They perss their noses to the trunk of a ponderosa pine and sniff tentatively. The man who led these students into the woods asks a question: "Vanilla or butterscotch?" A stereotyping romantic might suppose the young Native Americans would be at home beside a stream, beneath these trees. Ian Sanderson, their guide, himself Mohawk, knows that most are as disconnected from the natural world as other 21st-century American teens. Their home is Santo Domingo Pueblo, near Santa Fe, New Mexico. The Keresan people, their people, have lived and farmed here under big rainbow skies since prehistoric times, and this particular pueblo-what would be called a reservation elsewhere-notoriously guards its traditions with ceremonies, indigenous dances, and a high school devoted to Native American culture. But kids are kids. So Sanderson and his colleagues at the Santa Fe Mountain Center, an educational nonprofit, think it's important to lead these students to places, such as this nearby mountain stream, that never fell under the spell of the iPod and Xbox.
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