Evening Republican, Volume 17, Number 168, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 16 July 1913 — AMERICAN'S STRANGEST CITIZENS [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

AMERICAN'S STRANGEST CITIZENS

WE of thlß vast America are fortunate in that by ordinary travel, without changing the flag and even without changing cars, we may fit our scenery and our people almost to our passing desires. We may substitute coast for prairie, mountains for plaihs, wilderness for city, desert for valley, palms for pines, summer for winter, cloud land for sea level, virtually at the whim of the moment. And lo! what a range of type from the ghettos of New York and Chicago to the French of Louisiana, the Mexicans of the southwest, the mountaineers of Tennessee, the negroes of Georgia, the Dutch of Pennsylvania, the Chinese of the coast, the Indians of the reservation! Half-reclining along the ruined wall surrounding the ancient pueblo of Taos, N. M., I thought upon these things, while before me weaved the busy daily life of this strange people —a life, unaltered like their mystical speech, through the centuries. Independent, careless of the recently-ac-quired statehood in which as citizens they were entitled to take pride, they pursued their even, picturesque ways, writes E. L. Labin in the Los Angelos Times. For this pueblo of Taos is the rival, in its. clannishness, of the far-famed Zuni, and in its type is more (perfect than Zuni. Its twain casas grandee, or great houses, the domiciles of the 500 people, rise in six and five terraces or stories, respectively, and are the best examples intact of the curious pyramidal construction. Virtually as described by the Spanish of Coronado’s expedition in 1540; the “Braba” of the natives, the “Valladolid” of Captain Alvarado, the “Taos” of modern date, stand these two casas grandee; and their dark-skinned fold tread the same routine. The pueblo was old in Captain Alvarado’s time, and is built beside the ruins of still a previous pueblo. What place in Europe can show a life of longer duration, and unchanged? Decidedly Moorish. In common with other pueblos—and there are many of them throughout New Mexico and Arizona —the Taos buildings are entered from the ground by means of ladders, which lead to the first terraces. Formerly the ground floor of the pyramids presented only blank walls, windowless and doorless, and the ladders and entrance through the ceilings constituted the sole means of incoming and forthgoing. But in these peaceful days there are doors and windows, and the ladders, instead of being drawn up for the night, remain in place night and day. ' The tiniest tots, and even,, the dogs, are expert in ascending and descending their rounds. ' From terrace to terrace are other ladders, and in places are merely crooked boughs—they and the adobe threshold worn smooth and deep bygenerations of moccasined feet. There 1b something decidedly Moorish in these terraced, castellated walls, joined by ladders; the windows paneless and narrow and thick of casement; the figures passing up and down, squatting in the sun, or carrying buckets of water upon their heads, and shrouded in many hued shawls, and white-booted. For this is the pueblo garb: Shawls, black, red, gray, for the women; and blankets, shawl-like, for the men; so that one must look to the feet to designate the sexes. The men wear the moccasin and the leggins; but the women wear a soft bootee, extending above the knee, of the whitest, finest doeskin. There is something Moorish, and decidedly foreign, in the gentle chatty murmur of the Taos tongue, as men, women and children moye hither and thither. This is the official language of the pueblo—the Taos dialect. Jealously guarded, confided bo rarely to strangers, far separated. But Taos is somewhat polyglot; it speaks Indian, it speaks Spanish, and it speaks, to n degree, English. Many of the boys are Bent to the school at Santa Fe, where they learn English and where they don coats and trousers. How-

ever, after their return po their own people they are given scant grace of two weeks by the elders, when they must resume shirt and blanket and moccasins and Taos speech or leave the pueblo grounds. Of dun adobe are the two stately edifices of the pueblo, one upon either side of the Taos creek, which flows sparkling and cold out from the snows of the sacred Taos mountain'to the northeast. The hundreds of rooms with which the piles are honeycombed are whitewashed with the native gypsum, low-ceillnged, cool in summer, warm in winter, ventilated by the deep casements which are closed by only wooden shutters. The furnishings are of the simplest—a bench-like platform, over which is stretched cowhide, for the bed, a corner fireplace as a stove, perhaps a stool. Connected with the living-rooms are the private storerooms or granaries, with their hoards of wheat, squash, red, white, and blue corn, and peppers. Graiif Trodden Out. The wheat has been trodden out, in fashion of Palestine, by cattle driven around and around over it; it has been winnowed by pouring it from vessel to vessel, that the wind might blow away the chaff; and it will be ground into meal by being grated between stoneß. The bread, in flat cakes, will be baked in conical cement ovens, of which a line, for common use, stands in front of each pueblo building. And in the beginning this grain was sown by hand and harvested ny the cradle and sickle. Here in Taos pueblo are perhaps the only stocks used today in America. Relics of old Mexican days, they are kept in the pueblo Jail, for tribal offenders who deserve more than simple confinement. For Taos makes Its own laws and deals its own punishments. It is a unity, like any other American town —strange though, as a town, it be. Its charter dates back to August, 1556, when by grant of the Spanish crown it became suzerain over a Spanish square extending a league in all directions from the site of the old church tower. By virtue of this charter and of possession it is recognized as a separate town and its populace as American citizens —the strangest citizens which the republic owns. Citizens who Vote not, save in their own annual elections for governor of the pueblo; who have no flag except the yellowed aspen boughs of their festival dances; who speak a language without a mate to it; who marry not and give not in marriage, outside their town limits; whose faith is-the faith unaltered of 500 years, knowing not church nor preacher, but pinned indefinitely to the son of Montezuma for whom every morn at sunrise a whiterobed sentinel watches from the rooftop. Through spring and summer the pueblo works in its fields. The United States department of agriculture furnishes an agricultural agent, who lives upon the grounds by Buffrance of the pueblo and teaches the Taosans how best to farm. But after the crops are harvested, then Taos plays, in a succession of feasts and dances which lasts throughout the fall and winter. The first festival is that of San Geronimo day, on September 30, when ostensibly in honor of the patron saint. Saint Jerome, young and old hold an all-day celebration, giving thanks for the harvest season.