Tesuque Rain Gods

The tradition the panel celebrates had a merchant at its start. From about 1880 the Santa Fe curio dealer Jake Gold built a trade in Tesuque figurines, paying potters a few cents apiece; by 1907 he was shipping more than a thousand a year. Dealers sold them as sacred objects, though they served no ceremony, and museum curators of the time scorned them. The story that a Chicago candy company packed them in its boxes has been repeated for decades and never confirmed. Tesuque was the only pueblo to make them.

What the plaque says

Official Scenic Historic Marker Tesuque Rain Gods Tesuque Pueblo Seated clay figurines known as rain gods or "rain catchers" spring from Tesuque Pueblo's deep-rooted figurative pottery tradition. Popularized in the 1880s, Tesuque women made and sold the figurines in a variety of colors and designs, and earned income by selling them to curio dealers and tourists. Rain gods typically hold pots while other gods hold children, animals and other objects. The tradition is practiced to this day. 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

• Palace of the Governors — 9.8 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.
• El Santuario de Chimayó — 12 mi
  A small adobe shrine on the High Road to Taos, built around 1816 over earth that pilgrims still carry away in hope of healing.
• Bandelier National Monument — 17 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 — 18 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

• Pueblo of Tesuque — steps away
• Feliciana Tapia Viarrial (1904-1988) — 4.3 mi
• The St. Francis Women's Club — 5.7 mi
• Santa Fe Opera — 6.2 mi