Situated along the Jemez River, a tributary of the Rio Grande flowing from the Jemez Mountains in north-central New Mexico, is Jemez Pueblo, known to its inhabitants as Walatowa for “this is the place.” It is also known as Village of the Bear. Walatowa is the only remaining ancestral homeland of the Towa, or Jemez. Its people have found a balance between modern and traditional ways. They have a secular tribal government with a tribal council, governor, two lieutenant governors, two fiscales who handle finances, and a sheriff. Traditional matters are still handled through a separate governing body, including spiritual and society leaders, a war captain or chief, and a lieutenant war chief. Traditional law forbids the Towa language from being translated into writing to prevent nontribal members from using it for their own purposes. Jemez is known for its storytellers and its potters, who specialize in polished red pottery.
Towa, pronounced TOH-wah, is the Native name for their village; Jemez, pronounced HAY-mess, or traditionally as HAY-mish, is a name applied to the river and pueblo by the KERES. The Towa language, along with the languages of the TEWA and TIWA, is part of the Kiowa-Tanoan language family. Like other PUEBLO INDIANS, the Towa are classified as part of the Southwest Culture Area (see SOUTHWEST INDIANS).
Towa tradition maintains that their ancestors reached the Jemez Valley from a place in the north known as Hua-na-tota—probably the Four Corners region—first settling along the upper tributaries of the Jemez River, then at many sites along the Jemez itself, where the soil was more suited for farming. Archaeology has confirmed this pattern of settlement, indicating the late 13th century as the time of migration southward. The first contact with Europeans occurred in 1541, when members of Francisco Vasquez de Coronado’s expedition visited their homeland, exploring out of Mexico on behalf of Spain. Other expeditions would follow. In 1598, a party representing colonial governor Juan de Onate visited the region; in the subsequent years, a Franciscan priest by the name of Alonzo de Lugo directed the building of the area’s first Catholic church at Guisewa (now the Jemez State
Monument in the village of Jemez Springs). The Spanish attempted to relocate the Towa to those pueblos with missionaries and soldiers, and, by about 1622, the various Towa villages in the region—as many as 10—were gradually abandoned.
The Towa offered some resistance leading up to the Pueblo Rebellion of 1680, in which the Tewa shaman Pope led a general uprising of all the Pueblo peoples against the Spanish, managing to capture Santa Fe and expel them for more than a decade. Because of their outlying location from Spanish activity along the Rio Grande, the Towa held out longer than other rebels, their homeland not reoccupied until 1694. The Towa staged another revolt in 1696, at which time they were forced to flee westward and take refuge among the NAVAJO, building temporary shelters. The refugees soon returned, however, and, with Spanish approval, established the pueblo known as Walatowa to the south of Guisewa.
Another Towa pueblo, Pecos, one of the largest of all the pueblos, was situated far to the east, about 30 miles southeast of Santa Fe, on an upper branch of the Pecos River. Because of its easterly location, Pecos was a trade center for people of varying cultures, including Spanish settlers and PLAINS INDIANS. Like the Towa of the Jemez Valley, the Pecos people in the course of their history were forced to accept and sometimes rebelled against the Spanish occupiers. They too participated in the Pueblo Rebellion and paid a price with loss of life following the Spanish reconquest. Its people also endured attacks by APACHE and COMANCHE. Other Towa pueblos in that region—as many as five—were abandoned during Spanish occupation. For a time, in the early 19th century, after Mexico’s independence and the deregulation of trade, Pecos became a regular stop on the Santa Fe Trail between Independence, Missouri, and Santa Fe. Yet epidemics further depleted the already decimated population, and in 1838 the last 17 Pecos survivors moved to Walatowa.
In 1936, Jemez and Pecos peoples were legally merged into one by an Act of Congress. Yet Pecos traditions have been maintained, and a governor of Pecos is still recognized, serving as the second lieutenant governor of Walatowa.
See CHEROKEE
World History
