A little bit of information leads to flights of imagination...
A native Puebloan born at Abo, Esteban Clemente, served
the priests of the mission San Gregorio east of the Manzano Mountains in the
mid 1600s. Little is known of his early years, but extant records describe his
skills as a linguist, as he spoke not only the five major languages of the
Pueblos, but Apache as well, and Spanish, which he wrote as well as spoke.
As a young man, he
probably was one of the Indians that accompanied a military expedition
beginning in Santa Fe led by Captains Diego del Castillo and Hernan Martin in
1650 and a later one with Diego de Guadalajara in 1654 to the three forks of
the Concho River (near present day San Angelo, Texas) that revisited the land
of the Blue Nun story of the Jumanos from the 1620s. One of the pueblos in the
Salinas area was a Jumano town, part of the great Jumano trade circuit from
modern day Ojinaga to San Angelo to the Monzanos.
He later served as a trader, meeting Apaches from the
Siete Rios area (modern day Artesia to Carlsbad), but also fought with the
Spanish against Apaches from the west. Clemente may have been involved since
the 1850s as an unsanctioned (by the Spanish) trader with the Jumanos, and may
have initialized the friendly contacts with the Siete de los Rios Apaches
during those travels. In years of plenty the Apaches traded with both the
Pueblos and the Spanish, but during droughts, the Apaches raided the farmers
and herdsmen. He was appointed the
Indian governor of the pueblos of the Salinas region east of the Monzanos,
entrusted with the salt mining and its transportation that the Puebloans had to
perform in tribute to the Spanish. Clemente was allowed to utilize livestock,
and also became a carreta caravan contractor, sending men and goods down the
Camino Real to Chihuahua.
The clergy, mired in the rigid fundamentalism of the
Inquisition, forced Clemente to write and sign a document condemning the
kachina ceremonies dances, adding it to further denunciations of the Spanish
governor who had proclaimed the dances harmless and could be continued. Severe
drought began in 1666 and continued for 4 years. Clemente, like many of the
Pueblos, believed that the cessation of the kachina ceremonies had caused the
drought, and he recanted his Christian conversion and renounced his allegiance to
the Spanish flag. He organized a rebellion, enlisting the aid of the Apaches,
and planned to drive all of the horses of the Spanish deep into the Manzanos
during the Easter week of 1670, but he was betrayed, tried, and hanged. Popay used his strategy to successfully oust
the Spanish from New Mexico 1680.
In the 1680s the Jumano Sabeata would be referenced in
Spanish documents as a leader of the Jumano trading network, who would bring
proof of LaSalle along the Texas coast to authorities in Parral, Chihuahua. The
longest recorded documented interaction between Sabeata and Spanish authorities
occurred during Captain Juan Mendoza’s travels from La Junta de los Rios to the
head of the three Concho headwater streams in 1684. In 1683 Sabeata had come to
the refugee residences of the displaced northern New Mexicans near present day
El Paso and reported a great burning cross over Las juntas de los rios and
organized the construction of chapels for Spanish priests to come minister to
the people modern Presidio valle . References from the time leave many gaps,
making it difficult to understand the evolving politics.
Sabeata and Clemente probably met, although there is no
written record. Clemente was born in the 1620s, and Sabeata in the 1630s,
probably less than 10 years apart. Both were men of the second generation of
native Americans dealing with the Spanish. Sabeata’s people had seen the
decimation of tribes further south, the violence of forced imprisonment as
labor in the silver mines that enriched a handful of “penisularios”, the
Spanish born priests and administrators that ruled Mexico by force. Clemente’s grandfather had seen the forceful
possession of the northern pueblos, and told the story of the killing of 800
members of the Acoma Pueblo in 1599. Their people did not actively resist the
demands of tribute, but studied the Spanish and their ways, and Clemente had
proven most adept at mollifying the conquerors.
Hundreds of Puebloans had died. By the summer of 1669
drought burned the landscape for a third year. The seed stored for future
planning was gone, taken by the Spanish.,. Trading bands of the Jumano visiting
the salinas reported drought conditions at Junta de los rios and along the
Conchos, although both had crops maturing in the sandbars and oxbows of the rivers. They had brought tropical birds to trade for
the salt, knowing the Puebloans would want those most special messengers to the
gods in this great time of drought. Birds and their feathers helped the
Puebloans to communicate with the powers greater than them.
After they
received the salt, the Jumanos travelled to the breeding grounds of the buffalo
along the watered eastern side of the Llano Estacado. There, a stampede drive was
done (where buffalo would be killed by falling off of a cliff). With the help
of bowmen on the back of the handful of horses the Jumanos owned, it was the
most efficient way of killing enough buffalo to harvest enough to supply meat
for the winter. Clemente arranged for Puebloan hunters to join them on the
backs of some of the horses the Spanish had entrusted to him for the benefit of
the Pueblo and their economic endeavors. Other Puebloans with access to horses
did the same.
To successfully bring meat back, it had to be stored away
from the pueblos, and its presence hidden from the Spanish. The Spanish could
not learn of the efforts, nor accidently discover the activity during any
military patrols. Clemente arranged for porters from several pueblos to meet
the hunters near the pictographs at a location known in modern times as the
Rocky Dell pictograph site, near the modern Texas state line, along the
escarpment of the Llano Estacado just south of the Canadian River. The hunters used travois behind both dogs and
horses to haul the dried meat and hides to a meeting place not far from Rocky
Dell.
At Rocky Dell is a pictograph of a horned serpent,
Awanyu, the guardian of waters. The Puebloans performed a four day ceremony at
Rocky Dell in honor of Awanyu. The priests of Clemente’s pueblo had liked his
suggestion holding a ceremony far from Spanish influence, and not allowing anything of Spanish influence to
be present even in camp – not even the horses, or metal lance and arrow points.
Apricot and apples would not be allowed, nor the sprouted wheat atole that many
had grown to consider a staple.
Awanyu had come with the stories and seeds of the
different varieties of corn many generations before – as the food moved north,
so did the stories, and the understanding of basic farming techniques, and the
rituals needed for agricultural success. The priests of Paquime had traveled
far and wide, replacing the old stories of Kokopelli and his podcorn, with
tales of Awanyu and the power over water. People of knowledge must teach, for
it ensures the improving survival of following generations.
Prayer sticks
ornamented with feathers were used in prayer. An intricate structure of
symbolism grew around the different species of birds, including those from far
away that were traded for when special prayers were needed. The colors and directions
from where the birds came were important, too.
As farming and trading people, the Puebloans devoted much
of their time in keeping the world holy and moving in harmony. Puebloan
communities are divided into summer and winter moieties, with each group in
charge of their season’s rituals, as well as the government of village life
during those six months. Each clan in the village had different roles in the
rituals, and only that clan possessed the knowledge of its part in the rituals.
Since the Spanish
had come, the “corn maidens” had left. The long drought was the apocalyptic end
to 70 years of horror. Thousands of people had died, not only from war and
enslavement, but disease and now starvation, too. The ritual at Rocky Dell had been discussed
for a year or more.
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