¡Colores!; 1702; Villa de Alburquerque

In terms of the Major funding for the production of this program was provided by the Albuquerque Trisentennial and the Urban Enhancement Trust Fund of the City of Albuquerque. This project is made possible in part by New Mexico Arts, a division of the Department of Cultural Affairs and the National

Endowment for the Arts. I suppose when you look in the history books, you see it's full of wars and battles, but wars and battles are only part of that story. We are here portraying our ancestors Juan de Oliveira and Antonio de Oliveira, who came to scout out a site for the founding of Albuquerque. Let's think about it, you fly into Albuquerque and you look out of the window, it looks like a kitty litter box. Why would anybody want to come here? Pretty good militiamen, I've been called Juan to assist the regular soldados. The trade good that was seen as perhaps one of the most valuable was women and children. A unique feature in the 1700 was this footless stalking. I don't want to say it was lovey-dovey kissy face kind of relationship, although I suspect there was some of that going on too. To show your culture, to show what your people have done, it's a lot of fun. New Mexico, it was never a large population yet we've survived all these years so there had to be a lot of mixture going on. There just had to be otherwise we're not all here now.

My dream again, I have come true. Meaning a tone to speak out, to be heard. Albuquerque celebrates its 300 year anniversary. Here, Spanish settlers encountered a new world, a world of many cultures that converged over time. But how do we remember Albuquerque's past?

How do we remember the history of who we are? I'm Roberto Valdez. I call myself a living history interpreter that is someone who wants to make history come alive to bring it out of the books and onto the streets, to the people. Come with me on a journey through time, to the beginnings of our unique multicultural city, Navía de Albuquerque. 300 years ago, Albuquerque was not part of what we now call the Great Southwest. Instead, it began as a small town or vía of El Norte, the northern province of colonial new Spain, whose land spread from Central America in the south to the great plains in North America. New Mexico, Albuquerque included, was an island in the wilderness.

Here's New Mexico, very early, before Jamestown settled in the middle of no place. I mean, you know, think about it. You fly into Albuquerque and you look out of the window. It looks like a kitty litter box, you know, and it's shocked to some of these people that come from these other places. Like, well, you know, what we're going to do here, you know, and then their lips, chapter, noses bleed, you know, and they say, why would anybody want to come here? You know, there were a couple of reasons for it and very real reasons. One was the Pueblo Indians, sedentary people. When New Mexico was settled, the Spanish law dictated that there would be no more exploration nor settlement without religious purposes. And you couldn't even use the word conquistar to conquer. It was against the law, the Spanish law. So Aguñate, the conquistaror, couldn't call himself that without violating the law. And the whole justification for settling New Mexico then was because the Franciscan priests argued there are sedentary Indians up there and they being good, simple-minded New Mexicans, or about to be New Mexicans, said the easiest

thing for us to do because we're the first missionaries to the New World. If we got to convert people, this go to where people live in towns. When we put the church there, we have them. Try that with the patches and peem was in pop goes. It doesn't work. Where do you put the church with them? Let the Jesuits figure that out when they come. We're going to where there are towns. Albuquerque sits roughly in the center of what was once the province of Tewes, an elaborate network of Pueblo Indian communities. The first settlers were attracted to the Pueblo Indian sedentary lifestyle since, as one Spanish captain put it, these people seem good, more given to farming than war. But over time, the Pueblo Indians were breaking under the burden of taxes and exploitation by Spanish authorities. And their native religions were threatened by Franciscan missionaries. The result was the Pueblo Revolt of 1680, the most comprehensive Native American rebellion in

today's United States. The violent rebellion led to the destruction and desertion of many Pueblo communities and drove out the Spanish settlers from New Mexico. As a result of the Pueblo Revolt, a lot of the areas here were basically abandoned. That opened this amazing window of opportunity for those that then came back to reconquer this territory because by and large then what was then called the Pueblo or the province of Tewa then was essentially largely abandoned. So it was really through the enticement of the colonial government at that point then to try and draw back as rewards those people who had fled south, the Spanish colonial families into the area and they resettled them back into these abandoned Pueblo territories. The other reason they came was the secret reason all governments have secrets, right?

That wouldn't happen. And that was we were an inland Cape Canaveral. We were an inland island, the basis of which Spain wanted to explore North America. And so there's a whole series, a different way of looking at New Mexico, history where these Capitanes are sent up to New Mexico. They take the local New Mexicans, the Chavises and the Romero's and the Ortega's and the Orteas is out under the plains for exploration up into Utah and Wyoming and over to California. Exploring, trying to find what we know of in our or in the United States as the northwest passage a waterway through the continent. Spain used New Mexico as a colony from which they could explore the rest of North America. Here in Bernalillo, 18 miles north of Albuquerque, these historical reenactors relive the journeys of the Spanish families who returned to the Albuquerque area more than a decade after the Pueblo Revolt. Well, I'm just right across from you see this turn your back. Let's see the soldiers there

with the long pike right behind them. We are here portraying our ancestors Juan de Oliveira and Antonio de Oliveira who came in 1706 to Albuquerque area to survey and scout out a site for the founding of Albuquerque. I'm playing the role of a servant girl here in the La Entrata. I'm a historian. My time period is the Spanish colonial era for the new world. I'm dressed as typically as a Spanish officer who would have been dressed. I'm a pretty good militia man. I've

been called upon to assist the regular soldados with protection of the colonial expedition back back down south. To show your culture to show what your people have done is really best rated crimes. It's a lot of fun. This is the clothing that a servant person would have been wearing in the early 1700s. It consists of a simple linen blouse. You can see the pants or the style of the period, the 1706 period, the knee breeches, the stockings I'm wearing to actually come up to about here. We wear our crosses on a knack here because we practice Catholicism. The poncho is a woven wool concho and this was actually made down in the vicinity of Chihuahua City. A unique feature of the Northern Frontier and the 1700s of New Spain or New Mexico was this footless stocking. There were nothing more than a big tube that was cut off at the end and it was a unique but very

prevalent feature in the Middle Valley area. I tried to portray myself as my ancestor did, stall-round, or either guy who didn't really want trouble, he's just here to live a normal life. You see the people here today that are dressing up who are reenacting, they're very proud to do that, they're very proud of their history. Now the people who move to Albuquerque after the Pueblo Revolt, they should have taken that as an excuse never to come back. Man, we don't have to go back there anymore. Great man, there's high-tailed to Mexico City, partying to the wee hours of the morning, you know, drink margaritas and be happy. But by then they become attached to the place. This is where their children were born, this is where they were married and so forth. So a big

contingent of them stayed in El Paso and wanted to come back, wanted to come back and they lost a lot of relatives in the Pueblo Revolt. So in some ways became kind of a sanctified place where they spilled blood, they buried people in relatives and married and everything. So this became home. It was the year 17006 when Albuquerque was officially founded by this governor, Don Francisco Cuervo Y Valdez. He named it an honor of the viceroy at the time, the Duke of Albuquerque who ruled in Mexico City. But the new governor, eager to please his superiors, exaggerated on paper the true scope of this via which is merely a scattering of runch or spread throughout the Rio Grande Valley. There was no church, no plaza or even demarcated streets.

When the Spanish settled this area, they brought with them many songs to entertain themselves. One song was called La Del Gardina. It's a story about a king who asks his daughter to be his own mistress. It's not unlike the story of edifice the king from ancient Greece and it's probably quite certain that the settlers of Albuquerque knew this song and sang this song in 1706. And it goes like this. La Palette de Cava de La Del Gardina y Jamia, yo te quiero para dama,

yo te quiero para dama. La Del Gardina y Jamia, yo te quiero para dama. It was only a handful of Spanish families that came to work the lands of Albuquerque. Many associate a traditional lifestyle with connections to the land with the Indians. But it was also the same for Hispanic New Mexicans. It ties to the land, the tilling of the soil, the herding of animals, all were a way of life. It is how they sustain themselves. One of the things we tend to forget in today's world, especially our deodorized sanitized

and air conditioning world is how difficult things were in the 18th century or 19th century for that matter. And it all revolves around the amount of work that it takes to make a living and to survive. When the settlement of Albuquerque was established, one of the first things that had to be done, if it hadn't been done to a certain extent already, was first of all people had to clear their land. They had to level off the irrigable properties. They had to dig the Asakias, you know, which to irrigate their property. They had to build a plaza itself, you know, construct the buildings. It's just an incredible amount of work that's involved here. El Rancho de las Colondrinas is a preserved paraje or stopping point between Albuquerque and Santa Fe, along New Mexico's famous trading route, El Camino Real, the Royal Road. Today it serves as a living history museum and its volunteer docent give us a sense of the life and times of settler communities during the 18th century.

I'm in an 18th century-styled room. If I would have lived during those days, this would have been my bed. This is a colchon made of sabanía. Wolven here at the ranch using the fleece from the Chudo sheep. All the blankets and all the textiles were woven here at the ranch. The levers were a very important group. Upon arising, I would have taken my colchon, gotten it out of the way for the activities of the day because there were many people that lived here. I am the Curandera or Healer here at the ranch. There have been Curanderas in the Spanish culture for centuries. We came with the Conquista Doors, the colonists, the priests and the friars up the Camino Real of the Interior. The priests and friars had had some training in Europe, but when it came to more

serious sicknesses or illnesses, they called upon the Curandera. This mill is run on the water from an Assequia. One of the advantages of the small mill is it does not take much water. The water goes down underneath where I'm sitting to horizontal water wheel. It is driven by the water. The force of the water hitting the wheel drives it around. There's a shaft that goes through the floor and drives the mill wheels up on top. I have several ways of making treatments. The first one is the oil. This I made in the spring, while most of my herbs are collected in the fall when they're most potent. This one I collected from the alamo buds or the cottonwood tree. This one is used for rheumatism, aches and joints, which there was a lot at this ranch with all the hard work that they have to do.

Too many irons in the fire. If I have too many irons in the fire, I might forget something and burn a piece up. Strike while the irons hot. All these terms come out of the blacksmith shop. All your tools, everything came right out of here at the blacksmith shop. Kind of the social center, the workshop, very important center of a community here in northern New Mexico. When the Spanish came to New Mexico, they brought wheat with them. They wanted to eat bread to make bread from wheat. You must mill it. Grinding it in a small manamatate or a small hand grinder does not break the wheat down fine enough to make bread. And therefore the Spanish brought with them the technology of the small mill. Steal came from Spain via ships to Mexico and then up the Camino Real to Albuquerque and up here to Santa Fe. But it might take us a year

or more to get steel. So everything was kept any little piece of steel was kept in a corner just like we have here and recycled. This one is interesting because it combines both the Native American culture and our Spanish culture. Cota and Oshah came from our native peoples in this area and lavender, chamomile and experiment came from Europe. And this is very good for flu symptoms. The combination of this would do a great deal for someone with fever, nausea, a virus of some sort. So it really does have a quality. Ask the Native Americans about their Cota and Oshah and they will tell you that it works very well. Religion in the 18th century would have been ever present. Frontier people who maybe don't have a lot of material things, who are in danger much of the

time from raids and from natural disasters and you know one bad crop from starvation, that kind of thing. I think religion is important because you have to have a lot of faith in order to survive in this kind of environment. One type of song that the Spanish colonists sang were alavanzas. These are religious hymns to saints and to our lady. And one popular saint in New Mexico in the 1700s and in early Albuquerque was San Isidro Lavrador. This hymn was sung commonly during harvest working the fields and working with animals and it went like this. Spain's Northern Frontier posed some challenges in military defense. So therefore it gave rise to

the look and feel of the very unique breed of soldier called the Soldado de Cuera. And one of the most unusual features was this apron-like coat sleeveless called the Cuera. The unique idea about the Cuera is that these are nine layers thick, made of gamusa, animal skin that is processed with the use of the animal's brain. You take the animal's brain, you mix it with the raw hide, and then you work it and soften it. And it becomes into a type of material useful for clothing. This is called an adada or leather raw hide shield. In this case this one is raw hide and it's made of several layers of raw hide. It's the skin of the animal, several layers thick, strap together when it's wet. And then as it dries it turns very very hard, almost like an umpire's bib, if not even harder, like plastic. They used weapons such as this, the Catalan musket, a short

carbine, useful for carrying on horseback, as that's mostly the type of transport that these soldiers used. 18th century New Mexico was a dynamic culture that was being created in Albuquerque and throughout New Mexico. You had people who were creating contact zones. And it was, as it is now I think, over resources, whether we're talking about labor, water, access to land, grazing lands, and the same thing was happening in colonial New Mexico. 18th century New Mexico was particularly interesting because you did have people like the Comanches or the Apaches having a sense of their own homeland and what that meant to them and feeling like they needed to protect that homeland.

And then you have the entrance of the Spaniards who were also in a missionary zeal feeling like they wanted to Christianize. As much as we can judge them from the standards of our own time, they had their own sense of creating their society, missionary zeal and all. And so when you have these different philosophical worldviews coming together in the same space, you have a clash of cultures. You find essentially that New Mexico is surrounded by hostile Indian tribes. To the east you have the Comanche which in the 18th century, certainly to the latter part of the 18th century were the

V major player, you know the most powerful presence in New Mexico at that time. They essentially rated it will large numbers of rates. To the northeast you had the Hicaria, to the north you had the Yuz and the west you had the Navajo and to the east southeast and the south you had the various bands of Apaches. And if you look at the map, you essentially have New Mexico surrounded and most of them if not all of them have this cultural characteristic of raiding. The records are very clear. In the 18th century through the 1850s, the relationship and the conflict that New Mexicans had with these planes and other Apachian tribes nearly consume New Mexico.

Much discussion, expense and effort by the Spanish colonial government was put into organizing military campaigns against raiding nomadic Indians. It was here in the Old Town Plaza of Albuquerque where troops were gathered for military expeditions. They were a mixed bunch, they were soldiers from the Santa Fe Presidio, local militiamen and a large number of Pueblo Indian allies. Important to our New Mexican heritage are these unique pictorial records of military campaigns that took place in the 18th century. The Seguésor Hyde paintings, named after the missionary who

sent the paintings to his Swiss family in 1761, are now housed in our State History Museum. Many New Mexican families can claim a special connection to the Seguésor paintings through their ancestors, some of whom are depicted in these paintings. We're here in the Palace of the Governors' Museum, the State History Museum of New Mexico, and we're in a room that shows what I consider the two most valuable artifacts in the state's patrimony, the Seguésor paintings. Seguésor 2, which is behind me here, is a painting that measures 19 feet long by four and a half feet high and depicts a battle that took place in the morning of August 13, 1720. It was a battle that took place in Nebraska of all places involving New Mexican Spanish troops and Pueblo Indians against Pani and Otto attackers and maybe French allies. The paintings show French allies because it's from a Spanish point of view and the New Mexicans

lost the battle. It was kind of a rehearsal for Custer's last stand in a way. The paintings are invaluable because they are painted from my witness accounts and so we have the Pani and Otto's fighting naked as we know they did from documents with body paint. We can see their body paint. We have Pueblo Indians fighting with Spanish soldiers which kind of destroys the myth that all Indians hated all Spaniards and vice versa. We also have the details of the uniforms of the Spanish leather uniforms of the long jackets and wide brimmed hats and we have the weaponry of the time. So for example, one of the Pani's is holding a tambourine affair that has little blades coming out. There are descriptions of it. There none exist and we have an illustration of it here. So from Albuquerque's point of view, these paintings also have significance because they depict a man who is a founding priest of Albuquerque. Father Juan Mingus who is this blue clad Franciscan and I love to say blue clad because everybody thinks they were brown but in New Mexico they were always blue. He volunteered for this expedition and his name is Juan Mingus and he was with the first

settlement that moved from Bernalillo down to atrisco and established the town of Albuquerque and then a few years later volunteered for this expedition and died on in the battle. He is depicted here holding a cross with his blue robe thrown over his head and he has panellons on and tassled socks and shoes which gives us more detail than we probably want about what a Franciscan war. Interestingly too is he's being led by a Pueblo Indian who is in front of him and if you look real close at this Pueblo Indian you'll see that he has two quivers one in front and one in the back full of arrows. He's carrying two spears and bowl and arrows in his hand and then around him there's no less than five or six of the enemy Indians trying to kill him. He's obviously a prize in an important person. That individual is depicted at least three times in this painting and he's Joseph Narano. He was a Pueblo Indian auxiliary from Santa Clara Pueblo and he was the captain of all the Pueblo Indian auxiliaries. After the Pueblo revolt after the

reconquest the nature of the relationship in the Pueblo and the Spanish settlements including our Quique and Bernalillo and the areas that are in that part of the Rio Grande de Aloe was very very different than the previous century. It was a relationship if not of I don't want to say it was a lovey-dovey kissy face kind of relationship although I suspect there was some of that going on too but the relationship was one of accommodation and a recognition I think that the Pueblos and the Spanish needed each other in order to survive against a common enemy. The Segras are one which is different than the Segras are two and that it's more mysterious. We don't have the whole painting here there are pieces missing big pieces. We know it's an

expedition. We know it's an attack on an Apache village and it's attacked apparently by Pueblo Indians dressed in some Spanish outfits, jackets and stuff and using European weaponry like swords and the Apaches are not on horseback actually. This period of time the first part of the 18th century is when Indians, Pralines Indians finally did get on horseback so there's a big change coming down the pike. The Paduca Apaches are being attacked they're on foot and then up on a mesa or behind a palisade or all these women and children with little happy faces and the theory is that they would be the Pueblo Indian women and children happy because they're about to be rescued. My impression is that in the early part of the 18th century around the time our kicker was established and probably through most of the century most of the raids by the various Indian tribes are relatively small affairs you know you did have a band of five six eight twenty you know whatever the particular band would make this for two you know we think about lightning raid

you know they see an opportunity they take it they steal some horses and a few crops and maybe kill somebody or capture a boy or a girl or a woman or something to add effect but there are a number of raids where there are quite literally hundreds of raiders two or three hundred commanches for example came through the middle Rio Grande Valley in 1775 the burial record that San Dia show 31 individuals were killed in that particular raid this kind of thing shows up periodically I don't think it's the norm but I think it kind of shows certainly in the middle in the 1770s how powerful the commanches work so there was always this bittersweet relationship nomadic people raid sedentary people the sedentary people being the Spanish villagers and the Pueblo redundant the Pueblo villages but they'd raid them for their crops and come in later on the Apaches are pushed south by the Commanches

and the Commanches take the place of the Apaches raiding and stuff but then there was also this other kind of relationship going on and that they went out on the plains or came in from the plains and traded and sold towels and and Pueblo and then up an advocate were trade centers where there was this exchange going on between sedentary Indians and Pueblo Indians and then the Spanish joined the sedentary Indians to be part of the trade fairs as well so there was this trade going on it backfired in a lot of ways and then one part of the trade was human trade and so for example there's this great account that took place right before this painting was done actually right before the founding of Albuquerque were the Navajos who were on foot went to Nebraska and captured Pony children in Nebraska that's an amazing journey on foot from you know the four corners area to Nebraska right and they brought the Pony children back to trade at the Tows Trade Fair and to become servants or whatever in the New Mexican economy and the interesting thing of that it was it was against the law to trade in human beings of Spanish law and the

advice word told the governors would stop it so he actually wrote up there this is Diego DeVargas wrote up there and stopped it and the Navajos killed all the Pony children right in front of them the fame trade fairs of the 18th century drew different cultures together haggling surplus goods like jerked meat and buffalo heights from the plains for imported luxuries like beads mirrors knives and embroidered cloth economic exchange wasn't the only objective revelry and merriment were on the menu too drinking horse racing and amorous encounters were popular with locals referring to children born nine months after a fair as grass babies 18th century New Mexico economy was dominated by the

the trade between different cultures command cheese were bringing in different trade goods they were trading with the Apaches the Utes the Navajos were completely changed by what the Spaniards were trading with them whether that was silver or torquoise being traded into the Spanish society and it was a very dynamic element of the economy I think at the heart of that trade the trade good that was seen as perhaps one of the most valuable was women and children that were being traded across cultures and that trade really shifted different cultural groups sense of themselves an original form of music that developed in New Mexico in the 1700s are called Inditas we don't know why they're called Inditas it might be because the Spanos of New Mexico thought that the Indian women were very beautiful anyway these songs are a combination

of Spanish and Indian musical forms and they tell about relations between the Indian communities and the Spano communities sometimes very violent and very sad a subcategory of Inditas are Cautivas and the interesting thing about these songs is they are sung from the woman's perspective women were usually made captive and taken to Indian communities to live out their lives never to see their children or their communities again one such song is called La Indita de Placidad Romero and these are the type of songs that were most certainly sung in New Mexico to retain the history of not only Albuquerque but of the whole region and this song goes like this in the 80s and 80s and about the 10s of the day

that's how I would be and I think when this happens that they killed my sister and the man of his husband Adiós y a me boy voy a padecer adiós mis queridas y caz cuando les volver a ver primarily women and children were captured and traded during this period of frontier living some captured settlers were raised Indian but it was mostly Indians who were brought into Spanish colonial society these hispanicized Indians became known as Heniseros and they were treated anywhere from bound servants overworked and abused to prized adopted children who were

beneficiaries of their Spanish parents wills Henisero actually comes from the Turkish word Janissaries and it was it was a term that was applied under the Ottoman Empire to those those enemy tribes that were captured by the Ottoman Empire and brought in to serve in the sultan and the army for whatever reason the term was carried over and brought by the Spaniards to New Mexico and reconstituted in the Spanish Henisero and here too as in the Ottoman Empire the Henisados were captured from enemy tribes often command cheese Apache's Navajos Yuz and were brought in to serve in both a military capacity but also in the domestic householding the human trade influenced society in that it created a whole new segment of society that's kind only in New Mexico do we use the term Henisero, Janissaro in English you know somebody and what that

means is a person that's full-blinded Indian who's become completely hispanicized or New Mexican size because New Mexican was completely different than a Peruvian by now or Colombian or even a Mexican you know Mexicans come up had different values a little bit like today you know and so these people were descended from from Indians traded in and now had become part of a New Mexican society and participated fully in it initially as servants and housemaids and you know shepherds and so forth but eventually they some of them ended up in fairly prominent positions in New Mexican society it was here at this beautiful church the San Felipe de Neri were the first babies of albuquerque were baptized the first happened on June 21st 1706 her name Francisco Luisa García she was the daughter of a one-a-hurtado in a Tomás García a Spanish founding family of La Vía de albuquerque

and a lot of people recently have focused on that first baptism is really telling us a lot about the origins of albuquerque they focused on that first child what's interesting as with any documents is to go a little bit deeper the second baptismal entry is actually of an Indian who is listed simply as Juan Indio Juan the Indian father is no conocidos father mother unknown and and he's listed simply as being baptized in July of that year of the same year another child is listed Madalena who is listed as india del mismo pueblo and we get a sense of what pueblo they were from they were from the pueblo of alamela the sixth entry on that page

is also an Indian named Pablo García he's baptized by the same Tomás García who is the father the first baptismal entry this Pablo is listed the the indio en dieles which is essentially referring to the fact that they were Indians who were not civilized and I think that baptismal entry like every single page on the albuquerque baptisms reveals a lot about who the people were that were living and making albuquerque what it would become albuquerque's heritage is a blend of cultures based on conflict and convergence Spanish colonial officials recognized early on that they did not want their men

raping and pillaging and instead encouraged mixed marriages and families as a way to stabilize society and build a community these illustrious Costa paintings portraying 18th century families in Mexico capture a colonial obsession with race and the exotic but also important they give us a sense of the rich and complex cultural tradition that characterized Spanish colonialism of great variety of variations of race and race mixture developed over the century and they're really well illustrated in these Costa paintings and are at the Museo de la Americas in Madrid in which they show 18 variations and I think that's the most I've ever seen there there may be more but there's 18 variations of this race mix with the espanyol at the pinnacle of this pyramid if you want to phrase it that way and everything subsequent to that is a combination of espanyol the Indian and the black with the espanyol and the Indian producing a mestizo and then if you have the

black introduced to that you know producing the mulatto and then a variation of that produces the asambo and it goes on and on until it reaches like the 1617 and 18th in which they don't really know what they are or how to describe it and they say something to the effect that they call it in el viento or something to that effect say and what you are is up in the air we don't really know what you are helping new Mexicans get a better sense of who they are Angel Cervantes has started the New Mexico DNA project people in albuterca and elsewhere are researching their genetic roots beyond the written record

as of today we have 275 DNA samples in the project about 30 of them are still pending in the lab there was a study done in the late 90s in southern calorado that was done predominantly for mitochondrial DNA and when I say mitochondrial DNA I am talking about empty DNA which is basically the genetic code you get from mother to daughter mother to daughter mother to daughter mother to daughter it was back 5,000 years it is basically your eve and it discovered that 85% of its sampling was of Native American origin to contrast that to my project I've discovered that 80% of the mitochondrial sampling that I have in the New Mexico DNA project is of Native American origin on the Y DNA or what we call the DNA code that you get from father to son father to son father to son and it goes back 2,000 years ago I've discovered that about 90% of it is of DNA

codes that are common to the old world either in western Europe or central Europe or the Mediterranean or the Middle East most of the paternal DNA is of old world genetic code whereas the maternal DNA the vast majority of it is of Native American ancestry and when I started looking at this when I had roughly about maybe 120 140 DNA samples I started thinking to myself I want to understand why this is coming about maybe there's a historical connection that I can find from a paper trail so what I did is I went to the genealogical library here in Albuquerque me and I started looking at some of the passenger lists that brought colonists from Spain to the new world and what I discovered in that information is that about 80% of the passengers were male and only 20% were female so it's very indicative of what what has happened basically most of the colonists that came here were

males and they didn't bring that many females along with them when they you know built the colony here in New Mexico so they obviously mixed with indigenous females and you're seeing that now in the DNA the musical tradition of Hispanic New Mexico is an oral tradition which means it's not written down rather it's passed down from generation to generation one song that comes to us from New Mexican singer Cleophess Vihil is a song called I'm no del pueblo de las montañas de la sangre de Cristo and it tells the story of New Mexico the blending of Spanish and Indian cultures de gracia

escogieron para esposas donde nació linda rasa yeah rasa buena y amorosa color bronce de mestizo oh and so you have a very small group of Europeans who came here initially and every so often a few would come from Europe here as well but not many over the years and then the people from Mexico moving up this southern migration south to north which has been going on for over four

centuries it's not new today you know it's been going on for four centuries and almost three fours of that time there was no united states and they were coming north well the whole idea that they're coming because the united states is here it's magical hey my family came here centuries before there was a united states for the opportunities of land and so forth in living in the wilderness I guess um and the ski runs and and so um and then then you have this trade fair thing in the intermiction not only with with people sold into society through the trade fair but also up until the previous generation there was a lot of intermixing between his what was hispanic society and pueblo society uh pueblos today have a lot of hispanic new mexican blood what in all that that means and that includes in this little blood that includes blood from Mexico of successive generations and so there's that mixture too some of the pueblos probably have more of that blood than they have the blood that they had before the Spanish came because they were decimated because of disease and so forth and and then rebuilt after the years and

and and I say up to a generation prior to mine because there are people elderly in the pueblos and in my society who remember when they stood as you know godfathers and godparents for births of in in each society they were that close together and somehow there was a division put between them where that doesn't happen anymore that's a modern thing that happened prior to that there was a lot of intermarriage a lot a lot of intercooperation and a lot of syncretism that went on between the pueblos and and and the hispanic society so um you know we we in in Mexico it was never a large population yet we've survived all these years so there had to be a lot of mixture going on there just had to be otherwise we're we're not all here now I suppose when you look in the history books you see it's full of wars and battles but wars and battles are only part of that story there's the exchange of ideas and cultures of friendships and ongoing trade between peoples this is the origin of many Nuevo Mejicanos we are a great mix of people making us distinctly new mexican

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