Walking around Santa Fe

Walking around Santa Fe, we went past the cathedral. They have lots of statues and monuments that reflect the history.

One that I thought really interesting is pictured below. It commemorates the arrival of the Spanish and shows some of the things they introduced, so the monument is based on introduced animals such as pigs, horses, sheep, cows & donkeys. Above them are some of the crops and fruits. They also have books to represent literacy.

You could take this monument in a couple ways. You could see it as the gift of the Spanish, as I think it is intended, or you could see it as the invasion of the Spanish and all their plants and animals.

I recall a really good book – “1493” by Charles C Mann. He talked about the vast ecological change wrought by Old World flora and fauna introduced to the Americas, among them the plants and animals depicted. I doubt that those Pueblo folks, that I wrote about in an earlier post, would have viewed the coming of the Spanish as an unalloyed blessing.

My first two pictures show the monument. Next is the cathedral. To fill out this set of pictures, I have included a couple pictures from the Pecos. The first is Chrissy at the ladder of a restored kiva. Kiva were underground ceremonial rooms at Pueblo sites. The other photo, not very clear, is Sandoval Street in Santa Fe. I took it in honor of Lisa K J Sandoval & Christiana Sandoval. I assume the street is named after them and their family.