March 15, 2006 - Pecos Ruins and Casita
I thought I’d put up a couple pictures of the small house or casita that we rented in Santa Fe, just south of the Capital.
It’s a very “cozy” neighborhood - there’s a 5 way intersection about a block before the casita. The inside had a big room, kitchen, and bathroom.
On the way home we stopped at Pecos Ruins, which was a very large settlement of upwards of 2,000 people in Pueblo days.
The settlement had a stone wall around it - it was a boundary as many visiting tribes would trade and camp in the meadow below and were not permitted to cross the wall after dark.
Like other ruins, this one had a number of kivas, or underground ceremonial spaces.
This photo shows a juxtaposition between the traditional and colonial. There is a kiva in the foreground and the ruins of a large Spanish mission church. The first missionaries built a church much larger than this one, converted the Indians and forbade their customary practice. A while later, there was a revolt and the church was destroyed and the colonizers kicked out. About 60 years later, the missionaries came back, built a smaller church and looked the other way at the traditional worship.
