May 19, 2021 Day 32: Albuquerque, NM

Volcano site with native Indian petroglyphs, can you find it in this picture? 火山爆发后的地点有印第安人在上面画的画。你能找到吗？

Volcano site with native Indian peproglyph, can you find it in this picture? 火山爆发后的地点有印第安人在上面画的画。你能找到吗？

Native Indian made these with horse tails. 印第安人用马尾做的

Good friends finally met!!! 好朋友终于见面了！

My daughter's friend's parents invited us for dinner. This is her house. 我女儿朋友父母邀请我们吃晚饭，在她的家外面

We went to the Petroglyphs National Monument where there were large rocks on a hill. These were black and from volcanoes millions of years ago, with some scratched on drawings. We met a volunteer ranger who told us about the indigenous markings of bear paws and people, and more recent Spanish markings of crosses and dates. Later we went to the Indian Pueblo Cultural Center where we ate an indigenous and New Mexico fusion restaurant. We had three sisters - corn, beans, and squash on bread, and pancakes with sunflower seeds and pine nuts.

One thing that was interesting was an indigenous man’s explanation of the term Indian. A woman asked him why this term was still okay, since her daughter corrected her whenever she used it. I had had this question myself many times. The museum tour guide explained how America is derived from the Italian Americo. Similarly, the pueblos (Indian reservations) and indigenous groups were named with Spanish names. The same way that Indian is inaccurate because of Columbus’ erroneous geographic perceptions at the time, America was inaccurately named, and yet we still use the term. He told the name in the native language that his grandmother taught him to speak (something like ‘we are those who walk on two legs.’) He said that the Spanish gave them names from a sense of impunity. To him, all the terms are inaccurate, so it doesn’t matter. They have their own languages an own ways of defining who they are; they know who they are and in a way, it doesn’t matter what we call them.

Later, we went to my friend’s house where her parents invited us for dinner. Their house was fashioned after a traditional adobe house and had logs across the ceiling, and a decorative clay oven in the backyard. They had a pattern of rocks shaped like a lizard. Apparently, a two foot long lizard lived underneath its decorative counterpart.