Bravo to Santo Domingo Pueblo

Bobbi's Errant Watch

Last week, I mentioned the Skip-A-Hose incident wherein I tried to save two and one-half seconds by stepping over the hose hanging out of my gas tank instead of walking around the car. Since that time, my bum back has been bothering me more. Result: I wasn’t walking well. More pain in the area where my back surgery took place a year ago.

Since that time, my friend J has gone on a house cleaning (make that read “clearing”) binge, giving away items she doesn’t use but which take up space. (A useful and likely healthful endeavor for all of us, by the way.) The long and the short of it is, she offered me her Health Rider. Given a recent doctor’s appointment wherein the medic roundly scolded me for weight gain, shortness of breath, lethargy (read laziness), and a general decline in healthy living practices, I accepted J’s offer.

The day arrived, and my machine was delivered. I had already contacted my physical therapist, who counseled light but consistent use of the machine at the beginning. We settled on two-minute sessions for the first week. That’s hardly worth doing, right? Well after 120 seconds on the Rider, my legs had turned to rubber and my lungs proved totally inefficient at drawing in life-sustaining oxygen. Nonetheless, I survived. It was only sometime later I realized my back wasn’t bothering me. I walked down the hill to get my mail and back up again, usually a taxing enterprise. No sweat!

Immediately, I became overly ambitious. The Burning of Zozobra at the Santa Fe Fiesta was coming up on the fifth of September. Did I dare try to go? My publisher, Robert Brown of Martin Brown Publishers, had discussed the possibility of promoting my book, The Zozobra Incident, at the event, but I’d already informed him I wasn’t capable of the enterprise. Was there hope now?

As I toyed with the idea, a dear friend of mine, Bobbi, called and asked if I wanted to go to the Santo Domingo Pueblo market on Saturday. I like Indian Powwow dances…Indian markets, not so much. Nonetheless, this was an opportunity to test my legs, so to speak. There would be lots of walking, much standing, and little opportunity to sit down.

I agreed, considering it as preparation for attending Zozobra a week later. Around ten a.m. on Saturday the 31st, we set off in Bobbi’s van for the pueblo, which is about halfway between Albuquerque and Santa Fe just west of I-25. Bobbi was decked out in a lot of Indian jewelry. Her family comes from Gallup, which is Indian Country, so she has lots of the stuff. On the way, she told me she’d lost her watch in Wal-Mart the other day, but she’d heard it hit the floor and recovered it. Now, she slipped the watch bracelet off her wrist and handed it to me to examine. The beautifully-worked gold bracelet was heavily studied with highly-prized, sky blue Kingman turquoise nuggets. The piece, fashioned and signed by a famous Indian craftsman, was given to her by her father in 1970. When I returned to the watch, she slipped it back onto her left wrist.

The big market held well over a hundred booths of silversmiths and goldsmiths and potters and weavers representing tribes and pueblos from all over the southwest. The dances were intermittent, low key, and designed only to provide a momentary diversion for the hundreds of visitors.

As expected, the walk was long, the shade scarce, and the seating non-existent. After an hour, I felt my back begin to tighten, and I was walking with considerable effort. Ten minutes of sitting in Bobbi’s van allowed me to walk around the market for another hour…most of it spent trying to locate her in the mob. Shortly thereafter, we decided to go to Bernalillo for lunch at the original Range Café, a local eatery of some note.

On the way, I decided I had handled the Santo Domingo Market okay but regretfully concluded I wasn’t yet ready to tackle the thousands of jostling, excited people at the Zozobra Burning in Santa Fe.

 

Halfway to Bernalillo, Bobbi let out a squawk, scaring me out of ten years of my life…years I can no longer afford, by the way. “My watch! It’s gone,” she said in a stricken voice.

I understood. A signed work of solid gold encrusted with Kingman nuggets had to be worth a chunk of change. Not to mention it was a gift from a father who was no longer with her.

Amid self-recriminations for not putting the watch in her purse or wearing a cheaper one, we turned the van around at the San Felipe Pueblo exit and returned to Santo Domingo. At a considerably faster pace, I might add. Speeding on the Interstate is one thing, but exceeding the limit on a pueblo was a much scarier prospect. Nonetheless, I held my trembling tongue even though I considered this a fool’s errand. A valuable bracelet dropped on the ground in the midst of a thousand milling shoppers was bound to have been snatched up by someone who would endlessly brag about the fabulous “bargain” they’d struck at the Indian Market.

When we arrived back on the pueblo square, Bobbi headed for the last couple of places she’d shopped while I went to the man controlling the loudspeaker. He made a public announcement notifying the crowd of the lost article and asking anyone who found the watch to bring it to the announcer’s booth. After thanking him and saying I’d check back later, I went on the hunt for Bobbi, my eyes scanning the ground for the glint of gold as I went.

I found her, and we continued the search together. After a few minutes, I went back to ask the man to repeat the appeal over the loudspeaker. As I approached, he wore a grin. I wasn’t yet out of sight, he said, when one of the booth holders brought the watch to him. But I’d been walking too fast, so he simply held onto it for us. I found Bobbi and she came to reclaim her property, a big smile on her face and a great load lifted from her shoulders. Then we went to Booth #57 to thank the lady who’d found the watch on her display table where Bobbi had reached to examine a pair of her earrings.

Kudos and thanks and loads of gratitude to a very honest and honorable Connie Calabaza of Santo Doming Pueblo…who’s not a bad jewelry maker, by the way. Thanks, Connie.

Then it hit me. The announcer had said I’d been “walking too fast.” Score one for me!

 

Next week: We’re inching closer to Bisti.

New posts are published at 6:00 a.m. each Thursday.

Zozobra’s not the only big doll we burn: Meet El Kookooee

Official Logo of elkookooee.org

Back in August, one of my first blog posts described the burning of a fifty-foot marionette called Zozobra or Old Man Gloom in Santa Fe. It turns out that’s not the only big doll we burn in New Mexico.

Leslie Linthicum’s UpFront column in the Albuquerque Journal on October 28 reminded me of our similar treatment of El Kookooee. This fellow’s an out-and-out boogeyman, designed to frighten children (and some adults?) into behaving, whereas Zozobra simply burns up our troubles and problems of the last year.

El Kookooee has existed for centuries in the Latin American cultures, known variously as El Cucui, El Coco, Cocoman…and El Koo-koo-ee. In 1989 or 1990 (reports differ), famed New Mexico author, Rudolfo Anaya, proposed to a group of Chicano artists in Albuquerque that they construct a figure of the boogeyman and burn him at dusk as a way of doing away with both personal and communal fears.

Since that time, the Festival de Otoño (the Autumn Festival) in Albuquerque’s south valley ends with the symbolic burning of this “bulto of fears.” The first effigy of wood, paper, and metal was sixteen feet tall. He’s grown to around thirty feet, but remains a static figure (unlike Zozobra, which is animated).

Ms. Linthicum’s article (which I recommend you read) describes this year’s conflagration of El Kookooee. She points out that Zozobra is a “relatively modern martyr sacrificed to exorcise our collective worry and gloom.” El Cucui, in one incarnation or the other, is a much older phenomenon used to keep mischievous children in line.

Photo Credit: Alibi.com

There is one other major difference between the burnings of Zozobra and Kookooee: The auto-de-fé kicking off the Santa Fe Fiesta the first Thursday after Labor Day in Fort Marcy Park is a highly commercialized, tightly controlled, pay-per-view extravaganza, while El Coco’s death this past October 28 in Bravo State Park off Isleta Boulevard SW in Albuquerque was free and open to the public with the atmosphere of a neighborhood celebration. Take your pick.

Next Week: How men fold fitted sheets

New Posts are published at 6 a.m. each Thursday

More Characters from The Zozobra Incident

In the real world: Last week’s Burning of Zozobra at the Santa Fe Fiesta got a little dicey. High winds delayed the firing of the monster for approximately an hour and a half. But there were still thousands in the park to cheer the ogre’s death. Last night’s local newscast told of a petition being circulated by locals to make the event into a family-friendly affair again. As the event has grown over the years, it has lost a good deal of that air. 

Last week, we learned additional information about some of the people who populate The Zozobra Incident. In addition to BJ, our protagonist, we took a look at Hazel Harris, his secretary, office manager, and surrogate mom. We also looked at Del Dahlman, BJ’s first love and first bitter disappointment, who was now a successful Albuquerque attorney. And finally, we gained some insight into Emilio Prada, the handsome gigolo responsible for breaking up BJ and Del. This week, let’s look at some of the other characters.

Detective Eugene (Gene) Enriquez was just shy of his 41^st birthday when we first met him in The Zozobra Incident. A local (he was born in Bernalillo, a town 15 miles north of Albuquerque) he was stocky, five-seven, and weighed 155 pounds. A Hispanic, he had vaguely Polynesian features a lot of women find attractive. After his army service, he went through the Albuquerque Police Academy and was sworn in as an officer. He walked a downtown beat, and even rode horse patrol for a short period, but his interest was in becoming a detective. Some years after he achieved his goal, he found himself assigned to a new partner…a gay partner. B. J. Vinson. It bothered him at first that BJ, who could have passed as a hetero, didn’t bother to deny his homosexuality when asked about it. Before long, he came to admire his new partner’s honesty. The guy was gay, and that was that. Once Gene learned he could trust his partner’s judgment and instincts, they got along professionally and socially. Gene took some flack from other cops about riding with a queer, but he was married to Glenda, an attractive woman with whom he had five kids, and he figured that provided all the cover he needed. He took it hard when BJ nearly died while they were apprehending an accused murderer, but he kept in touch when his partner took medical retirement and opened a confidential investigations office. He was one of the few people who knew BJ inherited a fortune upon his parent’s death. 

Paul Barton looked Hispanic to Anglos, and Anglo to Hispanics. When BJ first met him, the family name “Barton” took him by surprise. He expected it to be Spanish. But it was Paul’s mother who carried the Latin blood. Paul was born on June 13, 1985 in Albuquerque’s South Valley. That made him twenty-one at the time of The Zozobra Incident. BJ first spied him with a cowgirl on the dance floor at the C&W Palace, the city’s biggest boot-stomping joint, and was drawn by his good looks and lean frame. BJ later realizes the kid was the new lifeguard at the North Valley Country Club where he swam as therapy for the bullet wound in his thigh. Once he made the connection, the mutual attraction soon became evident. This was the first time BJ has been tempted since Del’s betrayal. But Paul was not only a lifeguard, he was also a full time student at UNM pursuing a degree in Journalism. He worked in the school’s cafeteria so he can live on campus his senior year. Paul was 5’11” and weighed 155 pounds. He had brown eyes, brown hair, a swimmer’s build, and has a small dragon tattoo above left nipple. Fiercely independent, he drove old Plymouth Coupe even though BJ offered to buy him a more recent model. He was an expert swimmer, played soccer and golf, and loved to dance. His father, Paul Barton, Sr., was a carpenter who died of TB when Paul was ten-years-old. His mother, Luisa Maria Arrullar de Barton worked two jobs thereafter to raise her son. He was exposed to gang activity in the South Valley, but resisted temptation to join. Once Paul and BJ get together, Paul was absolutely devoted, even though there were some stormy times ahead. 

And then there’s the fun character, the surprise, the widow. Mrs. Gertrude Wardlaw has lived across the street from BJ for as long as he can remember. He considered her as this frail diminutive old woman who wore her white hair like a helmet and spoke in a thin, tremulous voice. But when the chips were down, he learned she and her late husband Herb (whose ashes rested on her fireplace mantle) were both retired from the DEA, and she still had the spirit…as well as the will of a fighter. 

Next Week: We’ll have to wait and see.

Other Voices in The Zozobra Incident

 Today…or rather tonight…is the annual Burning of Zozobra, a historic event which plays an important part in the book. I had planned to be present and participate in the festivities, but my recent back surgery put an end to those aspirations. Would that I could be there! 

Last week, we learned a little more about the protagonist of The Zozobra Incident, BJ Vinson, so I thought it might be fun to take a deeper look into some of the other voices in the novel, starting with Hazel Harris, BJ’s office manager and surrogate mom. 

At the time the Zozobra Incident takes place, Hazel, who is a retired teacher and the best friend of BJ’s deceased mother, Frances, is sixty-three-years-old. She stands 5’5” and weighs 150 pounds. She is plump, rather dowdy, gray-eyed, and considers it her responsibility to be a stand-in mom. Although he tweaks her nose now and then, BJ puts up with Hazel’s smothering because he is truly fond of her. Besides, she’s runs the office—and sometimes him—efficiently and makes sure the clients pay their bills…something BJ wouldn’t be nearly as efficient at doing. Plump, efficient, and nosy, she reminds him of that sassy maid of comics and TV who runs the fictional Baxter household. She doesn’t approve of his gay lifestyle, but loves him like a son. We meet her throughout the series. 

Delbert David Dahlman, known as Del to his friends and associates, is slender, blue-(sapphire) eyed, blond, and trim with an athletic build (obtained in a gym). He stands 5’11” and weighs 160 pounds. Del possesses an eternally youthful appearance that seems to defy ageing. A Chicago boy who came to the UNM law school after high school, he’s practiced mostly corporate and tax law in Albuquerque ever since 2001. He is an associate attorney with a large local firm named Stone, Hedges, Martinez, Levishon, etc…or the Blahs, as BJ calls them. He is thirty-two-years-old in 2006 when he comes to BJ and asks for help running down a blackmailer. He had met BJ in the line of duty, and when they were attracted to one another, they ended up living together in BJ’s home on Post Oak NW until BJ was seriously wounded in the right thigh by a bullet from an accused murderer’s gun. During the long recovery, Del wasn’t able to take care of the home nursing and allowed himself to be seduced by a handsome gigolo named Emilio Prada. The manner of the split-up makes it hard for him to come to BJ when he assumes Emilio is handing around some raw pictures of Del and himself. Nonetheless, he swallows his pride and asks BJ for help. 

Emilio Prada is a twenties-something legal immigrant from Durango, Mexico. He is handsome in that way some Hispanic juveniles are prettier than their girlfriends, although “Milio” never grew out of it. Rather than work for a living, he uses his looks and slender, wiry build to make his money. He is amoral more than immoral. He sees nothing wrong with selling himself to men or women. In fact, he enjoys the seduction. When he meets Del Dahlman, he figures he’s found a goldmine…the answer to his dreams. Here is a handsome, successful man wealthy enough to take care of him for the rest of his life. Besides, the sex is good. But Milio likes to dominate his marks (and that’s what Del is) and oversteps the bounds of their relationship. When Del sends him packing, he takes some very graphic pictures of the two of them with him, the genesis of Del’s belief Milio is behind the blackmailing. 

But things are not as simple as they seem. 

Next Week: More voices from The Zozobra Incident. 

In this corner:

Santa Fé de Nuevo México, a province of Nueva España and the Crown of Spain. In the far corner: Po’Pay and the Pueblo Indians.

Don Juan de Oñate

Under the authority of King Philip II of Spain, Juan de Oñate traveled north from Mexico City in 1598 and established the territory of Santa Fé de Nuevo México as a province of the Viceroyalty of New Spain. Don Juan seems to have fallen afoul of the powers that were, and it was left to others to complete the settlement or conquest (depending upon your viewpoint) of the land.

In my mystery novel, The Zozobra Incident, the first of a series starring Licensed Private Investigator Burleigh. J. Vinson (or BJ, as he is thankfully known), we get a glimpse of the contemporary City of Santa Fe. In fact, during the Burning of Zozobra, we are exposed to a tiny bit of its history when BJ explains the ritual to a companion. His explanation centered on the province’s problems with a character named Po’Pay (also spelled Popé) and his rebellion.

Don Juan de Peralta

La Villa Real de la Santa Fé de San Francisco de Asis (the Royal Town of the Holy Faith of St. Francis of Assisi) was founded by Don Pedro de Peralta in 1608. In 1610, he declared it the capital of Santa Fé de Nuevo México. Traced through this lineage, the city we now know as Santa Fe is the oldest state capital in the Union. At an altitude of around 7,200 feet above sea level, it is also the highest.

According to the New Mexico Blue Book (2001-2002), the town was laid out according to a certain set of rules. For example, towns must have a central plaza measuring 100 varas long and 75 varas wide. A vara is 33.99 inches. Streets (each 10 varas in width) ran at right angles for a distance of one league (about three miles) in each of the four cardinal directions. Tradition dictated the church entrance was from the east and faced the plaza.

Things went swimmingly for the Spaniards (if not so much for the indigenous peoples). The Franciscans aggressively pursued the conversion of Indians to Christianity, forbidding sacred dances and seizing masks, prayer sticks and effigies. Po’Pay, a shrewd Tewa religious and political leader from San Juan Pueblo (it was Ohkay Owingeh to the natives) and forty-six other Pueblo leaders were arrested and accused of sorcery. Four were sentenced to hang (three did, and the fourth committed suicide) while the others were beaten and sentenced to prison. When Pueblo pressure forced the release of the imprisoned leaders, Po’Pay plotted his revenge.

Many of the Pueblos, which did not have a tradition of cooperation, united under his leadership for a rebellion against Spanish rule. Knotted cords were sent to each village with instructions to untie one knot each day. The uprising was to begin on the day the last knot was untied. Security surrounding the planned revolution must have been pretty good. Po’Pay had to move up the date of his attack by only one day when two messengers were caught with knotted cords. He struck on August 10, 1680.

Most of the Spaniards in the territory, estimated at about 3,000, retreated to Santa Fe where they remained under siege until August 21. On that day, Po’Pay allowed all of them to pass unharmed down the Camino Real (the Royal Road) to present day El Paso, Texas. During the revolt, 21 one of the 40 Franciscan friars in the territory were killed together with around 380 men, women, and children. Some accounts put the death toll at 22 out of a total of 33 friars (which tells us something about the underlying problem).

The newly purged territory blossomed with peace and prosperity once the foreigners were thrown out, right? Well, maybe not. The Indian villages were spread over hundreds of miles and spoke eight different languages. History is a bit murky after the expulsion. Some claim Po’Pay attempted to set himself up as king and tyrant. Others say he retired from a leadership role after the revolt. Historic rivalries among the various Pueblos soon resurfaced when the need for cooperation against the invaders was no longer pressing. At any rate, Po’Pay died in obscurity somewhere around 1688.

Don Diego de Vargas

The Spanish were not to return until 1692 when Don Diego de Vargas and an army of 60 soldiers and 100 warriors under a Zia war chief retook the province and re-established royal rule. However, unrest and scattered resistance continued until the end of the century.

Po'Pay

One would think the valiant Don who recaptured the territory for New Spain would be one of New Mexico’s greatest heroes…and, indeed, he holds a prominent place in our history. But it is the elusive, shadowy Po’Pay whose marble statue occupies one of New Mexico’s two spaces in the United States National Statuary Hall in the Capitol in Washington, D.C. While Po’Pay’s Revolt rid the territory of Spanish conquerors for only 12 short years, the rebellion prompted the Crown acknowledge Pueblo sovereignty, set aside grants (which kept the Indians on their ancestral lands), and agree to stop trying to eradicate the Pueblo cultures and native religions. The figure of the Pueblo leader, done by Jemez Pueblo artist, Cliff Fragua, shows Po’Pay holding one of the famous knotted cords.

I am not a disciplined writer, but I strive to be a semi-disciplined editor

Let me explain. I am a history buff. That will be readily apparent to any who have read my mystery novel, The Zozobra Incident. The book is a walk through Albuquerque and Santa Fe, two places lavishly layered by the three dominant cultures of the region: Native American, Hispanic, and Anglo (to name them in the order they appeared on our local horizon). As an undisciplined writer, I regularly go off on flights of fantasy exploring, describing, living, this history. In Zozobra…

• It’s a drive up East Central—once part of the famous Route 66.

• Or BJ Vinson’s visit to the University of New Mexico—established in 1892 and isolated on the desert east of town; it now comprises 800 acres virtually in the geographical center of the metropolitan area

• To a walk through downtown Albuquerque, which BJ describes as yo-yoing through time.

• It’s the trip up the Middle Rio Grande Valley past ancient Indian Pueblos to the colonial city of Santa Fe, which has resisted the temptation to shed its Old World charm in favor of urbanization.

• And, of course, it’s the colorful, exciting pageantry of the Burning of Zozobra, which kicks off the Santa Fe Fiesta—an annual blast that’s been going on since 1712 to commemorate the re-conquest of The City Different following the Pueblo Revolt.

The point of all of this is that only a small portion of what I write about history ever sees the light of print. You see, I have this critique partner named Joycelyn (or J, as I call her, lest I inadvertently address her as Jocelyn and end up needing a new head) who constantly reminds me I’m writing a mystery novel, not a travelogue or a history tome.

Indulging my passion in the first draft of my work is both a boon and a bane. I really get into it while allowing myself free-rein. But I truly suffer (as do most writers) when trying to purge some of this heartfelt prose (often quite poetic) so it merely slows the flow of the story instead of halting it dead in its tracks. Thereafter, I rely on J to whip me into line. Ergo, I am an undisciplined writer, but a semi-disciplined editor.

Why is history so fascinating to some of us? Because it is a road map showing how we got from there to here and what we encountered on the journey. But just as maps are flat, creased, boring sheets of paper or parchment or scraped buffalo hide to some, history books evoke the same reaction in many readers. Yet, give almost any of us a rainbow-hued, authentic setting and fill it with interesting characters and intriguing events, and the reader simply has to take an interest in the historical background.

Mark Wildyr, my fellow Albuquerque author (who also shares an Oklahoma lineage), paints a picture of a specific era to make his books (especially his first, Cut Hand) something more than simply gay erotica. I strive to do the same thing with the puzzle-plot mystery genre.

In future posts, we’ll delve deeper into some of the BJ Vinson series historical sites, but next time, we’ll try something else:

What’s the big deal about burning a huge papier-mâché doll in the middle of Santa Fe in September?

In Chapter 15 of The Zozobra Incident, BJ Vinson describes the history and background of the Burning of Zozobra to Darrel, a black architect who has only recently arrived in New Mexico. At the end of the noisy, spectacular extravaganza, Darrel says, “Never seen anything like it. Of course, coming from Mississippi, I don’t cotton to hoods and bonfires too much.”

To which, BJ replies, “Different time, different place, different message.”

Zozobra at Dusk

How true. Zozobra’s auto-de-fe began as a light-hearted play on the Mexican folklore tradition of consigning one’s problems to Old Man Gloom to be burned up in the fire rendering the ogre into a pile of ashes. Santa Fe artist Will Shuster conducted the first Burning of Zozobra (Spanish for Anxiety) for the amusement of a group of friends in 1924. It became an annual event that outgrew the Shuster backyard and was moved to Santa Fe’s plaza. Eventually, it became such a huge event it had to be shifted to its present location, Fort Marcy Park. Somewhere along the way, it became the opening event of the Santa Fe Fiesta on the Thursday following Labor Day of each year. Great…but what is the significance of the Santa Fe Fiesta?

Last week, we looked at the Province of Santa Fé de Nuevo México, the Pueblo Revolt against Spanish rule led by the Tewa spiritual and political leader, Po’Pay, and the significance of that revolution. Po’Pay seems to have gotten the tip of the historical hat when he ended up as one of two significant figures honored by New Mexico in the US Statuary Hall in Washington.

But the doughy Don, Diego de Vargas, who retook the province with an army of around 160 soldiers and pro-Spanish warriors in 1692, wasn’t to be forgotten. In 1712 the Marquis de Peñuelo, the governor of New Spain, staged the Santa Fe Fiesta as a celebration to mark the re-conquest of the city and province. The grand affair has been going on ever since. As BJ says to Darrel, “They say that makes it the oldest civic celebration in North America.”

Zozobra Burning

I first attended the burning with my two sons around 1970. At that time, it had the air of a big community picnic with some 2,000 or so spectators sitting on the grass and talking to neighbors and newly-discovered friends. There was no security, no angst about getting through a checkpoint with whining wands designed to discover if you had weapons hidden on your person. We wandered down to the huge puppet and stuffed pieces of paper spelling out what we considered our problems of the moment. My boys didn’t confide what woes they consigned to Zozobra’s skirts.

As a sign of the times, last year, gaining entry to Ft. Marcy Park was something akin to boarding a crowded aircraft rumored to be the target of a terrorist bomb plot. Zozobra, all fifty feet of him, was mounted on some steps it was impractical to climb, so your cares and woes were scribbled on pieces of paper and taken to the Old Man by staff of the Santa Fe New Mexican. For me, these changes leach some of the fun out of the event, but apparently 30 or 40 thousand people disagree with me each year. They continue to come: the Hispanics to celebrate victory, the Anglos to have a party, and the Native Americans to show they’re big enough to accept the verdict of history.

Next: Let’s take a look at Albuquerque.