Monday, December 21, 2009

Puye Cliff Dwellings

I never get tired of all the cool places to visit, that are only a few miles away from my house. Last weekend we were on our way home from stinkin' Wal-Mart in Espanola, and decided to check out the Puye Cliffs, near Santa Clara. We thought it would be fun to take a short walk, but as it turns out you have to be in a tour. We forgot the backpack, and the tour was an hour, so we decided to do it later.

Their website said, "from the late 1100s to 1580 – Puye Cliffs was home to 1500 Pueblo Indians who lived, farmed and hunted game there. In the late 1500s, Puye Cliffs’ inhabitants moved into the Rio Grande River valley, likely due to drought that caused springs to dry up and crops to fail. Puye Cliffs’ inhabitants are ancestors of the present-day Santa Clara people, who now live at Santa Clara Pueblo, ten miles east of Puye."

The tour guide was telling us about all the Indian dances that we can see on Christmas. He explained that the tribes used Christmas as a cover for the celebrations that they usually have this time of year. On Christmas in San Juan we can see a dance where they wear the costumes that Kachina dolls are based off of, and all the men in the village have to sing and dance, and the people in costumes dance with a whip, and whip wrongdoers.

What made us really want to pack up the gang and go was that, if there are any politicians or cops present, they get whipped. And if there are any men who aren't dancing, they get whipped. I wish that every culture had something like that.

Wednesday, December 9, 2009

Snowy Day

We had a big snow storm earlier this week and Calvin has been having a blast playing in the snow. Here he is with our neighbor Erica. Erica was jumping off the little brick wall in my front yard into the pile of snow. Calvin got to try it for himself (with some help) and we then buried him in the snow.