The Plaza: The Heart of Community Life

One of the most striking characteristics of the large ancestral Tewa settlements was the plaza.

At Sapawe there were several.

The plaza was much more than an empty courtyard.

It created communal space within an otherwise dense settlement. People could gather there, work there and participate in public activities there.

Research into neighboring Poshuouinge suggests that plaza architecture changed as Río Chama communities became increasingly large and interconnected during the centuries after about A.D. 1300. Large plazas may have helped accommodate visitors, exchange and larger communal gatherings.

The architecture therefore tells us something important.

These were societies organized not simply around individual households but around community.

The Kiva and the Spiritual World

Archaeologists use the term kiva for Pueblo ceremonial structures identified at ancestral settlements.

Sapawe contained numerous kivas as well as a larger structure generally described archaeologically as a great kiva.

It would be a mistake, however, to believe that archaeology can fully reconstruct Tewa religion from buildings and artifacts.

It cannot.

Traditional Pueblo religious knowledge belongs to the communities themselves, and portions of it are intentionally private.

What can safely be said is that spirituality was not separated from ordinary existence in the way modern Western society sometimes separates religion from daily life.

Land, water, weather, seasons, animals, plants, ancestors and community were interconnected.

The National Park Service, working with affiliated Pueblo communities at Bandelier, emphasizes that Pueblo oral traditions include stories, songs, dances, language, skills and beliefs and that these traditions continue to connect living Pueblo people with ancestral places.

That distinction is important for the El Rito History Project.

Sapawe is not merely an “abandoned Indian ruin.”

It is part of a continuing Indigenous history.