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  Dec. 24 Picuris and Ohkay Owingeh, Matachines dances, sundown processions at Ohkay Owingeh, Picuris and Taos Pueblo, dances after midnight Mass at Tesuque Pueblos, buffalo dances at Nambe Pueblo

In a Chautauqua presentation, the performer assumes the persona of the noted personality being depicted. [Deborah Blanche] will speak as [Erna Fergusson] during the performance, and then she will answer questions as if she were Fergusson. Fergusson's storytelling was one of the things that attracted Blanche and led her to research the character. Not unlike Fergusson, Blanche travels the country telling stories for schools, libraries, conferences and theaters.

With her brother, Harvey, of whom I wrote in December's City Tales column, I believe [Erna Fergusson] makes up Albuquerque's first family of literature. Go to for a complete schedule of Authors Month activities. Erna was born Jan. 10, 1888, the oldest of four children. Her maternal grandfather was Franz Huning, a pioneer Albuquerque merchant. Her father, Harvey B. Fergusson, was a New Mexico territorial delegate to Congress. Unlike Harvey, who lived outside New Mexico once his literary www.albuquerque300.org career was well launched, Erna always called Albuquerque home. Even though she spent long stints away researching books on Mexico, Guatemala, Venezuela, Chile, Cuba and Hawaii, she always returned to her home in the North Valley and to the splendid views she had there.

[ERNA FERGUSSON] is a compelling figure in New Mexico history. An Albuquerque native who became a member of the Santa Fe writers colony, she wrote about the beauty and the cultures of the region, trumpeting its fame to the world.Fergusson's life and work so impressed Deborah Blanche a writer, actor and storyteller living in Las Vegas, N.M. that through theater, Blanche is trumpeting to the world the life of that celebrated author, traveler and tour guide.Blanche's one-woman show, Erna Fergusson: New Mexico's First Lady of Letters, brings to life that dynamic woman, who lived from 1888 to 1964. As part of Legacy: Living Cultural Heritage, a Chautauqua program presented by the New Mexico Endowment for the Humanities, Blanche performs her show at 5:30 p.m. today, June 18, at the Museum of Fine Arts. Admission is free.Blanche first encountered Fergusson's legacy in 1980, when Blanche read about Fergusson in an Albuquerque Historical Society calendar featuring a native New Mexican of note each month of the year.\"Being interested in women's history, I thought I'd just file her away for a time but she got filed away for quite a while,\" Blanche said. \"I didn't come back to her until 1995.\"Some of Blanche's friends moved across the street from Fergusson's Albuquerque home and Blanche began to hear more about the noted author who was close friends with Witter Bynner.

In the early part of the 20th century, the Santa Fe Railway and the Harvey Co helped to create the image of the Southwest as a tourist mecca where visitors could gaze at the area's natural wonders and native peoples. The work of two women who were instrumental in creating the milieu in which tourists encountered Native Americans--Mary Elizabeth Jane Colter and Erna Fergusson--is discussed.

[Deborah Blanche] said [Erna Fergusson], who obtained a master's degree from Columbia University in Latin American studies, lectured on Latin American affairs, the American Southwest and Native American topics. \"(Fergusson) had deep roots in Albuquerque,\" Blanche said. \"She made Albuquerque her home. Throughout that time, she was an author and traveled about during research.\" WHAT: Annual fund-raising luncheon of the American Association of University Women West Mesa Branch and Chautauqua of Erna Fergusson by Deborah Blanche.

Erna Ferguson's 1931 book 'Dancing Gods' exemplifies both the virtues and the deficiencies of 20th-century travel literature focusing on the Indians of the US Southwest. The book relates Ferguson's observations of ceremonial dancing among New Mexico's Indians and gives a particularly detailed account of the Hopi's Shalako dances. Like earlier travel writers, Ferguson extolled the alleged exoticism of Indian customs as a means of finding values lacking in her own society. However, Ferguson's book also reveals an unconsciously patronizing attitude toward the Indians.

[Erna Fergusson] died in 1964. Two years later, the branch was built and named for her. Until the Cherry Hills branch library opened about five years ago, the Fergusson branch was the only public library in the Northeast Heights north of Menaul. This is a nighttime shot of the newly reopened Erna Fergusson library. The Albuquerque firm of [Edith Cherry]/D. James See Architects designed the new building.; Three-year-old Alia Schreiber- Goldstein gets ready to read a book in the new tower reading space adjoining the children's book area of the recently rebuilt Erna Fergusson branch library on San Mateo NE. A few stuffed Disney figures make their home in the tower.; [Cindy Carhart] is shown here in the remodeled Erna Fergusson branch library, which she manages.; Photo: PAT VASQUEZ-CUNNINGHAM/JOURNAL; Color; ROBERT E. ROSALES/ JOURNAL; Color; JAKE SCHOELLKOPF/FOR THE JOURNAL; b/w

According to [Erna Fergusson], Menaul continued to stir up dissension and she said, \"What Rev. [Samuel Gorman] had left undone, [John Menaul] finished off.\" Further, Menaul was less strident in attacking surviving elements of Native culture. Yet, a statement made by one of the Marmon cousins upon the minister's departure in 1887 was likely an exaggeration. He wrote that \"John Menaul left here, loved and respected by all.\" It is worth mentioning that the Menaul name today remains familiar to residents of Albuquerque because of Menaul School on Menaul Boulevard. The school, dating from 1896, took that name from its founder, the Rev. James Menaul, younger brother of John Menaul.

Finding a lost treasure is a thrilling prospect. Now, a Southwest literary gem that had been virtually buried is again gleaming in the sun with the recent publication of Beautiful Swift Fox.Erna [Erna Fergusson] (1888-1964), born into a prominent Albuquerque family, gained a national reputation in the 40s and 50s as a regional travel writer. The author of thirteen books on the Southwest and Latin America (including her best-selling Mexican Cookbook), numerous essays, newspaper and magazine articles, Fergusson was dubbed New Mexicos First Lady of Letters by Lawrence Clark Powell, the distinguished Southwestern author who called himself her friend. Yet, today, many do not recognize her name, and only two of her books (Dancing Gods: Indian Ceremonials of New Mexico and Arizona, 1931 (reissued 1991); and Murder and Mystery in New Mexico, 1948) are still in print.The lack of attention in recent years to Fergusson and her work is in sharp contrast to that paid to many of her contemporaries and colleagues -- and this book is a good step in the right direction for a more comprehensive understanding of the Southwests literary legacy. (Witter Bynner, Paul Horgan, Mabel Dodge Luhan, Oliver La Farge, Mary Austin, Willa Cather, Spud Johnson, Frank Waters, Fray Anglico Chvez, Peggy Pond Church, Frieda Lawrence, Will Keleher, T.M.