While a person might think this is a history defined solely through historical facts, it is important to understand this history is still embedded within the people who reside among the nineteen villages (pueblos) that are situated along the Rio Grande Valley. Distinct from the Hopi or Navajo peoples, many Puebloan people share the same language and traditions while others speak different languages and participate in clearly defined and localized practices. But however similar or different, the point remains: these 19 Pueblos are distinct living cultures, whose peoples choose to preserve and practice their traditional beliefs within and against more dominant, oftentimes hostile, invaders who claimed and continue to claim title to a land that was not theirs, using strength as justification. But more about that later. For now, it is important to understand a few things about Cochiti Pueblo and the artist Virgil Ortiz.
Cochiti Pueblo: Then and Now
Cochiti Pueblo is one of the nineteen pueblos previously mentioned, each of which is a sovereign nation with its own culture, government, and tradition. The Cochiti people are a Keresan-speaking people, a dialect cluster spoken by seven pueblos in New Mexico, for which there is no written language.
The Keresan name for the People of Cochiti Pueblo is K’úutìim’é, which means "People from the Mountains.” This is probably due to the fact their ancestors lived in the cliff dwellings at Rito de los Frijoles in what has now become Bandelier National Monument. From the one group, several pueblos were established as the group divided: one group relocated to the Pueblo of Katishtya (now called San Felipe Pueblo) to the south, one to Potrero Viejo in the Pajarito Plateau in north central New Mexico, and one to a temporary location known as Hanut Cochiti that was located approximately 12 miles northwest of present-day Cochiti Pueblo – itself located on the west bank of the Rio Grande, about 35 miles southwest of Santa Fe, New Mexico – making it the northernmost
Keresan speaking Pueblo in the state.
In contrast to this long residence, the Spanish presence in what is now the State of New Mexico started in 1540 with Francisco Vasquez de Coronado who led his army into the region. The Spanish incursion into the Rio Grande Valley followed when one of Coronado’s lieutenant commanders, Hernando Alvarado, explored the area around Albuquerque, establishing what would become an important military headquarters for all the Spanish explorers who later ventured into this part of the country.
The Spanish first encountered the people of Cochiti in 1581, when Juan de Oñate, a Spanish conquistador, entered the pueblo. History has it that the Spanish first admired and respected the pueblo people for their farming techniques and willingness to trade. However, that relationship was soon to change.
Sometime in the early 1600s, a Catholic mission was established at Cochiti Pueblo – with records showing that a church was established at the pueblo in 1642 (later named San Buenaventura in 1667). It was across this time frame that the Spaniards’ relationship with the pueblo people changed. The Spanish increasingly undertook measures to forcibly assimilate the members of the Cochiti pueblo and others into their worldview. Church missionaries attacked the traditional ceremonies and practices of the pueblo peoples, renamed the pueblos after Catholic saints, destroyed their cultural artifacts, attempted conversion, and tortured members for practicing their beliefs, even forcing them into labor and slavery. One example is Franciscan Fray Alonso de Posada (1656-1665), who outlawed Kachina dances by the Pueblo people and ordered the missionaries to seize and burn their masks, prayer sticks, and effigies. The Franciscan missionaries also forbade the use of psychoactive substances in traditional ceremonies. Additionally,
representatives of the Spanish government
forced members of the pueblo to pay taxes –
payment of which was accepted through crops or work. The assault on pueblo peoples’ traditions was fully endorsed by the
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