Tesuque Rain Gods

Santa Fe County · US 84/285 -- mile marker 175.1 -- Pueblo of Tesuque -- on frontage road at Camel Rock rest area

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.

The Historic Preservation Division notes that its marker spreadsheet may be out of date and in places inaccurate, and that it does not know where every marker now stands. These pages carry the spreadsheet’s record; a marker listed here may have moved or may no longer stand. the program’s page ↗

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USGS Historical Topographic Map Collection

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under a mile from where William Gabby lived in the 1760s

what this marker records spans 1777 to 1789, overlapping William Gabby's years here

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Marker data: Official Scenic Historic Markers program, New Mexico Historic Preservation Division, Department of Cultural AffairsMarker texts come from the Division’s published marker spreadsheet, reproduced with the Division’s written permission. Where that spreadsheet records a coordinate, the pin is the Division’s own; where it records only a highway and mile marker, an address, a junction or a named place, or where its coordinate contradicts its own highway, mile and county, the pin is ours, resolved on public road and place data and marked approximate.

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Pueblo of Tesuqueunder 1 mi
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