Taos Pueblo, New Mexico

I had been skiing to Taos before, but I had not visited the Native American pueblo located just a couple of miles away. So, just before the new year, on my mother's recommendation, I decided to visit Taos Pueblo in northern central New Mexico.

The Acoma Pueblo with their famous Sky City on a mesa in central western New Mexico and Taos Pueblo each claim that they have oldest continuously occupied settlements in North America. Archaeologists tend to favor the Acoma's claim, but, in any case, Taos is ancient with its beautiful North House and South House that are each possibly more than 1,000 years old and are still used today as residences.

After the Spanish had conquered Mexico, they went into New Mexico in search of the fabled seven cities of gold. Unfortunately for the Spanish, there was no gold in New Mexico, and the fabled cities likely refer to the breathtaking Chaco Canyon complex which already lay in ruins for centuries before the Spanish arrived in the New World. The Spanish occupied New Mexico and the Spanish missionaries began to convert the native populations. In Taos, they built an adobe church in 1619. This church was destroyed and promptly rebuilt after the 1680 Pueblo Revolt that briefly drove the Spanish out of New Mexico. The church was again destroyed in 1847 in the war between Mexico and the United States for possession of this territory.

This photograph of the church ruins with its cemetery lies near the entrance to Taos Pueblo. The cemetery was in active use until 2006 and shows the strong influence of the Spanish Catholics in the region. Today, approximately 90% of the population of Taos Pueblo is Catholic.