Feature of the Old West
The character of the Southwest still bears the stamp of the miner and the cattleman. Although the cattle and grazing industry has declined, as has the traditional mining camp, the past importance of these activities has had a tremendous impact upon the character of Southwest folklore, law, and music and on the thought of the people.
Other influences affected New Mexico as a result of the American occupation, things inherent in the American culture. Ribbons of steel across a continent, buildings of steel and stone, business and commerce, technology, common law, the English language, the Protestant religion, and, above all, the American-brought driving desire to dominate, to win. Certainly the American had to adapt his culture to the desert lands, but he did it in his own way, not in the way of the Indian or Spaniard. So Anglo-American culture became superimposed upon a Spanish culture that was superimposed upon an Indian culture.
Disinherited, that is the word that best describes contemporary New Mexico culture. A stronger race came and took away the inheritance of the Indian, though there did result a blood mixture. Only in superficial matters did the Spanish adopt any of the Indian ways. The Spanish, too, succumbed to a stronger people and have been denied the privilege commonly accorded to conquered peoples, that of mixing their blood with that of the conquerors. One finds today in New Mexico three distinct people—Indian, Spanish, and Anglo-American—as sharply contrasted as the strands in a Navajo blanket. There is pure red alongside white, and only rarely do the colors blend into pinks or grays. This is why we must say that New Mexico is a mosaic, not a synthesis, of many elements, clearly defined.
Across the span of time, great men, people, and ideas have molded New Mexico and Southwest history. Indian, Spanish, American—vital forces that are today working toward a genuinely unique culture in New Mexico. The modern world may well give to the Southwest the idea or catalyst that will blend these elements into a single force. Science, techniques, ideas are things of the present and are for the present to assess and synthesize. The Indian gods of air, earth, and sky and the white man’s gods of morality and science do not differ a great deal in their aspirations for their chosen people, and perhaps they will decree a splendid and unique synthesis from the cultural mosaic. Through understanding comes knowledge; from knowledge, creation.
The Exotic Plants of New Mexico
by Ross Calvin
The problem of discussing plant life becomes complicated, for some of those arriving in New Mexico may be compound microscope botanists, some collectors, others pathologists, still others geneticists. Some will be chemists or mathematicians, some others untrained in the ways of growing things and mainly interested in seeing while they tour. But one thing is fairly certain—most visitors will come from a distance, so it may be useful to invite them to observe what they can readily see on the way hither, which will be a relatively painless method of amassing some information.
Yet the method of arrival itself suggests choices, options, and exercises in probability. Do visitors come in covered wagons, or in jet planes; by bus, car, train, or some other way? The most convenient way, doubtless, is by plane traveling six hundred miles an hour at a height of some thirty thousand feet; but the most rewarding way is by saddle or on foot as the early collectors came.
Since one cannot know his own country well if he knows no other, a visitor from the east arriving at an altitude of five miles will probably be more conscious than others of drastic changes in the landscape when he first looks down on New Mexico. Instead of the universal green of the east, he will note the earth as an unaccustomed tawny, reddish brown expanse, and this will be its common color through most months of the year. He will note the absence of rivers, but the presence of mountains which generally ring the horizon. He will wonder, after traversing the border counties at the western edge of the Great Plains, at the infrequency of plowlands, and will promptly conclude that New Mexico is one vast, bare desert—an impression that will be corrected rapidly when he visits the dark National Forests where the slim, crowded spruces and firs tower skyward.