The People of Taos Pueblo, live in an adobe-walled village about a mile northeast of Taos, New Mexico. About 150 people live here without electricity, running water, or indoor plumbing as their ancestors have for centuries.
They claim an aboriginal presence in the Taos Valley of Southwestern United States since time immemorial and guard their culture today. Archeological remains within the Taos Valley date
its earliest known human occupation to around 900 AD.
Various pre-contact Anasazi tribes are believed to have moved into the area around this time, sticking close to the life-sustaining Rio Grande River tributaries around the present-day
border of Southern Colorado and Northern New Mexico.
Traditions surrounding the Taos Pueblo eventually emerged out of the various cultures present in the valley. The original pueblo site is directly east of where the adobes stand today.
Likely constructed around 1325 AD, the first Taos Pueblo is now a ruin and sacred site referred to as “Cornfield Taos.” The limited archeological excavation at Cornfield Taos prov
ided evidence that the Pueblo relocated slightly to the west to its current location, around 1400 AD though at present it is not clear why.
Throughout its early years, Taos Pueblo was a central point of trade between the native populations along the Rio Grande and their neighbors to the northwest, the Plains Tribes.
Taos Pueblo hosted a trade fair each fall after the agricultural harvest. This fairly impressed the first Spaniards who made contact with the ancient pueblo.
Eventually, trade routes would link Taos to the northernmost towns of New Spain and the cities of Mexico via the famed Chihuahua Trail. T
hroughout recorded history, descriptions of Taos Pueblo stress the adobes’ stacked and stepped-back form.
The buildings at Taos originally had few windows and no standard doorways. Instead, access to rooms was through square holes in the roof that the people reached by climbing long, wooden ladders.
Cedar logs (or vigas) supported roofs that had layers of branches, grass, mud, and plaster cover
ing them. The architecture and the building materials were well suited for the rigors of the environment and the needs of the people in the Taos Valley.
Many tribe members have modern homes, on reservation land, outside the walled village, always returning to the village for social and cultural celebrations.
