The Diaries of John Gregory Bourke Volume 4: July 3, 1880--May 22, 1881

18. In and Around Santa Fe

362 Chapter 18 ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ In and Around Santa Fe A pril 16th 1881. From my rambles around Santa Fé, I have seen much to impress me with the great changes wrought within the past decade. The newspapers are no longer issued in Spanish, and with the advertisements, store-signs &c are painted entirely in English. Numbers of private houses are finished with tin roofs, & painted, plastered and decorated in such a beautiful manner that they would be an addition to any young city. The streets are still filled with droves of burros tottering under immense loads of leña (fire-wood) and driven along by stealthy-footed Indians robed in the old-time serape. It is a city of the past, awakening to a newer and more vigorous life, but yet one in which the remains of forgotten generations shall long present lessons of instruction and interest to the student and traveller. Lieut. Emmet and I drove in an ambulance to Tesuque, 10 miles from Santa Fé. This pueblo, of which I shall at another time, make a more careful examination and more detailed description is composed of adobe houses all of two stories and facing upon a common plaza or square. This plaza is faultlessly clean, and the same praise rightfully pertains to everything visible in the village. The Indians themselves are short and squatty, but powerful in build and pres- In and Around Santa Fe 363 ent a remarkable similarity to the Apaches. We saw a couple of old squaws sitting in what little sunlight struggled through the lowering clouds, and near them were two half-grown boys bearing on their backs huge bundles of firewood. We asked one of the old women to point out to us the house of the “gobernador”. She understood Spanish and directed one of a party of little boys and girls to show us the way; the little girl not alone but the whole gang with her obeyed the order. We were marched over to the other side of the plaza and observed on our way that the chimneys of the houses were made of earthenware pots, placed one upon another and coated with mud, that upon the roofs in nearly all cases were bake-ovens, as already described and that to enter any house, it was necessary first to ascend a ladder to the roof of the first story and then descend to the living rooms. Because we did not attend to this last peculiarity, we walked quite around the residence of the gobernador, followed by the whole swarm of boys and girls laughing and screaming at our ignorance. At last, we found the proper ladder and climbed to the second story. This was built upon the first, but the walls were not, as with us, flush with the front walls of the edifice. They receded in such a manner as to leave platforms in front; this was the roof of the first story and was formed of round pine logs; covered with small branches and afterwards plastered smoothly with mud. Almost immediately behind us, bearing a baby upon his back, came the “gobernador” himself. He invited us to descend again into the house which alto’ a trifle close was clean and in good order, warmed by a bright fire of cedar knots blazing on the hearth in one corner. We were first presented to his wife and little daughters; the former making moccasins with soles of rawhide; the latter grinding upon metates. 364 The Bureau of Ethnology First, the “gobernador” or “cacique”, (he acknowledged both titles.)1 showed us two silver headed batons of office; one, marked in plain script “President Lincoln á Tesuque, 1863”, and the other, unmarked, received from the Mexican Government before the coming of the “Americanos”. Hanging on the wall alongside of these was a doll-figure of San Antonio and several very crude and timeblackened holy pictures from Mexico. A very small window of nine lights opened upon the plaza. I asked the gobernador what material was employed before they had glass; he answered promptly “yeso”, (selenite) but added now there was not a single pueblo employing that material “en ninguna parte”.2 A couple of Apache baskets lay in one corer; I inquired whence they came; “de los Apaches”—he replied—“Nosotros cambiamos nuestros géneros por los de los Apaches cada año”.3 Then he showed us a gourd rattle (filled with stones) and...