Nuestra Señora de los Angeles with Kiva, Pecos

1675-1725

Name(s) currently unknown

Pecos, NM, USA

At the Pueblo site of Pecos, New Mexico, the Franciscan church stands alongside a kiva, a special room used for political, ritual, and social gatherings by the Pueblo Indians. The photograph visibly suggests a religious mestizaje, yet reveals little of the tumultuous history of these two buildings.

Kivas, like the one whose roof is visible in the foreground, are sacred places, often built underground and sometimes set in the central plaza of a pueblo. During the yearly ceremonial cycles of the Pueblo people, costumed dancers emerge from the kiva, reenacting episodes of creation. This kiva is a present-day reconstruction of an earlier one that the Spanish destroyed in the 17th century. The architectural forms of kiva and church, seen in the background, represent dramatically different religious traditions. Their striking juxtaposition—the church rises from the earth and the kiva penetrates into it—was commented upon by 19th century visitors to the Pueblo. While the church sits on an outcrop at the edge of the mesa, the kiva sits closer to other town buildings.

In the thriving pueblo of Pecos, Franciscans built their first mission in 1598. However, the fiercely independent community soon destroyed the church. It was rebuilt but again, the people of Pecos destroyed it during the Pueblo Revolt (in 1680) and built a kiva between the ruin and the main part of their town. After the reconquest, the returning Franciscans had another church built on the same site, and the adjacent kiva, was ordered destroyed. By the time the final church at the site was finished, in 1787, the people of Pecos had rebuilt nine kivas throughout their pueblo.

Both church and kiva are built of local stone, shaped into rectangular plates. The stone walls of the church were originally finished with adobe for stability and insulation. In this dry region, wood was scarce and used sparingly in buildings, usually to support the roof.

Today, Pueblo Indians live in communities in New Mexico and Arizona. Pecos stands to the east of most Pueblo communities and because of its location was a meeting point—not only among Pueblos and Spaniards, but also with native peoples of the Plains. In the late 17th century, after the Pueblo Revolt, at least 700 indigenous people lived in Pecos, but 40 years later, smallpox epidemics cut the population to less than 200. This number would rise, but by the end of the 18th century Pecos was barely able to sustain itself, and in 1838 its last inhabitants left to join another pueblo. Since 1965, Pecos has been a National Monument, administered by the U.S. National Park Service.

At Pecos, the kiva stands outside the monastery grounds, suggesting that, rather than a peaceful religious mestizaje, an uneasy standoff was reached in the 18th century between the Franciscans, who desired a complete embrace of Catholic orthodoxy, and the Pueblo people, who adhered, then as now, to their distinct forms of worship and communal life.

Jorge Pérez de Lara. All rights reserved; no reproduction without express permission of the photographer.

Dana Leibsohn and Barbara E. Mundy.
Vistas: Visual Culture in Spanish America, 1520-1820. http://www.fordham.edu/vistas, 2015.

Kessell, John L. 1979. Kiva, Cross and Crown: The Pecos Indians and New Mexico, 1540-1840. Washington, D.C.: National Park Service.

Levine, Frances. 1999. Our Prayers are in this Place: Pecos Pueblo Identity over the Centuries. Albuquerque, New Mexico: University of New Mexico Press.

Treib, Marc. 1993. Sanctuaries of Spanish New Mexico. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press.