Picuris Pueblo
Picuris Pueblo is an Indigenous community located about 50 miles north of Santa Fe in what is today known as the Sangre de Cristo mountain range. Traditionally a Tiwa-speaking people, their ancestors have lived on the same village site since at least 900 CE, making Picuris a contender for the longest continuously occupied settlement in North America.
During the 1960s, Picuris collaborated with archaeologist Herbert Dick to excavate portions of their old village as part of a salvage project in advance of the construction of new water lines for the community. That work resulted in the recovery of one of the largest heritage collections of ancestral belongings from a Pueblo community, some of which were featured in a tribal museum built during the 1970s. It has since closed, but the tribe is in the midst of expanding and redesigning their museum with plans to include a curatorial facility and research space, so that they can bring all their ancestral belongings home and engage them directly in their various heritage initiatives.
Beginning in 2017, Picuris again invited a team of archaeologists to partner with them, now amidst a growing set of struggles to reclaim and protect land and water lost during centuries of colonial dispossession. Some members of the 2024 TAG organizing committee are on that team, spending their summers on the reservation documenting archaeological landscapes at the request of the Picuris Governor and Tribal Council. Their research is directly overseen each day in the field by a Picuris elder—Richard Mermejo—who excavated as a child with Herbert Dick back in the 1960s.
Modern Picuris is a small Indigenous nation with about 200 enrolled members. The community has worked hard to innovatively develop its local economy even as it holds close to its ancestral traditions. Most recently, this has included a major expansion of their photovoltaic facility, which will soon power the entire tribe with renewable solar energy. Collaborating with archaeologists is another part of their strategy for the future, as the tribe looks to reopen its tribal museum, establish a Tribal Historic Preservation Office, build a local tourist economy, and mobilize archaeological data to legally defend their ancestral lands.
A portion of the old pueblo at Picuris, 1900
Pre-colonial walls are still standing in parts of Picuris Pueblo. Unlike Pueblo architecture during the colonial era, which widely adopted adobe bricks in the style of the Spanish colonists, the walls in this image are constructed of coursed adobe, laid down in long bands of clayey sediment, similar to the construction of coiled pottery.
The San Lorenzo de Picuris Church
The missionary project began during the early 17th century at Picuris when tribal members were forced to build a large church and convento complex at the edge of their pueblo. The initial church was destroyed in 1680 when Picuris joined the other Pueblo communities and their Apache allies to successfully oust the Spanish colonists for over a decade. The Pueblo Revolt of 1680 was the largest and most successful anti-colonial effort in North American history. The current church at Picuris was built in the early 18th century, following the return of the Spanish, and has been periodically remodeled since then.
Jicarita Peak, Picuris’ sacred mountain
The Picuris horizon is dominated by Jicarita Peak, located about 15 miles to the southeast. Jicarita is the tribe’s sacred mountain, a place of ceremonial commitment as well as an important part of the tribe’s local ecology. Two glacial lakes at the top of Jicarita Peak mark the start of the Picuris watershed. Since the early 19th century, neighboring settler communities have increasingly diverted water out of the watershed, and Picuris continues to advocate for the protection of their ancestral lands.
Picuris dances at Columbia University on Indigenous Peoples’ Day, 2022
As part of an effort to provide leadership opportunities for the Tribal Youth Council, a delegation of Picuris youth and elders traveled to New York City to visit ancestral collections at the American Museum of Natural History. The trip overlapped with Indigenous Peoples’ Day, and the delegation generously offered to perform their Basket Dance on Columbia University’s campus as part of the day’s celebrations.
T A G S A N T A F E 