MAURICE ARCHULETA IN THE HIGH DESERT SURROUNDING ABIQUIÚ


Maurice Archuleta is an artist attuned to the importance of community ceremonies and festivals as expressions of Genízaro identity. “Since I was a child,” he says, “I’ve learned our traditional stories, dances and songs.” Archuleta sees Abiquiú’s celebrations as a reflection of its unique history, including its relationships with surrounding Native com- munities and Catholicism. Drawn especially to ceremonial dance, he sometimes intro- duces new steps by watching Native Pueblo dancers. “I study their footwork,” he says.


AT THE GATE OF ABIQUIÚ’S OLDEST CEMETERY


A former land grant board member, Johnny Jaramillo often visits the gravesides of his wife and two sons. Now in his 80s, he re- members riding as a young man with his grandfather on a horse-drawn wagon up to his farm on the mesa within the Abiquiú settlement. There, his grandfather tended his crops. Today, Jaramillo maintains a cattle pasture and herds his cattle by horseback on the same mesa. “We need to preserve our unique heritage and cultural ways for future generations,” Jaramillo says. “We need to harness our history into opportunity.”


SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION 19


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