'The Jemez Mountains' is a compilation of true stories skillfully and unhurriedly told

Thomas W. Swetnam is a dendrochronologist, meaning he studies tree rings to learn about past climate and environmental changes.

After more than four decades as a research scientist and professor at the University of Arizona, Swetnam retired to Jemez Springs, moving there about 10 years ago.

Actually, Swetnam said in a phone interview, he moved back to the area.

In the 1960s and early ’70s, he lived there when his father was the Jemez Ranger District manager with the U.S. Forest Service.

Since his retirement, Swetnam has combined his love for the physical landscape of the Jemez with a love for the human history of the area.

Readers should be pleased with the author’s combined interests: They are integrated in his recently published book “The Jemez Mountains: A Cultural and Natural History.”

“I always loved this landscape. It’s so full of stories, human stories, natural stories — the geology, the ecology. As a kid I knew it was a special place, though I didn’t know the details,” he said.

The book is a compilation of true stories skillfully and unhurriedly told.

Each of the 40 stories is a chapter of the book. Most originally appeared in the Jemez Thunder newspaper and its subsequent publication, After the Thunder, between 2016 and 2024. Photographs, maps and drawings accompany the stories.

The landscape in the book “is the entire mountain range but primarily the southern Jemez Plateau,” Swetnam writes in the book’s preface.

“This is the expansive set of mesas and canyons to the south of the Valles Caldera. It includes the people and landmarks within the greater Jemez Valley, its headwaters and its tributaries.”

The author says in the preface that he writes in the first person in parts of some chapters and in a memoir style “as I recall events, people and places from growing up here and since then.” A few stories relate his father’s experiences as district ranger. He also draws on his own scientific studies of the natural landscape, especially regarding forests, fires and land-use history.

Here are synopses of some of the stories.

“The Hemish Footprint and Spanish Entrada”

• is the title of the first chapter. Swetnam states in the preface that he uses Hemish, which is Jemez Pueblo’s name for its people. The name Jemez in the book indicates place names, the name for the tribe in some historical contexts and when the author is quoting a document.

Swetnam thinks most readers aren’t aware of the extent and scale of the Hemish occupation over some 350 years — circa 1300 to 1650.

The Hemish lived in at least 20 villages with more than 300 rooms; at least seven villages had more than 1,000 rooms. Also, Swetnam writes, the Hemish lived in small field houses during the growing season.

The Spanish first made contact with the Hemish in the mid- to late-1500s. Maybe the most notable contact was what Swetnam calls “a personal visit” by conquistador Juan de Oñate to the hot springs and to the Hemish village of Gíusewa, now in Jemez Springs. Oñate led the first major group of Spanish colonists to the region in 1598.

“Pueblo Revolts and Battles of Reconquest.”

• After the famous Pueblo Revolt of 1680, Swetnam writes the Jemez and Zia people played key roles in the uprising and then in three battles in the Jemez Valley against Spanish attempts at reconquest — in 1689, 1694 and 1696. The Spanish won the 1696 battle, Swetnam writes, but the Hemish didn’t surrender; instead, they dispersed.

“Treasures of the Spanish Queen Mine.”

• There are tales of gold, silver and copper being taken from the mine, about three miles below Jemez Springs, going back to the days of the conquistadors. More likely, Swetnam writes, low-grade copper deposits were dug out. A different kind of treasure was discovered in the mine’s red rocks — fossils. In 1930, a Harvard University professor of paleontology found fossils of animals near the mine preserved in mudstones and sandstones, according to Swetnam. Other scientists later found plant fossils in the roof and walls of the mine’s tunnels.

“Presbyterians in the Jemez.”

• The chapter notes that the Catholic San José de los Jémez Mission, the area’s first church, was built between 1621 and 1626 but was likely abandoned by the Franciscan friars because of Navajo, Ute and Apache raids.

The next oldest church in Jemez Springs was the Presbyterian church, dedicated in 1881. Swetnam asks rhetorically how did a Protestant church come to this remote village of longtime Spanish and Catholic presence?

He offers a number of reasons, including a Catholic schism that grew after Americans began to arrive in 1846 and the work of Presbyterian missionaries after the Civil War. Swetnam quotes from R.B. Townshend’s letters to his wife in England in the chapter. Townshend, a British scholar, resided in the Jemez Valley in the early 20th century.

“Correr El Gallo at Walatowa (Jemez Pueblo).”

• In old Hispanic and Pueblo cultures in the greater Southwest, there’s an event usually held on San Juan feast day (June 24), Swetnam writes.

Typically, an old rooster is buried in the ground up to his neck. Young men on horseback gallop by, trying to grab the rooster’s bobbing head.

The game plays out with a tug-of-war between the mounted men. The event at Walatowa is an excerpt from a description of Correr El Gallo by Townshend.

“Peeled Ponderosa Pines.”

• Swetnam writes that the oldest mention of peeled ponderosa in the Jemez is from a 1904 Bureau of Forestry surveyors’ report. He quotes, “In most of the pine areas, girdled or partially girdled trees are seen occasionally. This is done by the Indians who scrape off the inner bark and use it as a food in time of unusual scarcity.”

Swetnam said these modified trees can often be studied by using tree-ring dating to determine when the modification took place. Peeled ponderosa pine, he writes, are found as single trees or small groups in the Valles Caldera and on the Jemez Ranger District.

Among other chapter titles are “Four Jemez Mountains Grizzly Bear Stories,” “Penitentes in the Jemez Valley,” “Great Floods in the Rio Jemez, “The Era of Runaway Wildfires” and “Hippies and Hot Springs in the Jemez.”