cThe Fiesta market
By In a Sizer Cassidy
One of the outstanding features of the Fiesta is the Spanish .Market, held under the portal of the Palace of the Governors and along the curb of the Plaza opposite where the covered wagons of fruit and vegetables will be parked.
It has long been the desire of the Fiesta Council to have a more representative participation by the Spanish speaking New Mexicans in the Fiesta which long ago was founded by the Spanish residents of Santa Fe, in honor of an outstanding Spaniard.
Along the Plaza curb facing the Governor's Palace space is allotted to the farmers and fruit growers, for wagon displays of their produce, which is to be sold by them to the residents and visitors. Here the Santa Fe housewife, Spanish speaking and Anglo can go for the fresh fruits and vegetables which are so successfully grown in our outlying farming districts. Mr. J. M. Ramirez, our efficient County Horticultural Agent is in charge of this part of the Market.
Under the portal is space for the many things not included in the wagon market. Here the worker in iron, in tin, in furniture and wood carving; the women and men who today make the attractive blankets and rugs native to New Mexico, can have space allotted to them to show and sell their wares.
Refreshments and amusements as nearly typical as possible, are provided, for the visitors.
They planned it better in the ancient days when business was accompanied by some sort of relaxation, some recreation, a fiesta, or fair where men and women came from distances more or less great, generally bringing their whole families with them, to meet and trade with another group of people who had things which they did not. and for which they could exchange their own surplus. They fully appreciated the value of the “personal touch”, the human equation in business. Historically the genesis of world commerce is to be found far back in antiquity in the folk markets, the fiestas, the jousts of the ancient peoples, who early learned the necessity for release from the economic strain of life, and found that both release and gain could be had in such gatherings; gatherings for pleasure and exchange, trading what they did not want for what they did, and having a fine time doing it; feeling richer and
more important for the experience. Banking and exchange were born in these folk markets from the necessity of loans and exchange of foreign moneys. It was this need for pleasure in business that built up the habit of bargaining, asking a higher price than the owner expected to get, “coming down” in his price as the buyer forced him to recede in his demands, the play of wit against wit, which characterizes the European trader, but has been “ironed out” by the efficient American business man of today, the “one price” merchant. He now has little pleasure in his business and faces a nervous breakdown unless he can escape the grind and go fishing or engage in some other equally diverting pastime for release from the strain.
Trade—commerce—is an attempt to find the equilibrium of surplus and deficit. It is the life blood of a nation, a free circulation making for health while stagnation ends in war.
The very beginning of society is found in the folk markets of the ancients where they understood the social needs of the human being. If today, we could bring back to our business life this double quality, satisfying the social need at the same time as the economic, there would he fewer mental and physical breakdowns among our business men. The need of thus intermingling the social and the economic was the driving force which built our great transcontinental highways, they were the trade arteries of the aboriginal inhabitants of this country made in their search for the things they needed for sustenance. Our great Santa Fe Trail was the trail first made by our Indian hunters who went to the plains for the buffalo, and the return trips of the plains Indians of our Pueblos for their corn.
So markets, folk markets, have always been an important part of the life of humanity. Society and trade always travel, more or less simply, hand in hand. It is a recognition of this need for economic release, the need to “feel rich” for a little while, the need of social intercourse with his fellows, that has prompted the holding of a folk market at our Fiesta, an endeavor to make it possible for all to come and exchange what they have, their surplus, for what they have not, and have a good time while doing it.
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