Pueblo of Jémez

The people call their pueblo Walatowa, and its Towa language is kept without an alphabet: tribal law forbids writing it, so it lives entirely in speech. The single village is itself a product of war. After the 1680 revolt the Jemez held a mesa above San Diego Canyon until July 24, 1694, when Diego de Vargas stormed it with Zia, Santa Ana and San Felipe fighters. In 1696 a Jemez warrior killed the friar at the new mission, and through those years many took refuge among the Navajo, Apache and Hopi before the nation regathered here.

What the plaque says

Official Scenic Historic Marker Pueblo of Jémez Jémez is the sole surviving pueblo of the seven in the "provencia de los Hemes" noted by Spaniards in 1541, and the last at which the Towa language is still spoken. In 1838 the remaining inhabitants of Pecos Pueblo moved here. The mission of San Diego de Jémez was last rebuilt in the 1880s.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Jemez Historic Site — 9.6 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.
• Valles Caldera National Preserve — 20 mi
  A crater thirteen miles across, floored with grass, left by an eruption 1.25 million years ago and owned privately for 140 years under a law that called it vacant land.
• Bandelier National Monument — 27 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.
• Fuller Lodge — 29 mi
  The upright-log dining hall of a boys' ranch school, which fed and housed the Manhattan Project after the Army bought the school in 1942.

More markers nearby

• Evelyn M. Vigil, Phan-un-pha-kee (Young Doe) — steps away
• Colorado Plateau — 7.6 mi
• Vásquez de Coronado's Route — 9.2 mi
• Jémez State Monument — 9.8 mi