Kasha-Katuwe Tent Rocks National Monument, Sandoval County
Population: 600
Location: 53,779 acres in Sandoval County, south of Santa Fe
Language: Eastern Keres
Early Societal Structure: Agrarian, Exogamous, Matrilineal clans, Ritual patrimoieties, Dual kivas
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Cochiti is the northernmost Keresan-speaking Pueblo. The tribe leases land to the village of Cochiti Lake. The Keresan name for the People of Cochiti Pueblo is K’úutìim’é, which means "People from the Mountains.”
The ancestors of Cochiti once divided into two groups. One group moved south and built Katishtya (San Felipe). The second group went to Potrero Viejo, one of the finger mesas of the Pajarito Plateau in what is now Los Alamos County. Located about 12 miles northwest of the present-day Cochiti Pueblo, they built a temporary pueblo known as Hanut Cochit.
Keres is considered a language isolate - it has evolved independently from other languages and does not descend from any other language. It is not a written language and so there is a strong tradition of storytelling as means of recording and passing along history.
Forced to Flee
In 1598, Oñate came to Cochiti Pueblo. While first respecting their agricultural techniques, he soon was forcing them to pay taxes and to assimiliate into Spanish culture. The Spanish Catholic missionaries attacked their religion and renamed the Pueblos with Catholic saints’ names and began a program of church construction, such as the San Buenaventura Mission at Cochiti. They routinely inflicted violence on tribal members who continued to practice their traditional religion and they would force them to do labor and/or slavery.
The Cochiti people took part in the Pueblo Revolt of 1680. When Spanish Governor Antonio de Otermin conquered New Mexico, the tribe retreated with San Felipe and Kewa Pueblo to the Potrero Viejo. The Cochiti people remained at Potrero Viejo until 1693 when they were forced to flee from Don Diego de Vargas and his troops.
Storytellers
The Storyteller stems from a centuries-old Cochiti tradition of figurative pottery. Ceramics in the shape of humans and animals can be dated all the way back to 400 A.D. This tradition would go on for centuries until the arrival of the Spanish, who viewed these figures as idolatry. They denounced Pueblo religions and cultures, labelling it witchcraft. The pottery figurines - which was the way they passed along history and culture - were regularly destroyed by the Spanish, who had forbidden the figurative pottery. This erased a large segment of Cochiti’s historical record.
The Individual & The Community
The Cochiti people have always recognized that each individual who enters this world has a gift to share, “which is manifested through one’s contribution to the community.” Two members of the tribe founded the Keres Children's Learning Center, which strives to reclaim their children's education and honor their heritage by using a comprehensive cultural and academic curriculum to assist families in nurturing Keres-speaking, holistically healthy, community-minded, and academically strong students.
The school supports the child on their Physical, Spiritual, Social, Intellectual, Emotional, and Linguistic development, as well as in developing Grace and Courtesy.
In the “Giftedness among Keresan Pueblos” study, Keresan elders identified four domains of being a “successful pueblo person,” (Romero, 1994):
giving from the heart
possessing linguistic abilities
abundant cultural knowledge
the notable ability to create with the hands.
“Success” in the Pueblo world is the ability to learn, share, and utilize information for the benefit of the entire community.
For the Children
In 1969, a short film about a boy's life at Cochiti Pueblo was created for the second season of Sesame Street (1970–1971). It aired on December 9, 1970. Subjects it covered included a game of shinny, making tortillas, and making necklaces out of corn for summertime sale to tourists.
ANCIENT FUTURE
Virgil Ortiz is a master ceramicist but he creates across mediums, combining art, décor, fashion, video, and film. Ortiz is the youngest of six children. He grew up in a creative environment in which storytelling, collecting clay, gathering wild plants, and producing figurative pottery was part of everyday life. His grandmother, Laurencita Herrera, and his mother, Seferina Ortiz, were both renowned Pueblo potters and part of an ongoing matrilineal heritage.
Virgil Ortiz is one of the most innovative potters today. His creations have been exhibited in museum collections around the world including the Stedelijk Museum-Hertogenbosch in The Netherlands; Paris’s Foundation Cartier pour I’art Contemporain, the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian, the Virginia Museum of Fine Art, and the Denver Art Museum.
Over the years Virgil has built a diverse and vibrant company, with celebrities as clients and models. In 2002, Virgil met clothing designer Donna Karan at the Santa Fe Indian Market. Shortly after, the two collaborated. Donna Karan’s iconic functional clothing (which had always joined together easy style with cutting-edge fashion) was suddenly emblazoned with Virgil’s bold patterns. The pieces were another way for Virgil to create a vision of an Ancient Future.
Virgil’s talent and skill is a continuation of his family's and his Nation’s long history of artfully telling story with clay. His art makes it clear that the story of his people is not one that is relegated to the past and that they are not defined by colonization. The story of the K'úutìim'é is still being written and they define who they are.
