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History & Culture

MATA ORTIZ AND VICINITY

Mata Ortiz is more than just pottery.  It is a village settled in a valley surrounded by mountains, agriculture, archaeological sites and other cultures.  It is a village of people who put family first.  It is a village of seven neighborhoods or barrios.  We will be introducing the area to you a little at a time.

First, we will take you to BARRIO PORVENIR.

When you enter Mata Ortiz by the only paved road, which stops at the railroad tracks on the edge of town, you enter Barrio Central.  Make a right, go a few hundred yards, down into a wide, dry arroyo  and up the other side into Barrio Porvenir, which means Neighborhood of the Future.  The name doesn’t fit this area because it is an older neighborhood at the south end of town.  It is a mini-community with its own church, abarrotes, and telephone.

Several famous pottery families live here.  It is not unusual to have parents, siblings, aunts and uncles, and cousins all living within a stone’s throw from one another.  

 Let’s take a walk around the barrio.  The Porvenir Chapel is one, small low room with a tin roof.  Throughout the year, the chapel’s traditional dancing group, matachines, perform in front of the small church.  They dress in their red and yellow costumes and dance a series of routines which celebrate Catholic holidays with a mixture of Native American and European religious traditions.  The young dancers go from dawn till after dark, moving to the music supplied by older men playing guitars, fiddles and a string bass.