Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1914-12-05
TRAVELETTE
BY NIKSAH.
Santa Domingo, New Mexico.

The honor of being the oldest city in
the United States has been claimed for
Santa Fe and for st. Augustine, ana
perhaps for some other places, but
these towns are veritable mushrooms
compared with the really ancient cities
of North America. Before ever white
man had crossed the Atlantic the Pueb-
10 Indians had built cities with houses
of several stories and walls three feet
thick-cities strategically perched upon
cliffs, with fortified roofs and ladders
to be withdrawn in the face of attack,
as effective as any medieval draw
bridge. Fields of corn and melons sur
rounded the towns, and the people had
turkeys and dogs as domestic animals.
In a word, they were complete munich
palities, self-supporting and self-gov-
erning, before Spain brought civiliza-
ton and bloodshed and slavery from
over the seas.
And IL permanence and long exist
ence of sunny peacefulness be the test
parison with any in the world. For
most of them still stand where they
were before the Spanish conquest, and
in some of them walls built hundreds
of years ago are still intact. But walls
are the shell of city, and traditions
the vital part, and in these the homes
of the pueblos have not changed a whit
Santa Domingo. a populous pueblo on
the Rio Grande. in central New Mexico,
is typical example. Its houses are
built just as they were in the days
when the Apaches besieged the city,
except that they are now entered by
doors on the ground floor instead OF
holes in the roof. The Pueblo is strong
for tradition, but he also loves the
sweetness of repose, and Is not the man
to climb forty feet and slide down
creased pole for the sake of his an
cestor.
Neither does he scorn to sell his
beaded buckskins to the foolish tourist
and bedeck himself in the overalls of
commerce; but try as he may, he cannot
fail to be picturesque He still wears
his hair in a short twisted queue woven
with strands of red wool. and his belt
is bedecked with silver patin. He rides
his horse with a bride woven of horse
hair of many different colors and brill
liantly betasseled, but he usually has
an eye out for some one who will buy
it. If he gets his price he will gallop
off without bride, disciplining his mus
tang by kicking him in the head. He
blankets that have made his name IA
nous. which he sells to the traders for
a dollar a pound and himself buys an
article made in Paterson. N. j.
But these modernizations are purely
superficial. The Pueblo buck is the same
knowing. humorous chap that he al
ways has been, and his towns are the
same spots of living color in the des-
ert, with sunlight shining golden upon
adobe walls and ripping green alfalfa
fields tinged with purple blossom and
little clustering orchards hanging over
walls. and straight bronzed women IN
red and black carrying water In tall
tina3as on their heads when the sun
turns the river to silver in the evening.
In Santa Domingo there is church.
where comes a priest of the church
each month, and also there is a "khfva,
and where the good bucks of Santa
Domingo still worship according to
the ancient rites. Why not please them
all? argues the willy buck. Surely two
religions are twice as good as one.
Would he become a Moslem or a Bud
drist? With pleasure, if there are feast
days to be observed.