Photo Essay of New Mexico Community
El Cautivo (The Captive) Dance commemorates the servitude of the Genizaro with dollar bills pinned to their ceremonial clothing as symbols of their "purchase" by other tribes and the Spaniards. From Russel Albert Daniels's photo essay.
The photo show slated to open last month at the National Museum of the American Indian at 1 Battery Pl. is now all online. Although hundreds of museum exhibits from around the world compete for our attention these days, "The Genízaro Pueblo of Abiquiú" is well worth a look.
The moving photo essay by photographer Russel Albert Daniels unwraps a multi-faceted history of the Genizaro people of northern New Mexico, including the startling story of human trafficking that existed between Indian tribes as well as the Spanish colonists. (Daniels' own Diné grandmother was abducted by the White River Ute people when she was five years old and after years in bondage was traded to a Mormon frontiersman who married her decades later.)
Daniels' photos also show the community's attempt to reassert its identity and culture as well as the eerie remains of the Spaniards' occupation that are the physical reminders of how the legacy of subjugation has lived on.