NM on Film

ZIA PUEBLO

- Bonanza Creek Ranch
- Cook Ranch and the Silverado Set
- The Cumbres & Toltec Scenic Railroad
- Eaves Movie Ranch
- White Sands National Monument
- Zia Pueblo
There are some special places in New Mexico that make a person feel enveloped by an altogether different atmosphere. It's not just the beauty of the surroundings - nature at her grandiose best - but the intensity of feeling that stirs one's soul. It's the clarity awareness brings, springing from the winds sweeping the tops of multicolored mesas, the joy in the stillness of teeming life in high desert range land, the peace that emanates from the earth itself, a peace born of many centuries of guardianship and prayer. This is the fabric of experience to be found at the Zia Indian Reservation. Like so many areas of tribal land in New Mexico, it is a place that speaks to the heart as well as the mind; it is the heart that senses the aura of mystery distinguishing such places.

This late summer morning the normally gusty wind is somewhat calm as two Zia residents walk along the edge of Gypsum Point, an enormous mesa topped with pearl gray gypsum soil. Peter Pino, Zia tribal administrator and film liaison to the New Mexico Film Office, gestures around him as he says, "We know what we value, and we protect it." He gets a nod of agreement from tribal elder and religious leader Luterio Lucero. The men's eyes are radiant with the fullness of the beauty surrounding them - Cabezón Peak, the "giant's head," looms on the western horizon, and to the east the Sandía Mountains reflect the last of the morning sun as it transits into the arc of midday.

There is a small movie set nearby, a shepherd's hut built for the film Into the Badlands, later used by other productions. A scraggy juniper growing close by seems almost defiant in its solitude. The soil here is so heavily laden with gypsum that few plants can survive; the stark, hilly landscape looks like the surface of the moon. Different areas of Zia contribute to its other-worldly persona: Chalky white rock formations rise up in lonely clusters between razorback ridges and basins of cacti and pi–on. Murky thermal springs bubble out of the ground in areas patchworked with soils of Martian red and striated yellow, charcoal and cream. The saline Río Salado winds through uncertain terrain of rolling prairie and deeply carved arroyos.

It's not surprising that this 122,000-acre reservation has been filmed as another planet for the television series Earth 2 and the movie New Eden, that it became Grand Canyon territory for the miniseries The Fire Next Time and that Wyatt Earp used Zia's open range land for a captivating scene of a wagon train caught in a blinding sandstorm in the Mojave Desert.

The natural resources are only a part of the reason why Zia has had numerous film projects over the years. In 1988 the tribe made a concerted effort to attract film as a form of economic development that wouldn't adversely affect the reservation. Lucero explains their viewpoint in Keres, the language of the Zia Tribe. "We are looking for tribal benefit of the whole, not of the individual. That is the way of the Pueblo people," he states through Pino's translation. The entire community is helped through the receipt of location fees paid by film companies. The monetary benefit comes without any long-term impact on the land. "After a project is over, the area goes back to is original state," reassures Lucero. "The rain and wind erase the tracks, nature heals it through its own means."

The Zias have sought to balance traditional Pueblo life with the challenges of making a living and co-existing with what Pino calls the "dominant society." Religious activities and other ceremonies that make up the core of traditional life always take priority. This is the reason why filming is never allowed in the village, since life brings unexpected events calling for a collective tribal participation that is often closed to non-Zia residents. Areas outside the village, however, can be filmed without any scheduling conflicts. "We look for a win-win situation," says Pino. "When there is a mutual respect for each other's needs, it usually works out."

Lucero and Pino walk to the other side of the shepherd's hut and survey the lunar landscape before them. "The land we reside on is the location that was chosen by our ancestors," Lucero says softly. "The land was good to our ancestors and continues to be good to us. We want to leave the land so that it will provide for the future." There's little doubt the spiritual beauty of Zia Pueblo will leave its imprint on many a filmmaker's soul for years to come.