Large Kiva at Plaza of Gran Quivira
Gran Quivira --- about 20 miles SE of Mountainair, NM ---------------- I hope this series of historic ruins in central New Mexico isn't just a pile of rocks for you. I've tried to give a sense of the beauty and awesome skill of the Native Americans who lived in this region for thousands of years and, in the early 1600's, built massive structures under the direction of Spanish missionaries. Today we look back, undoubtedly with regret, at how the historic cultural and religious traditions of the Native People were so forcefully subsumed. In parts of the world today, such as in Tibet, this same process proceeds today as one culture purposefully overwhelms another. The kiva shown here is in the marketplace of the pueblo at Gran Quivira and served the entire community. Because it was a trading community that, we are told, hosted Puebloan tribes and the more nomadic tribes of the Plains, it can be assumed that many visitors to the Pueblo worshiped here too.
