NM08 - Native Culture — Sacred Dance

The first time I went to the corn dance at Santo Domingo Pueblo many years ago, the trancelike pounding of the drums, the soaring songs of the men’s chorus and bells and rattles of hundreds of dancers moving in unison affected me powerfully. The beauty and pageantry of the ceremony cast a spell over me that day, and I’ve returned every Aug. 4. Santo Domingo is one of the 19 pueblos that invite respectful visitors to share in their ancient ritual dances that have entered into another century.

One of the best things about living in New Mexico is living among its Native cultures. Ancestral Puebloans settled in villages in New Mexico, mostly along the Río Grande, around 1300 A.D. and 19 pueblos remain today. Most pueblos welcome visitors throughout the year, but feast days are particularly special. A pueblo’s feast day honors that pueblo’s Catholic patron saint, but their traditional religion still plays an important role.

While the pueblos have much in common, each is a separate community with its own traditions, language, government, and ways of doing things, not unlike states. In addition to Santo Domingo, I try to visit Taos Pueblo every Sept. 30 for its San Geronimo Day. Early morning foot races are staged in front of the northern adobe room block, with Taos Mountain in the background. Women in colorful shawls gather on the rooftops with children, and men spur the runners on with trilling cries. When the racers finally appear — boys and men dressed in breach cloths, body paint, honor feathers, and ribbons — they divide into two groups for the relay races. The racers are rewarded for their efforts with candy and other treats thrown to them by spectators on the rooftops and along the raceway. In the afternoon, sacred clowns, called chi-pu-nah or koshares, appear and play tricks on the crowd. They then gather around a peeled smooth, tall tree pole set up in the plaza and attempt to climb it. Eventually, one clown makes it to the top and claims the prizes tied there — a loaf of bread, a canteen of water, and a sheep. All day long at Taos Pueblo, visitors can shop the vendor booths for jewelry, pottery, rattles, and other art, and eat horno bread and Indian tacos at food booths.

Another memorable feast day is held Sept. 2 at Acoma Pueblo. Acoma is one of the oldest continuously occupied villages in the United States. It sits atop a 357-foot high mesa and is reached by hiking/climbing on a path through the rocks or by special buses. Deer dancers dressed in white knit kilts and deer antler headdresses thread their way through the centuries-old paths, lined with adobe homes, to the plaza, where crowds gather to watch them. The wide-open spaces of the distance at the edge of the mesa make it seem that the dancers were performing their ritual on the edge of the world, and I could see why Acoma is called the “Sky City.”

Shalako is a ceremony that takes place each year at Zuni Pueblo south of Gallup, at the end of November or early December. On the night of the ceremony, six towering Shalako figures emerge from the darkness near a playing field, and then enter the village after a ceremonial welcome. Each is a kachina (deity of a specific realm) figure that proceeds to a special house that has been prepared for the ceremony. Visitors crowd around the windows outside the homes to watch the ritual inside, which includes elders singing the entire history of the Zuni people in rooms decorated with stuffed deer and elk heads draped with turquoise and silver necklaces. When I attended, ceremonial runners took off into the night on some mysterious errand. My friend and I also spotted mudhead kachina figures knocking at the door of one home, regaling the owners with jokes (similar to the sacred clowns I saw at Taos). Dances go on throughout the night at the special homes. We left around 3 a.m., but returned the next afternoon to watch the Shalako figures race back and forth on the playing field before leaving the village until the next year.

Because the feast day rituals are religious, usually no photography or recording of any kind is allowed. At first, this caused me regret as I longed to capture the beauty of the stimulating scenes. However, I have come to appreciate just being there and soaking up as much as possible — it’s good to seal the images in my mind’s eye and be fully focused on the events. Photo permits can usually be purchased for regular (non-feast day) visits and tours. Always check at the tribal office or visitor center for rules and permits.

Each of New Mexico’s pueblos holds special events and they are among the most colorful events travelers can witness anywhere in the world. Some of my glimpses of these timeless ceremonies include waiting in the pre-dawn on Jan. 23 at San Ildefonso to see dancers in animal costumes come over the horizon of a small hill at daybreak, then enter the village and dance; following dancers at Santa Clara as they perform in three small plazas; watching dancers at Jemez Pueblo during a gentle snowfall in early December and colorfully costumed Comanche dancers at Nambe and Ohkay Owingeh (San Juan). Other trips special to me include the turtle dance at Taos on New Year’s Day, the deer dance at Tesuque, the corn dance at San Filipe, and the ram dance at Picuris.

All of these ceremonies are performed with serious intent and solemn purpose as they have been for centuries, sometimes in secret to avoid religious persecution. Much of what I’ve seen is mysterious to me, as outsiders may witness but should not question what is happening. Questions are usually not welcomed, so I contain my curiosity and just enjoy the richness of what’s available to me as a spectator. At an early visit to Santo Domingo’s corn dance, a homeowner invited us to watch the dancers from his shady front porch. He brought us water and told us that we, as spectators, were important to the ceremony, as it is necessary to have witnesses. Honored, I do my part, and witness as many ceremonies as I can.

Jean Kepler Ross is an award-winning writer/photographer based in Santa Fe. Her work has been featured in Glamour magazine, Los Angeles Times, San Francisco Examiner, Ad Week, and Home & Away. She was editor of GuestLife New Mexico for four years and continues to explore New Mexico’s unique cultures.