We Thought We Knew

I have been wanting to write about Mabel Dodge Luhan to coincide with an exhibit at the Harwood Museum in Taos, Mabel Dodge Luhan & Company: American Moderns and the West. In preparing for it, I recognized a striking commonality between the two of us.

Despite vastly different backgrounds, both Mabel and I arrived in New Mexico with similar cavalier assumptions and an absence of prior research before buying land and building homes. There was a great deal neither of us considered or understood about the place. But the thing is, we thought we knew.

Upon arriving in Taos in 1918, Mabel fervently believed New Mexico to be an unspoiled, sacred place where she could make a new life for herself, far away from the industrialization and hustle of the East.

Further, she believed she’d found a sort of outpost in the West into which she could call the era’s great artists, thinkers and activists. Together she imagined they could create a better world. She successfully put Taos on the map of modern art by bringing luminaries like Georgia O’Keeffe, Ansel Adams, and D. H. Lawrence to the region. Some credited her with establishing a “Paris of the West” in the American Southwest.

Mabel came here ostensibly to “save the Indians.” She wanted to preserve their customs and their art before “progress” had a chance of destroying them forever—an intention that looked deeply admiring but was inherently patronizing. While many New Mexican pueblos were indeed in decline when she arrived, she and her companions subscribed to the destructive myth of the “vanishing Indian,” a sentimentalized, paternalistic notion that would affect the entire direction of their lives.

She overlooked the existing Spanish population entirely, as well as the cultural influence these wealthy newcomers and patrons would have on the region. They ultimately shifted local traditions and art by their purchases and requests. Characterized by privilege and strong-willed intentions, she unconsciously commodified the people.

As noted in Lois Rudnick’s article posted on elpalacio.org, And La Bruja Brought the Sunflowers, “… neither she [Mabel Dodge Luhan] nor any of her Anglo colleagues wrote or painted about the poverty or the racial and class tensions that were part of daily life in Northern New Mexico, and from which they benefited personally in terms of inexpensive day labor, domestic work, and models for their art.” No they didn’t. Theirs was a simplified, idealized perspective.

Our stories converge in our shared naive and even condescending assumptions.

When I arrived, I was unaware of the history behind the ancient acequias running across my land. I didn’t know they had been carved out of the dry, rocky earth with fire-hardened wooden tools hundreds of years ago. A lifeline to the village, they are maintained every spring–cleaned and shored up, all the way from the mountain, along the full length of its winding path.

Or that the women of the village came together each spring–the enjarradoras–to skillfully re-mud the adobe walls of every building because adobe needs that to last. The earthen houses that protected them and their families have lasted for centuries because of these women.

I had no idea of Los Hermanos Penitentes whose church had abandoned them so thoroughly that they created a religion of their own. I didn’t understand their spiritual depth or that they were the original social safety net, keeping families alive if a father fell ill.

I knew nothing about the harm done by the railroads. When Anglos arrived with their ideas of ownership, they bought land and cut it up with fences. The pastures that had been shared for generations were divided into “mine and yours.” For centuries animals had been allowed to roam, finding food and water where they could. During droughts and hard times, it made it easier for all to survive.

I didn’t even fully understand that fierce wars had been fought over the very land I was living on.

The ancestors of these people are my neighbors today. They were Mabel’s too. We didn’t know. And we should have.

I recognize, now, my hubris in coming here with so little understanding. But the people and this place opened their arms to me anyway.

I intend to live a gentle life here, hoping to grow from the wisdom this place has to offer. And I pledge to continue to learn more about the culturally profound and historical richness of Truchas, New Mexico–the village that welcomed me and brought me home.

May I walk respectfully on her hard, rocky earth, fully appreciating how mightily the ancestors toiled to carve out a life here, surviving despite the odds. As a guest on this mountainside, I will remember their sacrifice and do my best to be an honest steward of their legacy.

Love to you all,

Jeane