Kewa Women's Co-op

The panel uses both of the pueblo's names. Santo Domingo is the one Gaspar Castaño de Sosa gave the village in 1591; Kewa is the Keres name its council says the people have always used. In 2009 the pueblo quietly returned to it officially, changing its seal, signs and letterhead, and the Rail Runner station that opened nearby in March 2010 was named Kewa Pueblo Station. Heishi, the craft the co-op keeps, means small disc beads of shell or stone drilled and ground smooth, long strung with turquoise from the Cerrillos hills.

What the plaque says

Official Scenic Historic Marker Kewa Women's Co-op Santo Domingo Pueblo According to oral and recorded history, the Santo Domingo people have always made and traded jewelry. From prehistoric times heishi, drilled and ground shell beads, have been strung into necklaces. Generations of Santo Domingo women have passed down this art. Recent descendents have formed the Kewa Women's Co-op to retain heishi and other traditions including pottery, embroidery, weaving, and Pueblo foods. Official Scenic Historic Marker New Mexico Historic Women Marker Initiative The New Mexico Historic Women Marker Initiative was founded in 2005 by members of the New Mexico Women's Forum in a statewide effort to recognize women's contributions to New Mexico history on the state's Official Scenic Historic Markers. The Initiative ensures that women's diverse histories will be remembered and told, and will inspire and provide a guide for future generations. The 2006 Legislature funded the project.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Bandelier National Monument — 21 mi
  Rooms carved into soft volcanic tuff in Frijoles Canyon, named for a Swiss scholar who was led there in 1880 by a man from Cochiti Pueblo.
• Palace of the Governors — 25 mi
  The long adobe on the north side of the Santa Fe plaza, called the oldest public building in continuous use in the country, though its own founding date is in dispute.
• Jemez Historic Site — 30 mi
  The stone walls of a 1620s mission church standing among the ruins of Gisewa, a Jemez village named for the hot springs beside it.
• Petroglyph National Monument — 34 mi
  Some 24,000 images pecked into the dark basalt of Albuquerque's West Mesa, protected in 1990 and then crossed by a city boulevard.

More markers nearby

• Pueblo of Santo Domingo Kiua — 3.4 mi
• La Bajada — 4.9 mi
• Gold and Turquoise — 9.3 mi
• Amelia Elizabeth White and Mary Cabot Wheelwright — 9.3 mi