Essays

Moseying: Living La Vida Llanero

Los Comanches – A Genizaro Christmas tradition on the upper Pecos River
December 19, 2007

In 2004 I was one of two dozen people asked to critique the efforts of six professional photographers recording the “Llano Estacado” at the Southwestern Collections at Texas Tech. I was dismayed at the photographs, for they seem to record “first impressions” of the landscape. They recorded the huge sky, the vast “nothingness,” and the decay of human efforts on the Llano Estacado. I commented that I did not see any photographs of the subtle beauty and wonders that can be found in our home bioregion. None of the iconic flora and fauna of the region had been recorded – not even sandhill cranes.

When I also stated that none of the photographs illustrated the centuries of Hispanic or Indian involvement with the Llano Estacado, I mentioned the folk plays performed in northern New Mexico at Christmas time (and other feast days in the fall and winter) where Hispanos and Pueblos dressed and sang as “Comanches.” Photographer Miguel A. Gandert commented that he and Enrique LaMadrid had just finished the book Hermanitos Comanchitos on that subject, but that was not really something found on the Llano Estacado. My other suggestions did not affect the end result, either, despite receiving words of agreement from legendary nature writer Barry Lopez. The experience became the driving force behind the Sibley Nature Center’s website’s photoessays – to give a positive and intimate and familiar perspective of our home.

I picked up Gandert and LaMadrid’s book at a Half-Price Bookstore in Fort Worth (and why doesn’t Midland have a branch of that wonderful store?). On Monday, December 10th, on that misty and cold wintry day, I picked up the book, thinking about holiday traditions, remembering these endemic (to the Llano Estacado region) traditions, but virtually unknown on the Llano Estacado, itself. Hispano and Pueblo communities of northern New Mexico have many colorful processions, historical dramas, religious morality plays, and boisterous dancing that incorporate significant emulation of their former foes – the Comanches. One of the plays (Los Comanches) is the reenactment of the story of the Comanches led by Cuerno Verde being defeated by troops led by the Spanish governor Don Juan Bautista de Anza in 1779.

The plays are often performed by people who are Genizaros; the offspring of criados, the captives, slaves, and orphans raised in the Spanish households who later formed their own communities. At the time of the Cuerno Verde campaigns Genizaros made up over a third of the Spanish speaking population of New Mexico. Genizaros began in the upper Chama River Valley near Abiquiu and later spread to many of the upper Pecos River valley villages and Rio Grande villages such as Belen and Socorro. Many Genizaros were Ciboleros and Comancheros in the 1800s, annually involved in trading with the Comanches. Some would live with the Comanches, and some even became leaders of bands of Comanches. When the Comanches were forced to the reservation in Oklahoma, a percentage of the Comanches moved to northern New Mexico to settle with their Genizaro in-laws.

People move about easily in the modern world. People of all cultures come to the United States, and many people alive now have ancestors of many traditions. (Tiger Woods and Barack Obama are two people that represent this trend. My grandson has a Mexican father, as another example.) A modern child lives in a world where success hinges on the ability to accept differences – actions and words of prejudice limit his or her potential. It is an ongoing cultural revolution, or ethnogenesis (creation of culture.) For that reason, I believe it is of value to learn about the above-mentioned folk plays that have endured for over 200 years.

Los Comanches was probably written by Don Pedro Baptista Pino of Galisteo, who participated in the Cuerno Verde campaigns of the 1770s after Comanches had attacked his ranch several times, Two family members were taken captive and others died. Despite these tragedies, he wrote favorably, even admirably about Comanche culture in reports to the Cortes de Cadiz in 1812. He loosely based it on a much older play, Moros y cristianos, performed for centuries in Spain. Opposing armies face each other, and before combat, challenge each other. The result of Moros y cristianos is conversion and assimilation, but Los Comanches ends in the defeat of the Comanches, but no conversion. Both sides ride off together, as equals. Many people today can recite portions of Los Comanches from memory (and not only the participants!)

Modern participants include people from all walks of life – from scientists at Los Alamos to ranchers and farmers and wage earners in factories, who are motivated by a deep cultural pride and dedication to their community. All are great horsemen (jinetes), who take great pride in their mounts and their skills. Many can trace their family lineage to a former captive of the Indians, or to a captive Indian. The players that perform as Indians are imaginative and colorful, with face paint and warbonnets (including Cuerno Verde’s green buffalo horn headdress.) The players that perform as Spanish soldiers often wear metal armor instead of the leather and rawhide armor used in 1779. Over the years the play has been reduced in length from early printed versions and most modern plays only have a handful of horsemen for each side.

The speeches by the Comanche characters use the same diction, imagery, and elocution of their Spanish opponents during the stirring “arengas” or challenges full of flowery rhetoric and wit. Both sides describe their ferocity and valor in battle to the wild animals of the mountains and their strength to the forces of nature. It is probably due to the inclusive nature of Comanche culture that inspired the Genizaros and Pueblos to celebrate Los Comanches. Comanches becomes a symbol of the power of freedom emanating from the land itself, outside the walls of the towns.

Los Comanches is a product of our regional history. It is part of what it means to be a Llanero. To drive that point home, we had a drop-in visitor (now living in Midland) who (when he spotted the book still on my desk) told us that he had been raised in one of the Genizaro towns and had attended many enactments of Los Comanches.