The Return of Blue Lake

For more than a thousand years, the Taos Pueblo Indians have lived in this stunning valley at the foot of the 13,000-foot Sacred Mountain, home of Blue Lake.  According to their beliefs, Blue Lake is the birthplace of God and the place of origin of the Pueblo people.  We have been intrigued by this story for some time. In 1925 when Carl Jung was here he talked with council leader Mountainlake and learned of the meaningful lives lived out in the shadow of the mountain. Mable Dodge Luhan wrote of the Lake and her marriage to Tony Luhan in her autobiography Edge of the Desert.

Today, we joined with hundreds of guests to the Pueblo to hear Tony’s descendant Governor James Luhan, Sr. describe the drama of Blue Lake that began in 1906, the year that the national park service and Teddy Roosevelt took Blue Lake from the Pueblo Indians.  After 64 years of struggle to secure the return of the Lake, it was given back to the Indians 40 years ago today.  The story is a stunning adventure in belief, determination and bi-partisan effort.  This is a long story that I will not seek to capture fully in this post.

The ceremonies began with a full St. Jerome Church at the Pueblo yesterday morning at 7:00 am, a service blending native and Catholic beliefs.  Drums, chanting and singing—along with sermon, traditional rites and communion. God is good, this is a sinful world and we are all sinners.  Jesus is the way.  A processional led by a towering statue of the Virgin Mary ended in bountiful refreshments and conversation.  How native beliefs entangle with Catholicism we have yet to learn.

By the end of the day Friday, we all gathered at the Kachina Lodge for dinner and a formal presentation regarding the return of Blue Lake, after which we attended a dramatization of Kit Carson’s three wives at the Carson Museum.

The speeches at the Pueblo today included the voices of local Indian officials and also the former Governor, Senators, Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs, and officials from the Nixon Whitehouse who had actualized the 64-year dream of the return of Blue Lake in 1970.  Governor Luhan expressed it beautifully:

“We fought with every essence of our being against unbelievable

odds and never gave up. We learned to use the tools of the system to

overcome in a 64 years struggle. We can all identify with the need to

protect that which gives us meaning, to preserve the precious cycle of life,

parent to child…Forty years later the world is a different place. I thank

everyone here from the bottom of my heart.”

Rousing speeches were punctuated by dances accompanied by chanting, drums, and wailing.  One dance, the Friendship Dance, began with Indians in traditional dress, then began to encompass others as the circle grew larger and larger, soon involved hundreds of people.  A sense of incredible unity.

By 1:00, we were invited to go to private homes scattered under the trees along the pristine creek fed by Blue Lake.  We ate a lavish lunch in the kitchen of one of the families, talking with others who shared our sense of honor at being present on this remarkable day.

On September 30, we will join the Pueblo families again for San Geronimo day.

This research for the third novel in the Cairo Diary trilogy is more exciting then could have been imagined.

This entry was posted on Saturday, September 18th, 2010 at 4:57 pm and is filed under Fiction, Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.