#5 SCOOTER’S TRAVEL JORNAL – SANTA FE

If you are able, find the AkayaKana font and shift this blog’s content to that. How can you help but hear the beat of Native American drums in the design? Okay, fair enough, I admit that this font was designed by a woman in Bengaluru, Karnataka, India. However, like native Americans, the people of India have been beating rhythms from drums from as early as 200BCE.

Did you know that even back then—and I don’t even know if retrievers and poodles existed “back then”—but India’s two-headed Mridangam with its tunable drumheads was capable of producing both bass and treble tones. You can make one, if you have some jackwood, goatskin, and some leather straps for tuning.

The Native American drums, the ones we hear from New Mexico Pueblos are similar. These, however, usually two to three feet across, use native Cottonwood, Aspen, and Pine woods. Elk, deer, horse, buffalo, or cow skins are stretched at the heads, and held taut with sinew thongs. They often are decoratively painted. Let me tell you, these drums are thunder callers.

I think I just did what my mom does frequently. Notice of a font caused me to fly from my original thought to a fascinating diversion. Here then, what I meant to say.

I’m in Santa Fe.

Did you know that Santa Fe is the oldest state capital in the United States? Somehow, the people here have managed to successfully blend the cultures of Native Americans, the Spanish who came next, and the Anglos who eventually barged in. Here’s what I observe from my limited access to it all.

The Burning of Zozobra (Old Man Gloom) is New Mexico’s Native American tradition celebrated now for 99 years. Zozobra, a 50’ monster comes down from the Sangre de Cristo Mountains just before Festival and tries to steal away the hearts of Santa Fe’s children. His hope is to fill the city with gloom, spoiling the week of Fiesta. But, ha ha ha, the Fire Dancer arrives to enlighten the children, and Zozobra with all his gloom is burned to the ground. Fiesta is saved!

 Fiesta was brought by the Spanish. I’m not sure Fiesta started as early as 1540, when conquistador Don Francisco Vasques de Coronado established the Kingdom of New Mexico for the Spanish crown. In 1610, Santa Fe was established. Take that, Boston! Admittedly, Jamestown was already an experiment underway, but that didn’t last. Santa Fe did.

The story of Anglos coming to New Mexico, if I understand at all, is not a story for children. It seems European American trappers and explorers of the 19th century who came upon the Native Americans and the Spanish of New Mexico, came believing their culture, a bit superior to what they found in the southwest. “Hey, look at that canyon just over there? Isn’t that grand? Look at the abundance of wild game. Check out this climate! There are no fences. These people seem compliant. No one owns this fine territory. Let’s claim it. Sadly, that was the Anglo way.” But wait! That had been the way of wars between Native Americans. That had been the method of the invading Spanish. And then, the Anglos.

It's not entirely unlike what I am experiencing with the resident dog here where we are visiting. Otis, the resident Pug, holds the territory I have recently “invaded.”

By 1821, not without some difficulty, the Santa Fe Trail connected European Americans, New Mexicans, and Native Americans.

If I’m getting the gist, the good news is that New Mexicans have learned how to be a people of various cultures, languages, foods, arts, music, and ambitions. This high desert place of mountains, plains, rivers, and a crush of cultures is amazing.

Otis and I are, as the citizens of New Mexico have, working it out.