Taos Pendejos Hurl Hand Full of Dust in Hispanic Eyes

Red Willow Councilors Claim Healing Powers

“The Fix is in,” said Nervous Jervis

Here you live in a town among the enchanted Cultures, called variously Native Americans, Hispanic Natives, and Anglo Arrivistes. Apparently the three groups live in somnolent affection until they wake up and quarrel over historic grievances. The source of grievances includes arguments over indigenous claims concerning land and water, Hispanic land grants, priority water rights, unending arguments over whose ancestors stole land, water, and money from whom or which primo stole mama’s casa while la familia mourned at papa’s funeral and your bro closed the road when nobody was looking.

Things were going too well recently in Taos, so the Council and their handy bulldog Bellis, disturbed by the harmonious atmosphere and not content to let sleeping dogs lie, chose to mix up a helping of political correctness with a dollop of self-righteous justification while buying a cheap herbal remedy called “Red Willow” and substituting the soft and fuzzy name for that symbol of horror, aka “Kit Carson,” at the Town’s historic park. According to the news, the council and Bellis saw the name change as a way of “healing” and “reconciling” wounded feelings but they didn’t say they planned to rub salt in the wounds of los vecinos in El Prado, Arroyo Seco and El Salto, and the Town of Taos.

Some folks like their history the way it is.

Nor did these so-called community leaders produce a single letter from Taos Pueblo Tribal Council or the Tribal Government or RISE requesting the name change. But they repeated the personal grievances of ne’er do-well activists, musicians, and the prideful puffery of the aggrieved. This vision quest begins on the road to victimhood.

Similarly, the Town Council ignored calling historians, scholars, and anthropologists, the citizens and the people, who voted for them. They slipped the name change in through the back door when nobody was watching except the sycophants. Ironically, these Pendejos changed the name of the local park in order to please non-voters at Taos Pueblo, while duly pissing off their own Hispanic voters, who have historic grievances about serving at the beck and call of the Tribe.

Back in 1924, Congress passed the Pueblo Lands Act, which caused Hispanic “squatters” to be summarily kicked off the their historic farms. And the historic tussles over water, blocked acequias, pad-locked head gates, and the interminable Abeyta/Taos Pueblo Settlement continue.

(If the Town wants to do something helpful for Abeyta, they might enforce the town water ordinance, as suggested by Gilbert Suazo of Taos Pueblo, a real community leader.)

Maybe this group of self-righteous Pendejos will resolve differences among the abstract artists and realist painters when they’ve finished renaming historic sites in the community.

But you can’t serve justice by healing one group and abusing the other. Though most of Hahn’s inner circle supports the councilor’s enchanting proposal, one of the clear thinking members seems more enamored with facts than propaganda and writes:

“I would like to add for accuracy of history, as I have been recently updated. Both the Utes and Taos Pueblo Indians were asking, the US Government to attack the Navajo, as both of those tribes were having problems, including being attacked, at that time. That is the attack that is being referenced, one that Kit Carson refused three times, but as an active duty officer of the U S Army was ordered to do under threat of court martial.

“Instead of disparaging Kit Carson, the Taos Pueblo should be honoring him. As to the Navajo, at that time in history, they and the Taos Pueblo were enemies. “

But we in Taos are an oral culture and rumor walks among us. Now, at each Town Council Meeting, the Council will listen not to acid-tongued Jeff Northrup, but to the rambling and episodic Arsenio Cordova. No doubt the Cantankerous One will lecture them not about historic  El Prado but about Taos valley, the Southwest, the Indian Wars, the Mexican War, the war for truth and culture, and the role of costume drama in the Mountain Meadows Massacre.

Speaking of personal losses and grievances, the brother of Arsenio’s own grandmother was stolen by the Navajos up in Mora. The family still wants him back. Some wounds never heal, especially when the Pendejos pour vinegar in the open sores. Fritz used to say he worked for the “people” and believed in the “citizens” right to a democratic form of government.” But the Ancianos say he was just kidding. The wages of sin is Arsenio.

Buenas suerte, mis amigos.