|
Taos Pueblo and the UNESCO World Heritage Designation In this paper I want to examine the
ways in which Taos Pueblo Indians in New Mexico utilized the UNESCO
world heritage designation status as ‘a weapon of the weak’ both to
assist them in increasing their financial independence and in maintaining
their unique adobe pueblo and cultural traditions. I first outline a
brief history of Taos Pueblo Indians and then examine some actors and
the debate around receiving UNESCO’s world heritage designation by a
living group. I conclude by arguing that UNESCO’s designation served
to function in this instance as a weapon of the weak. As the people who have continually dwelt in the same location in the United States in a remarkable adobe structure for the longest period of time, Taos Pueblo Indians in New Mexico applied for UNESCO World Heritage Status in the 1980s and received it in 1992. Taos Indians, who speak their native Tiwa, as well as English and Spanish, probably have dwelt there for at least 700 years beginning to inhabit these multistoried adobe pueblos sometime between 1000 and 1450 A.D. According to descriptions by early Spanish explorers, the building remains unchanged since the Spanish came to the area more than 400 years ago in 1540. As the United States instituted the reservation system, the Taos Indians were not ‘relocated,’ probably due to their remote location. They and the Blue Lake area on which their land is located were accorded a form of limited political sovereignty. Agriculture, which had long sustained them, diminished in significance in the past century and economic opportunities in remote Taos were marginal. Dependent on monies from the government for decades, the Taos were never able to completely exercise their autonomy. In the 1970s and 1980s the costs of maintaining Taos pueblo led to its structural dilapidation. While the possibility of tourism revenues presented significant benefits for Taos pueblo, the benefits were offset by the costs of bringing tourists into Taos Indians’ homes, lives and religious festivals, which are comprised of syncretic Native American / Catholic traditions. Historically, the Taos Indians have sought to live apart from the Spanish and Anglo worlds and to actively maintain their unique cultural identity in as many ways as possible. Financial autonomy has remained out of reach until recently.
In the mid-1980s, Taos Pueblo Indians hired tribal planner R.C. Gordon-McCutchan to help to preserve and physically rehabilitate the pueblo, a tribal priority at the time. A controversial native task force had also then been created to attract more visitors to the pueblo. A New York film crew was hired to create a promotional video to show at tourism conventions around the country. The tribe had long-range plans to create a visitors’ center. Gordon-McCutchan was the project coordinator for the UNESCO world heritage designation proposal. Gordon-McCutchan: “There’s great ambivalence about this effort. On the one hand, the economic potential is great, but there’s still resentment from some tribal members toward any attempt to increase visitation. These people are determined not to compromise the integrity of their lifestyle…. One reason I’m excited about the tourism project is it provides a way for tribal members to mainstream without sacrificing their heritage. Increased visitation here will help support their tribal efforts…. My dream for the Taos Pueblo is total independence. Political sovereignty for Indians is just rhetoric unless they’re economically independent. As long as they rely on the government, they are a subjected, conquered people” (Tickel, 1988, 16).
UNESCO world heritage provides funds to sites designated as “in danger,” from which the Taos Pueblo benefited. It also offers access to experts and outlines strict stipulations for management of sites which receive its designation. In the case of Taos Pueblo, one of the benefits of the designation was control of the airspace above the pueblo; the UNESCO designation prohibited airplanes from flying over the pueblo. The UNESCO status also serves as a designation of authenticity and accords prestige to a site, thus potentially attracting more visitors. After a series of visits by scientific and technical experts focusing on the how best to rehabilitate the pueblo, Taos Pueblo received the UNESCO world heritage status designation in 1992. It was the first inhabited site to be placed on the United Nations World Heritage list of significant locations.
The Taos Pueblo Indians warily accepted the honor. The Taos Pueblo Governor Tony Reyna said the tribe was “not interested in using the award as a promotion . . . . The Pueblo sees the award as a tool for future generations to use to safeguard their survival including the preservation of their culture, resources and traditions” (Romancito, 1992, 1). Opposition within the tribe was significant “based on fears it would result in increased tourism and unwanted outside interference in tribal affairs…. Issues about development and tourism competing for importance with maintaining native religion and customs have been at the forefront of tribal concerns in recent years. Taos Pueblo is known as being one of the most traditional and conservative of the 19 New Mexico pueblos” (Romancito, 1992, 2). In last minute talks with the Secretary of the Interior Manuel Lujan, the tribe was able to detail those concerns to the U.S. government.
In receiving the UNESCO designation, tribal Governor Reyna said, “We appreciate the significance of this recognition. However, we must share with you that our experience as a living community which is known throughout the world has made our people cautious with regard to the potential impact of designations conferred upon us by the outside world….Reyna wrote that the tribe is hesitant to let any outside entity be solely responsible for preserving or protecting the 900-year-old village. He said that if anyone is planning to conduct such efforts they cannot proceed without the tribe’s permission. If any work is approved, Reyna, said, it will have to be done by tribal members….The [Pueblo] governor suggested to Luhan a resolution which connects preservation of the Pueblo’s adobe buildings with that of the tribe’s culture. A letter written on behalf of Lujan, assured the governor that the Department of the Interior would present to the committee wording which identifies the ‘inseparable link between the preservation of the physical heritage of the Pueblo and its living culture and continuing traditions’” (Romancito, 1992, 2). By both warily engaging the UNESCO world heritage designation process and identifying the economic and cultural benefits accorded by the listing, the Taos Pueblo Indians successfully articulated a way of interacting with UNESCO to gain the benefits of this designation and minimize the costs.
Bourgois’ analysis very realistically portrays a marginalized group of crack addicts by examining structural and cultural factors to give voice to people who have historically been voiceless. He suggests structural changes and emphasizes the significance that the financial opportunities of the crack business play in perpetuating life in El Barrio. He also skillfully examines the role that Puerto Rican identity plays in shaping social life here. Similarly, the Taos Pueblo Indians navigate a political economic terrain and were, in the case with UNESCO, successfully able to take advantage of an institutional structure which not only helped them to rehabilitate their centuries-old adobe dwelling, but also enabled them to benefit from the UNESCO designation in many other ways, especially financially. The UNESCO world heritage designation not only supported this living tradition but favorably represented them to the world.
Both Bourgois and di Leonardo contribute to shaping an auto-ethnography of the U.S. Di Leonardo’s skillful writing highlights “both the mutability and the material connections of representations of American urban Others” (di Leonardo, 1998, 319). Her use of vignettes and her underlying political economic analysis depict processes of social differentiation in the U.S. (di Leonardo, 1998, 330), which anthropologists have not actively engaged. In contrast to the Taos Pueblo Indians’ very long term and stable identity, their material practices, and their political goals, which predate the existence of the U.S. and which in some ways define all non-Native U.S. residents as other, di Leonardo’s work emphasizes the shifting processes of portraying the American urban ‘others.’
Keefe highlights the construction of an ideology of Aboriginality which some Aborigines use to attempt “regain and retain control over both things and ideas” (Keefe, 67). In the situation described above, Taos Pueblo Indians persist and resist by warily using the UNESCO designation process to contribute to the upkeep of the Taos Pueblo and Taos Indian living traditions.
In conversations I had with people in Taos, New Mexico in March 2002, it appeared to me that UNESCO’s world heritage status successfully benefited the Taos Pueblo Indians – no one spoke negatively of it – and served in this instance as a weapon of the weak. Works Cited 11 June 1987. “Pueblo awarded presevation [sic] grant.” The Taos News. Taos, New Mexico. 25 June 1987. “Pueblo picked as U.S. nominee for site.” The Taos News. Taos, New Mexico. 29 May 1986. “Pueblo nominated for World Heritage list.” The Taos News. Taos, New Mexico. Behnke, Dick. 9 April 1987. “Pueblo leaders attend airport meet.” The Taos News. Taos, New Mexico. Bourgois, Philippe. 1995. In Search of Respect: Selling Crack in El Barrio. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. di Leonardo, Micaela. 1998. “Patterns of culture wars: place, modernity, and the contemporary political economy of difference.” In Exotics at Home: Anthropologies, Others, American Modernity. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Pp. 314-67. Keeffe, Kevin. 1998. “Aboriginality: resistance and persistence.” Australian Aboriginal Studies 1: 67-81. Romancito, Rick. 17 Dec 1992. “Pueblo Warily Accepts Honor.” The Taos News. Taos, New Mexico. XLIV:12: p. 1 Tickel, Joni. Nov/Dec 1988. “Creating a Mutual Future: Taos Pueblo Planner R.C. Gordon-McCutchan believes in the common good.” New Mexico: Taos Magazine.
|