Gathering Up Again: Fiesta in Santa Fe

Overview

This film stumbles upon the secret of any ritual; that is, because ritual reconciles oppositions that are inherently irreconcilable, it always risks evoking expressions of hostility, anger or grief. Here, unwittingly, the camera focuses on the Native American who has accepted the role of Cacique Domingo in a pageant reenacting the "peaceful reconquest" of Santa Fe by Spaniards in 1692. Offended by the caricature of Plains Indians costumes and war paints donned by Hispanics and Anglos in the pageant, tears run down the face of the "chief" as the insensitivity to the role of Pueblo Indians in the historical representation is revealed to him.