Pueblo of Jémez: The Last Towa Voice
New Mexico
The Pueblo of Jemez has a distinction no other place in the world shares: it is the only community where the Towa language is still spoken. Spanish explorers documented seven pueblos in this province in fifteen forty-one. Jemez is the sole survivor.
In eighteen thirty-eight, the final residents of Pecos Pueblo, hundreds of miles to the east, made a long journey west and joined Jemez. Pecos had once been among the most powerful trading centers in the Southwest. By the time its people arrived here, disease and raids had reduced the population to only about seventeen survivors.
Today the Jemez people work to keep the Towa language alive through schools and community programs. The mission of San Diego de los Jemez, built in the sixteen hundreds, still anchors the historic heart of the pueblo.
