Award-winning film documents NM tribe’s treasured Lincoln canes

In 1863, in the middle of the American Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln presented New Mexico’s 19 pueblos with silver-headed canes as a symbol of the federal government’s recognition of their sovereignty. He was following a tradition going back to the Spanish and Mexican governments, which also had presented canes to the pueblo leaders. The Lincoln cane, given to the tribes when New Mexico was a U.S. territory, had the president’s name engraved on the head, along with the name of the pueblo. The canes are still used, especially on Jan. 6, when new pueblo leaders take office. Some pueblo governors describe them as a “living spirit.” The canes are the subject of an award-winning film by Silver Bullet Productions, a Santa Fe-based nonprofit that produces educational videos. Canes of Power won a Rocky Mountain Emmy Award for best cultural documentary last month. Lincoln’s gesture is considered somewhat surprising, given that his grandfather was killed by an American Indian in 1786. And during his administration, Navajos were forced out of their homes in Eastern Arizona and Western New Mexico to an internment camp in an area called Bosque Redondo in the Pecos River Valley. But historians believe Michael Steck, who had been appointed superintendent for Indian affairs for the New Mexico territory, proposed the idea to Lincoln, who approved. Steck ordered the custom-made canes from a Philadelphia company and paid $5.50 each for them. Steck then presented each pueblo’s tribal leader with the cane...more