter a second light, called ‘Moon,’ also rose up.’
Scott Gerdes
“Pig to Market,” a Hopi Mudhead Kachina by Andrew Sahmie courtesy of Mesa's Edge. To the Hopi, “Sipapú” symbolizes the portal through which their first male ancestors emerged to the upper sphere. Those men who lived in the Sipapú were taught to respect Mother Earth through the teachers who were the Mudhead Kachinas.
By Larry Torres
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embrace a higher level of existence. As she straddled a tripod, her attendants would nourish her with laurel leaves. She would inhale sulfuric fumes emanating from fissures deep within the volcanic site. The fumes would rise to the upper air and they would awaken and stimulate the innermost chambers of her bicameral human brain so that she could foretell the future to pilgrims who came to seek her advice.
The stories all begin by referring to people as coming out at “the place of emergence.” The place is a portal called a “Sipapú” to some people, and it’s hidden deep within Earth’s bowels. For some people, “Sipapú” stands for a thinly veiled reference to a ski resort just beyond Vadito, southeast of Taos. In Uto-Aztecan, the very word refers to “the womb, the navel or the heart of the Earth.”
About 25 miles from Galilee, there is a dark chasm known as “The Gates of the Netherworld.” It is located in the area called “Caesarea Philippi,” which is named after Herod Philip (circa 27 B.C.33/34 A.D.). It is not by coincidence that Jesus was to choose this place to turn his church over to Saint Peter. He said, “Tu es Petrus; you are Peter, and upon this rock I shall build my Church and the Gates of the Netherworld shall have no dominion over you.” This place of emergence was marked with sacrifices to the god Ba’al and the god Pan in ancient days.
any cultures around the world teach stories of creation. These are traditional tales of just how a people came to be formed by the gods. The people must overcome an obstacle before they can merit passage into the world of light once it has been prepared to receive them.
This resort boasts the longest ski season in the area. Beyond its touristic appeal, though, Sipapú bears the noble name of a place that is sacred to many people. Such portals, which mark a place where our ancestors came to consciousness, can be found in various far-off places around the world. Without being called “places of evolution,” they do suggest that an awakening took place therein for the people of the area. In ancient Greece, the place of emergence had a different name. It was known as “Delphi.” In this sacred site, the ritual priestess used to lead her people to
In holy Tibet, where the lamas are educated to live on very high spiritual planes, there is a dark chamber in the temple where this awakening takes place. This is called “The Place of Third Eye Training.” Not so much a physical journey as it is a spiritual trek, it focuses on a point between the two eyebrows that can be tuned into “the universal vibrations.” This allows for deeper meditation. Albuquerque resident priest the Rev. Richard Rohr explores the relationship between the use of vision with one eye merging thinking with
Scott Gerdes
A Mudhead storyteller at Bryans Gallery in Taos by Jemez Pueblo artist Chris Fragua. According to an ancient Hopi story, in the beginning, man lived in the Sipapú to be taught respect for the Mother Earth by their teachers, who were the Mudhead Kachinas.
the second eye – and bridging this dual vision with higher consciousness with the third eye, which has been mastered by both ancient and modern mystics. On this side of the world, we also have our own places of emergence. The Mayan myth of creation begins with the words, “When there was as of yet nothing; not even light, the gods held convocation at the Gathering Place, called Tenochtitlán.” These words were recorded by the Yucatec Jaguar priest named Chilam Balam. Before early man could be brought forth, light needed to be created. But knowing that creation demands sacrifice, the gods asked the king of the gods to hurl himself into the twin volcanoes, Iztaccihuatl and Popocatépetl. When he refused, the ugly god, who had little reason to live, hurled himself into the first volcano as a willing sacrifice. This act shamed the king of the gods into jumping into the second volcano. The gods waited in darkness, afraid because only one sacrifice was needed, but not two. At dawn, the first light, called “Sun,” rose in the morning sky, but immediately thereafter a second light, called “Moon,” also rose up. There was now too much light for the gods. Fearing that they would be blinded by such splendor, they caught a rabbit that was passing by and hurled it at Moon to darken it. This is why the dark spots on the moon form the shape of a rabbit. Chilam Balam said that early man lived in darkness, having to be taught by the gods before being prepared to emerge
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File photo
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This large kiva, in Chetro Ketl at Chaco Culture National Historic Park, is an example of the “Sipapu” — a portal that marks a place where our ancestors came to consciousness.
into the light. These traditional stories were passed on to the Aztecs, who referred to the land of darkness as “Xibalba,” where the dread Lords of the Dead lived, even as they had at Caesarea Philippi. The reason people needed to be educated in darkness was because they could be blinded by too much knowledge before they had acquired the wisdom necessary to live in the land above. Having too much knowledge without enough wisdom to implement it properly was called “sin.” This place of venial purification was sometimes even called “Purgatory” or the “Antechamber to Heaven.” In the language of the Hopi, “Sipapú” symbolizes the portal through which the ancient first men emerged to the upper sphere. The sacred stories among the Hopi use the Sipapú story to explain why there are so few of them among the more populated Navajo Nation. According to the story, in the beginning, man lived in the Sipapú to be taught respect for Mother Earth by their teachers, the Mudhead Kachinas. In the fullness of time, man was ready to face the world of light. A hollow log was put on end as a bridge from the lower to the upper world. It was a ladder through which mankind could crawl upward. The tale says that the first person to emerge was a man, who was followed by a child and then by a woman. The fourth person to try to come through the hollow log was a pregnant lady. Predictably, she got stuck because her belly was too big to fit through it. For this reason, say the Hopi, most of their people are still stuck in the world of the Mudhead Kachinas, trying to find another way to come into the light.
In 1963, Southwestern author Frank Waters wrote “The Book of the Hopi.” He said that “as they stepped outside of the Sipapú, they morphed from lizard-like beings into homo sapiens, or human form.” It is from this point that Earth’s “First Peoples” began to divide and separate, creating differing tribes along the first journeys of our ancestors. In some Native cultures, the place of instruction and of coming of age is called a “kiva.” The kiva is a manmade subterranean facsimile of the Sipapú. Within the confines of the kiva, only the holy ancestral language may be spoken. The Hopi, the Zuni and the Acoma believe that they are born of the
Grand Canyon, which is where they believe the original Sipapú is located. For them, the Grand Canyon is the place of emergence for the indigenous people of the Southwest. Each modern Hopi village has one or several kivas. Each kiva contains a small hole, just off its center, that represents their place of emergence for religious purposes. As with all ritual enlightenment, the place of the Sipapú is a place of awakening. It is a journey back to the center of ourselves.
Larry Torres is a local historian and foreign language coordinator at the University of New Mexico-Taos.
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A silver pendant of the “Man in the Maze” courtesy of Mesa's Edge. The center is the Sipapú and the maze represents the life journey.
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Courtesy Jim Levy
Kay Levy outside the Tony House.
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Courtesy Pattison family
A mine tramway at Twining
Gold, copper, land and a bullet William Fraser, the untold story By Cindy Brown
Courtesy Pattison family
P
erhaps you’ve heard stories about William Fraser, the legendary early miner and owner of the Fraser Mountain Copper Company in the Taos Ski Valley (TSV) area. Some historical annals report Fraser exaggerated the amount of gold and copper ore he found in the area once known as Twining, leading to the ruin of many investors – all leading up to being gunned down by one of his business partners. It’s a well-known story. The only problem is, it turns out that it may not be true. At the very least, there is another side to the legend of Fraser. Charlie (also known as Carlos) Lopez is Fraser’s great-grandson. He lives in the house in Valdez that Fraser built in 1914 out of bricks made from the clay in the Río Hondo canyon. Lopez says the reported history is very different than the stories he heard about his great-grandfather from his family and from the results of his research.
History as reported There was mining activity all around the current site of TSV and high up into the Sangre de Cristo Mountains in the late 1800s. According to Robert Julyan in his book, “The Place Names of New Mexico,” Fraser was a mining man who – along with partner, Al Helphenstine – discovered silver and gold. That led to the founding of the town of Amizette.
Courtesy Charlie Lopez
Mary Jane Lopez as a child
When the ore here ran out, Fraser found copper and gold farther up the canyon and founded the Fraser Mountain Copper Company mines. According to Julyan, Fraser was a controversial figure whose allegedly exaggerated claims resulted in the ruin of several investors. He says Fraser died in 1914, shot in the head by a former business partner during a gun battle.
Leven says that Fraser continued to work his mountain claims, but was shot and killed in 1914 by Jack Bidwell, his new partner at the Fraser Mountain Copper Company. The shooting was determined to be in self-defense. Bidwell continued to live in a miner’s cabin in the Twining ghost town, working small gold leads on his claims.
Carrie Leven, archaeologist with the Questa Ranger District of the Carson National Forest, reports that her research shows Fraser came to the upper Río Hondo mining district in the late 1800s and was instrumental in establishing the booming mining town of Twining.
Another side to the story
According to Leven, “In 1892, Fraser and partner J.R. Wheeler owned patented mining claims located on the northern and eastern side of the valley called the Wigwam, Silver King, Dutch Joe and Zone Lodes, which make up some of the private property found today. Fraser’s greatest effort at Twining was developing the Fraser Mountain Copper Company mines and encouraging the founding of the town and a smelter, along with other investors and mining companies. Hopeful prospects and high costs of shipping ore to outlying processing plants led Fraser and investors to build an on-site smelter, which, unfortunately, failed on the first run in 1903. Fraser survived that mishap and investors’ anger, and he was among the few miners who stayed in Twining after 1904.”
Lopez is related to Fraser through his mother’s family. His grandmother, Margaret, was one of Fraser’s daughters born to his wife, Felipita Gonzales de Fraser. Lopez says that his family knows another side of the family patriarch. They say he was a family man who built a schoolhouse in Valdez for his children and the neighboring children, as well. He also supplied everyone with fruit from his extensive orchards located on some of the hundreds of acres he owned in Valdez. Lopez’s mother, Mary Jane (born Barela) Lopez, was 4 or 5 years old when Fraser died. The stories passed down to Mary Jane Lopez from her grandmother hinted that many people thought Fraser was mean, but the family knew him as a good provider who had to appear mean in order to protect himself, his family and his businesses. Lopez says that we have to remember the times that Fraser was living in.
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Standing at front left is Jack Bidwell who allegedly shot and killed William Fraser standing at center front in black hat.
‘When Fraser’s body was brought back down from Twining and washed in the Río Hondo near the mouth of the canyon (where they were met by the coroner), numerous observers reported that the gun shot entered Fraser’s side and passed out through his back’
“It was the gold rush, the Old West; prospectors were tough men,” he says. “Fraser was involved with some shady characters and because he owned so much land in Twining, Valdez and El Salto, many people didn’t like him.”
Lopez has been gathering material for a book on his great-grandfather. He says the curious thing about the claims stating Fraser cheated investors is that all the ore that came out of the mines in the Twining area was sent to Denver, Colorado, by railcar from Tres Piedras and was carefully weighed in Denver, so there was little chance that investors could have been cheated out of their share. Lopez says that at some point, it was reported there was more than a million dollars of gold per week mined and thousands of dollars of copper brought out of the area. Fraser first partnered with Albert Twining in the late 1800s. Twining was a banker from New Jersey, and the mining area where TSV sits was named after him. He was eventually imprisoned for embezzlement. Fraser sought new business partners to invest in a smelter for copper, but the smelter was not successful and his partners accused him of pocketing their investments. Lopez rebuts, “With mining, nothing is guaranteed. Fraser never did anything shady. All his transactions are well documented.” In his research, Lopez has turned up stories in the Taos Valley News that report on the many lawsuits Fraser was involved in. Interestingly, although at least two of Fraser’s business partners went to jail for embezzlement, there are no reports of Fraser being indicted on the same offense. In 1912, Fraser did file a suit in order to dissolve a partnership between himself, Bidwell and Clarence Probert, a Taos banker. Fraser had been in an accident on the rim of the Valdez valley — a bear spooked his horses and sent Fraser flying off the wagon. He hit his head and, according to some, was never the same. Fraser argued that due to the accident, he was not competent to enter into a contract with the business partners. The judge found
that Fraser seemed competent enough and denied the claim. Probert, however, was convicted of embezzlement in 1914 and sentenced to six years in prison. Perhaps most interesting of all are the conflicting stories of how Fraser died. It has been reported that on July 16, 1914, Fraser went up to cabins that he owned in Twining. There, he found Bidwell, his former partner. An argument ensued, guns were drawn and Fraser was shot and killed. Lopez says that his great-grandmother told another version of what happened that day; one she said was the true account. Felipita Gonzales de Fraser’s account begins when a friend of the family, Tom Holder, came to pick up Fraser to go up to Twining to look at a cabin Holder wanted to buy. She said Holder seemed nervous and would not stop for her to make him a breakfast of fish – an offer he never turned down. Holder and Fraser departed the house in Valdez and apparently stopped on the way up the canyon to pick up Holder’s young son, Tom Holder Jr. Although Holder said that Bidwell was not in Twining, when the two arrived, Bidwell was in fact on-site. An argument ensued and Bidwell shot Fraser with .30-30 caliber Winchester rifle. Bidwell claimed he acted in self-defense. In part, an obituary compiled by Alberto Vidaurre on the website nmahgp.genealogyvillage.com/taos/ taosobituaries11.html reported the alleged reason for the altercation: “... They had been involved in a dispute for about 3 years as to who owned the mine. It was reported that William Frazer [sic] with gun in hand had tried to expel John B. Bidwell from a house near the mine. Bidwell retreated and armed himself with a .30-30 caliber Winchester rifle and shot William Frazer.” However, when Fraser’s body was brought back down from Twining and washed in the
Río Hondo near the mouth of the canyon (where they were met by the coroner), numerous observers reported that the gunshot entered Fraser’s side and passed out through his back – perhaps indicating there was no gun battle, but rather Fraser was attempting to flee. Some young boys tending to cattle in Twining told Fraser’s wife they heard the argument and saw Fraser leaving the area when he was shot. Most curious of all is that the bullet that hit Fraser passed through his body and lodged in Holder Jr.’s spine, causing a crippling paralysis. Although some say the bullet that hit Fraser ricocheted off a rock and hit young Holder, Lopez says after looking at all the reports, it is more likely that the bullet passed directly through Fraser and hit Holder Jr. as they were sitting together on the buckboard attempting to leave the cabin. At the trial that followed, young Holder testified on Bidwell’s behalf and he was cleared. Nothing more than speculation can possibly explain why Holder Jr. would come to the defense of the man who pulled the trigger and caused his permanent injury. After Fraser’s death, many investors and their lawyers descended on the estate and the family was left with very little. Fraser’s family retained none of the former lands in Twining. Fraser was 69 years old. He is buried in Kit Carson Cemetery, but the headstone that once stood there has been lost. Lopez would like to see a new headstone placed on the grave to commemorate his great-grandfather. A mountain standing at 12,163 feet within the Northside property near TSV is named for Fraser. The story of William Fraser reminds us that the legends we read in history may not be the whole story or even the real story.
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By Cindy Brown
O.
E. Pattison left his mark on Taos Ski Valley long before the first skier arrived. A loop road bears his name. His family still owns more than 1,200 acres in the high country. That property includes hiking and biking trails and several peaks, most notably Fraser Mountain. Pattison is reportedly the first person Ernie Blake talked to when he thought about establishing a ski resort in the Taos area. And it may have been Pattison’s extensive mountain property that Blake first saw in his legendary flyover of the area when he decided that this was the right place for a ski resort. Who was O.E. Pattison and how did he come to own a huge parcel of mountain land that is now a private recreation area surrounded by the Carson National Forest (CNF)?
History of O.E. Pattison Orville Edward (O.E.) Pattison lived in Indiana as a young man. His family came to Artesia, New Mexico, so his mother could receive treatment for tuberculosis. She passed away soon afterward. His father, William, remarried and moved to Clovis, where he ran a cream and egg business known as a “cow, sow and hen” operation.
Northside nirvana
William Pattison loved the mountains. “It was hot in Clovis in the summer and the family came to Red River to spend the summers camping out beginning around 1908. It made a big impression on O.E.,” says Roger Pattison, grandson of O.E. Pattison.
The vision of O.E. Pattison
After becoming a successful wheat farmer in Clovis during the 1940s, O.E. Pattison wanted to buy some mountain land for his family to visit during the summers. When he returned to Red River, he didn’t like how it had evolved. “He was a strong Christian man and felt like Red River had become too much of a partying town,” according to Roger Pattison.
Courtesy Pattison family
Wedding photo of O.E. and Luciester Pattison, 1938
An old miner named Joe Canard told O.E. Pattison about land on the other side of the mountains. O.E. Pattison took his Hudson sedan up the old toll road built by William Fraser that crossed the Río Hondo 12 times. The area that would later become known as Taos Ski Valley (TSV) was called Twining. All that remained from the height of Twining’s gold mining days were the ruins of the hotel that had burned down and a disabled mill.
The land O.E. Pattison purchased 1,500 acres just east of the Lake Fork branch of the Río Hondo in 1945. He acquired the land from the state of New Mexico for back taxes. It had been previously owned by a local family that purchased it from Fraser, owner of the Fraser Mountain Copper Company. There was already an easement in place from 1935, which guaranteed public access through the property for the Wheeler Peak Trail. O.E. Pattison began a process to clear the title from all the past claims on the land. From the days of the Fraser Mountain Copper Company, there were many miners’ claims and investors who may have had an interest in the land. It took 10 years before all the issues were resolved and the title was clear. According to Carrie Leven, archaeologist for the Questa Ranger District of CNF, “Most of the land near Taos Ski Valley originally came Courtesy Pattison family
The old mill in Twining
Courtesy Pattison family
Portrait of William Pattison
Courttesy Pattison family
Twining cabins in 1900
Courtesy Pattison family
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The Thunderbird Lodge in Twining built by O.E. Pattison.
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from the Antoine Leroux Grant and was exchanged with the U.S. beginning in 1906, which was the founding of the Taos Forest Reserve, which became the Carson National Forest in 1908.” Other parcels were acquired and exchanged all the way through the 1950s. Through all this time, members of the Pattison family retained their land.
The family The Pattisons spent most of the first summer in the mountains in a military tent. Later, a stone cabin was built near the current location of the Pizza Shack with other cabins built over time. O.E. Pattison’s second wife, Luciester, received a master’s degree in education from Brown University in 1936. She studied to be a missionary, which was an unusual path for a woman to take at that time. She was working in a music store in Clovis when she met the widower O.E. Pattison, who had five children. According to Roger Pattison, “Luciester gave up her idea of what she thought God wanted her to do by being a missionary in a foreign country, in order to be a missionary to those kids.” She had an enormous influence over the family. During the four months of the summer, she helped pack up the entire farm operation from Clovis and move it to the mountains. Roger says, “What I remember most is how she was able to do so much with so little and never expected any more.” Most of the information that the family has about its history came from the careful notes recorded by Luciester. Using wood from his own sawmill, O.E. Pattison built the old Thunderbird Lodge on the foundation of the former Twining ore smelter. The lodge, later owned by the Brownells, was demolished in 2007. The Pattison family, however, was able to salvage some of the wood in hopes of using it for future building projects. After Blake arrived and began to establish TSV in 1955, the Pattison family subdivided and sold off some parcels for
homes and commercial businesses. Over the years, the Pattisons have dedicated land for roads and donated other parcels, including the land used for the Williams Lake hiking trail parking lot. In 1963, members of the Pattison family realized that to make it possible for people to enjoy recreation at TSV, more water rights would be needed. They purchased some water rights in the Río Hondo watershed and transferred them to the village.
The future Over time, the management of the land passed on to other family members. In 1996, Roger Pattison came to learn about the management of the land from his Uncle Buell. Roger Pattison also assisted with the efforts to incorporate TSV into its own village. He then took over management of the land on behalf of the almost 100 heirs who have an interest in the property. Seeing the demand for mountain recreation, Northside at TSV was established in 2006 and is overseen by Roger Pattison and his wife, Kerrie. The area was named for its north-facing mountains, but coincidentally, there was a mining claim called Northside on that land during the prospecting era, which the Pattisons did not know about at the time the recreation area was named.
Mountain bikers, hikers and trail runners come from all over the country to use the area. There are more than 18 miles of reclaimed mining roads used for trails and 4 new miles of single track have been added by the Pattisons, working with volunteers from the local community. Organizations like the Rocky Mountain Youth Corps have helped improve forest health and decrease fire risk by undertaking forest-thinning projects. Through online resources, like the MTB project (mtbproject. com), which is sponsored by REI, the Northside trails are becoming well known in the mountain biking community. A fee for use is charged to maintain the area, pay for liability insurance and potentially establish new recreational activities, too. Now surrounded by CNF and TSV, the land has potential for many outdoor uses. In the past, the Pattisons have considered establishing a ski area here because the terrain lends itself to downhill skiing. For now, the area is open for summer and winter recreation. Guided snowshoe and snowmobile tours are offered during the winter. Summer horseback trail rides are available with Al Johnson of AA Wilderness Adventures. This was the second year for the Bull-of-the-Woods trail run, which took place on Sept. 16.
Two new activities are coming. One is touring by electric-assisted bikes. Working with a local contractor, Northside will host fat electric bike guided tours. There are also plans to create some backcountry rental cabins that would allow hikers to stay overnight and be able to hike Wheeler Peak Trail the next day. Although accommodations will be rustic, they will feature amenities the likes of composting toilets. Future adventures on the land could include things like zip-lining and alpine slides. Kerrie Pattison says, “People don’t want us to stop allowing the recreational uses. Every week, someone thanks us for the great mountain-biking experiences here.” The vision for Northside is consistent with O.E. Pattison’s wish for the land to be utilized as an area of relaxation and recreation. “The future is bright for Northside,” says Roger Pattison. “With new ownership in the Taos Ski Valley, as a village, we are maturing. There has been an influx of positive change and Northside has a lot to add. There are endless possibilities for recreation and we are excited to be part of it.” For more information about Northside, call (575) 776-3233 or visit ridenorthside.com.
Taos County was formed in 1852 and was one of the original 9 counties in the New Mexico Territory
taoscounty.org
File photo/Tina Larkin
To the Taos Pueblo community, buffalo are a symbolic and important part of life.
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Big, woolly creatures The history of Taos Pueblo’s bison herd
By Scott Gerdes
horns, fat, hides, meat and tail hairs.
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By the 1800s, horses provided American Indians a way to chase down bison, which expanded their hunting range. But the introduction of rifles and handguns by white fur trappers and traders killed an uncountable number of bison – just for the hides.
ong before people settled North America and centuries before Taos Pueblo had its own herd, millions of bison once roamed the grasslands of the American West. Weighing up to 2,400 pounds and standing about 6 feet tall at the shoulder, bison appear to lumber, yet are surprisingly quick. In fact, bison can run up to 35 miles an hour, rushing in to defend their calves or when humans get too close. Theirs is a matriarchal society, explained Richard Archuleta, a past Taos Pueblo war chief and former Bison Program manager through the Taos Pueblo Department of Natural Resources. “The cows make the decisions and the bulls just kinda hang out. The mothers are very protective. There are coyotes and dogs out there – if they think there’s a threat, the calves are circled by the cows and the young bulls position themselves out a little farther. It’s the young bulls who will charge the threat.” Bison have an inborn survival mechanism, which is to get their legs under them as quickly as possible, and Archuleta has seen that instinct in action when he witnessed a birth. “From the time she dropped it, to after cleaning it with her tongue, and the calf moved and stood up was 30 minutes,” he shared. The history of bison is coiled around American Indian adversity in the West. Abundant bison influenced American Indian tribes to settle in the grasslands. Native peoples came to rely on the mammal for everything from food and clothing to shelter and religious worship. (Today, most tribes still have a dance or ritual honoring bison. Taos Pueblo’s Buffalo Dance is held every Jan. 6 and is open to the public.) They used almost every part of the animal, including
By the middle of the 19th century, even train passengers were shooting the animals from the safety of the cars – just for sport. “Buffalo Bill” Cody, who was hired to kill bison, destroyed more than 4,000 of them in just a couple of years. Bison were a main feature of his popular “Wild West” show. To make matters worse, history documents show that U.S. government officials actively slaughtered wild bison to defeat the American Indians who stood up to the white settlers trying to take their land. American military commanders even ordered troops to shoot bison to deny American Indians an important food source. “They were trying to get rid of the ‘Indian problem’ by getting rid of the main food source,” Archuleta said. Because of that plight, the last known hunting excursion from Taos Pueblo was in 1888, when a group headed for the eastern plains, Archuleta told. Hunting groups were often gone for two to three months.
Panhandle,” Goodnight had a booming ranch in Clarendon, Texas. It is widely held that the book “Lonesome Dove” by Larry McMurtry is loosely based on the life of Goodnight and his longtime friend and business partner, Oliver Loving. While other white men were killing bison at will, Goodnight had a bison herd fenced in at Palo Duro Canyon in the Texas Panhandle. He experimented with crossbreeding longhorns and bison, but the experiment failed and the effort was dissolved. At the encouragement of his wife, Molly, the Goodnights saved bison calves, and the ranch became a seed stock for particular herds now roaming some of America’s national parks, such as Yellowstone. Goodnight bison DNA can be found in the Pueblo herd, as well, Archuleta said, referring to a gene project conducted by Texas A&M. After that chance meeting on the Texas plains, a comradeship developed. “Whenever they needed buffalo fat, hides, meat, they went to Goodnight,” Archuleta said. In May 1929, Goodnight gave the Pueblo a herd of 18 bison, and he and his wife visited his friends at the Pueblo on a number of occasions.
They were typically guided by individuals. Sometimes, the war chief would lead. They dried the meat before returning so that it did not rot in the hot sun. Archuleta is not sure if bison roamed the valley. Traditionally, “tribal members found them in the plains – the tall grasslands – all the way into the Texas and Oklahoma panhandles,” he said.
Since then, the Pueblo has imported other bison from different herds through the assistance of the nonprofit InterTribal Buffalo Council (ITBC), which is headquartered in Rapid City, South Dakota. ITBC was formed in 1990. The mission of the bison cooperative is “restoring buffalo to Indian Country, to preserve our historical, cultural, traditional and spiritual relationship for future generations.” Currently, ITBC has a membership of 55 tribes in 19 states with a collective herd of more than 15,000 bison. Taos Pueblo has been a member of ITBC since 1992.
After 1888, while traveling the plains, Taos Pueblo men happened to meet a successful Texas rancher named Charles Goodnight. Called the “father of the Texas
More bison came from the decommissioned Army depot Fort Wingate near Gallup, New Mexico, in the late 1990s. New Mexico Department of
Courtesy of the University of North Texas and Texas State Historical Association
Charles Goodnight
Game and Fish was using the 11,000-acre property to graze 60 bison and sponsored a lottery for three hunts of nine mature bulls. The rationale was since 10 to 15 calves are born each year, room must be made for new calves. Public and state pueblo outcry thwarted the plan in 1996. “The buffalo were dying of old age, we saw some poor-looking buffalo,” Archuleta recalled of the conditions at Fort Wingate. “They had little knobs for horns and ground-down teeth. Those animals were divided amongst four tribes and helped diversify gene pools.” In 1998, the tribe received 12 more bison from Badlands National Park. The herd number today stands at about 130 living on a 500-acre pasture near
Megan Bowers Avina
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The Taos Pueblo bison herd roams in their 500-acre pasture.
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Megan Bowers Avina
Richard Archuleta, 2016 Taos Pueblo War Chief and former Bison Project Manager standing with the Taos Pueblo herd.
the Pueblo. A veterinarian oversees the health maintenance of the herd. People at the Pueblo grow feed to supplement food during the winter months that they call “buffalo hay” (a mix of alfalfa and grass). Each year, Taos Pueblo harvests a certain number of bison for traditional and tribal consumption. The herd will be moving into new digs in a few years, informed Archuleta. In 2001, the Taos Pueblo Tribal Council passed a resolution setting aside Track A, a 16,000acre stretch from about the Río Grande Gorge Bridge to near Pilar. Within that stretch, 5,000 acres will be used for bison pasture. It is undergoing the eradication of sagebrush to allow natural grasses to grow, water development and fencing. The plan is to move the herd into the new pasture in 2020. Some of the “big, woolly creatures,” as Archuleta likes to call them, will be kept in the current pasture for traditional purposes.
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FRONTIER FIGHTS Juan Bautista de Anza, the Comanche and Taos
Courtesy of the Palace of the Governors Photo Archives (NMHM/DCA), Negative Number 050828
Spanish Capt. Juan Bautista de Anza portrait dated 1774. The original painting is attributed to Fray Orci in Mexico City.
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he mid-1700s brought Spain face to face with all the challenges of controlling its frontier empire in the Americas from the natives — especially in Nuevo México. The Pueblo Revolt of 1680 had reordered the Spanish worldview so that, upon their return, they could live in relative peace among the Pueblo people. But the Spanish weren’t so lucky with the other native tribes that roamed from the Great Plains to beyond the Rocky Mountains in what is now Colorado, New Mexico, Texas and Arizona. As the Spanish encroached more and more on the historic lands of the Apaches, Navajos, Utes and Comanches, everyone jockeyed for power and position. Alliances came and went; for many of the indigenous people, warfare and plunder were preferable to sedentary life. All the while, the Spanish struggled to find and retain allies in the frontier. Taos sat right in the middle of the ebb and flow of these relationships, what historian Peka Hamalainen called a “confusing, multisided conflict in which the distinction between enemies and allies was often blurred and in which terror was a key weapon.” Not only was Taos home to an established American Indian pueblo along the Río Grande and a collection of Spanish land grants, it was also the site of long-standing annual trade fairs, where antagonists set aside their differences in order to barter and exchange goods. Even the powerful Comanches, who routinely raided across the region, came to Taos for commercial gain. But keeping the peace was harder than even material gain could offset. In 1759, several bands of northern Comanches were trading at Taos Pueblo when some were attacked by Spanish Taoseños. Several dozen Native Americans were killed. A year later, some 3,000
Comanches showed up, ostensibly for the fair. But when some locals blatantly danced with 24 Comanche scalps, the Comanches descended upon the armed hacienda of Marciel Torres and his extended family on Aug. 4, 1760. After a pitched battle, the Comanches overran the compound, killed 64, captured 54 and rode away.
bison horns he wore on his headdress. Cuerno Verde held a death grudge with the Spanish over the killing of his father in Ojo Caliente in 1768. It didn’t take long for Bautista to realize that he would have to defeat Cuerno Verde in order to gain some control of the Comanche problem; that is, to “cut the head off the snake.”
But true to their mercurial nature, the Comanches showed up the next year at the Taos trade fair seeking to ransom many of those same hostages taken during the attack. But the locals turned on them, leaving some 400 dead and the Native Americans in flight.
Reports from scouts and friendly Native Americans indicated that Cuerno Verde and his warriors were marauding on the Front Range of the Rockies just south of the Arkansas River near today’s Pueblo, Colorado. Without delay, Bautista made preparations for battle.
Over the next decade, the Comanches raided the area, especially the sedentary pueblos of Pecos, Picuris, Cochiti, Nambé and Galisteo. And they kept showing up in Taos to trade. Into this morass rode Juan Bautista de Anza, named governor of the New Mexico territory in 1777. Born in Sonora, Mexico, of Basque descent, Bautista had a reputation for intellect, tenacity and fair play. He arrived in Santa Fe after establishing the first route to Spanish missions at Monterey and San Francisco Bay, fighting the Apaches along today’s U.S.-Mexico border and giving aid to the starving Moqui (Hopi) – among other achievements. His orders were to establish frontier forts to protect the settlers and allies, create an alliance with the most powerful Native Americans in order to suppress other tribes and resettle the nomadic tribes into villages. Bautista knew that to accomplish these goals, he would have to “cut off the head” of the most powerful tribe, the Comanche, in order to bring them into the Spanish fold. From his earlier battles with Native Americans, Bautista knew that the Comanche, like most Western tribes, were without formal leadership. More than a dozen autonomous bands roamed New Mexico, and no one spoke for the whole. In the north, the Cuchanec band marauded under Tabivo Naritgant (“Dangerous Man”), a Comanche war chief the Spanish called Cuerno Verde (Green Horn, aka “The Cruel Scourge,” as called by Bautista) because of the green-tinted
On Aug. 15, 1779, he left Santa Fe with 600 armed men, many Puebloans, 2,500 horses and another 200 Utes and Jicarilla Apache who rendezvoused at the Chama-Río Grande confluence. Rather than taking the more exposed route over La Veta (Sangre de Cristo) Pass, they stuck to the west side of the San Luis Valley and reached the Arkansas River below Poncha Pass on Aug. 26. Historians believe Bautista’s forces went north and crossed Trout Creek Pass, arriving at what is now Colorado Springs by Aug. 30. There, they caught the trail of the Comanche and headed down Fountain Creek and back over the Arkansas River. Bautista’s forces surprised a Cuerno Verde encampment near Pueblo and a running battle ensued. The Spanish killed 18 Comanche, took many women and children into captivity and earned spoils for their Native American allies.
Teodoro del Croix, who, as the story goes, sent it up the chain of command until it reached the Vatican Library, where it is believed to be to this day.
LEYENDAS
By Andy Dennison
‘Born in Sonora, Mexico, of Basque descent, Bautista had a reputation for intellect, tenacity and fair play.’
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It took another seven years to secure full peace, in great part because the Comanche people didn’t have a singular titular head who would speak for all of them and be responsible for upholding treaty conditions. During those intervening years, Bautista kept putting the squeeze on the Comanche, both by spurring the Apache to attack them and also by barring the Comanche from the lucrative Taos trade fairs. In 1785, 400 Comanches came to Taos seeking amnesty from the Spanish. Later that year, another 120 Comanches showed up with buffalo meat to trade. They also returned two captives from previous raids and left another two of their own in good faith.
The next day, Sept. 3, Cuerno Verde sought revenge by attacking Bautista with just 50 warriors. The results were predictable: Bautista lured the Comanches into a narrow gully near today’s Colorado City and Cuerno Verde was killed, along with his sons and captains.
In 1786, Gov. Bautista and designated Comanche spokesman Ecueracapa signed a treaty on the banks of the Arkansas. Among other conditions, the Comanche agreed to “share friends and enemies” of the Spanish and fight against the southern Apache tribes, which were still pushing against Spanish control. The Spanish offered full trading rights in Taos and Pecos and agreed that no Europeans would be permitted in Comanche villages on the Plains.
Today, the mountain above the battle site is named Greenhorn Mountain, and Greenhorn Creek runs nearby.
The treaty endured for 30 years until Mexico won its independence from Spain and took over Nuevo México.
Bautista returned to Santa Fe with Cuerno Verde’s headdress as proof of his victory. He gave the headdress to his commander,
Bautista relinquished the governorship in 1787 and returned to his native Sonora, where he died a year later.
RESOURCES: “Forgotten Frontiers” by Alfred Barnaby Thomas; “Comanche Society: Before the Reservation” by Gerald Betty; “The Comanche Empire” by Peka Hamalainen; New Mexico Office of the State Historian; “Hispanos: Historic Leaders in New Mexico” by Lynn J. Perrigo; New Mexico Historical Review (var.).
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