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travelog 41
Of Native Americans and Art Galleries
The most impressive settlement here is Pueblo Bonito, which consists of about 600-800 mostly smaller rooms. There are four-storey buildings still standing. You can only fully comprehend the vastness of the entire complex by climbing through a hole in the canyon wall barely wide enough for a person to the top of the mesa. From here we have a fantastic view over some of the pueblos, especially over Pueblo Bonito. On small paths we can wander through Pueblo Bonito and admire the perfectly built walls. The rocks were not just stacked up without thought, but instead, depending on the year of construction, the bricklayers arranged them in beautiful patterns. Many years of study have shown that Pueblo Bonito (as well as all the other settlements in Chaco Canyon) is lined up with the sun and the moon (the latter is unique in the world). Solstices, equinoxes, etc., everything was considered in the construction of the pueblos. Foundation walls, outlying walls, everything is lined up according to the sun and the moon. You even find alignments to the sun and the moon when drawing imaginary lines between the different pueblos. Wide roads connected Chaco with other settlements further away. The Chaco people maintained contact to other cultures as far south as Mexico. Evidenc of this includes shells and especially rock paintings and parrot feathers found there. This place is magical, even today - unless you go with all the other tourists. There is an incredible silence in the canyon which is only interrupted by some birds and insect humming. After the sun sets, there is total silence, there's not the slightest sound, and the few campers try hard not to disturb this stillness.
Our next stop is Santa Fe. We have already heard many things about this city but we're going there mainly because of the new Georgia O'Keeffe Museum. With the exception of two museums, we're really disappointed. Never before in our life have we seen so many art galleries in one place! Everywhere you look there is kitsch and other items of really bad taste. The usual souvenir shops are squeezed in between the galleries; they all sell the same stuff. In the galleries there is Indian jewelry, moccasins, blankets, Navajo rugs, pottery, modern paintings by young artists, sculptures by would-be artists, carved elephants from Africa, Buddhas from Asia - motto: there's nothing you can't buy here! Small streets lined with beautiful adobe houses have been transformed from neighborhood areas into shopping arcades where one can spend a lot of money with ease. With a little bit of perseverance, we find exquisite little shops in between the galleries with interesting books, music, a wonderful bakery, and a few restaurants which are perfect for a nice lunch or dinner.
Since it gets severely chilly at this time of the year in northern New Mexico and of course also in Colorado, which we also want to visit, we decide to postpone further exploration of this region until the weather warms up again. We will return for certain because there are many more beautiful areas in this wide open land of Georgia O'Keeffes paintings.
October 2001
Julia Etter & Martin Kristen
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A short trip through New Mexico is a trip into the past. Thousands of years ago Native Americans roamed this area, they settled, built settlements, and left buildings (and later abandoned them) in certain locations. The significance of these buildings and why they were built is tsill not known.
Chaco Canyon is one of those places. In the summer temperatures reach almost unbearable temperatures, in the winter they drop below freezing. Today you can only reach this canyon on dirt roads, where you sometimes don't see another car for days. The landscape is endlessly wide, characterized by massive high plateaus which are divided only by dry river beds or canyons. It's a region with an endless blue sky, crystal clear air, and an unrelenting sun which beats down stronger than expected for this time of year. Chaco Canyon looked about the same 1000 years ago, meaning that the region was as dry then as it is today. It was here that the Native Americans built huge settlements that are still in very good shape today. The wood used for beams had to be carried from far away. After heavy rains, the water was collected in canals which lead from the canyon walls into the valley below. Some think they used the water for their gardens, others believe that it was channeled to construction sites where mortar was mixed.
Bandelier National Monument is worth a visit. Named after a Swiss man, who explored the entire region by foot, it's located outside the town of Santa Fe. Here we drive down into the deep Frijoles Canyon. Its walls look like Swiss Emmentaler cheese. This canyon is very fertile. There is a little stream that was most certainly used by the Native Americans to water their fields. The canyon walls are of soft tuff rock, which the Indians used to their advantage. Big holes were extended and turned into living space. More rooms were added on the outside of the wall and today you can admire a 800m (2400 ft.) long settlement where today only bats live. We climb over a steep canyon wall and up some long wooden ladders built in the same style used by the native inhabitants, to visit a carefully restored kiva (room of worship).
There are many small pueblos south of Santa Fe but they don't have much in common with the original pueblos anymore. Most of the time the pueblo is a collection of American pre-fab houses. Very rarely does it consist of the beautiful adobe houses we associate with the traditional, authentic pueblos. Near the Cochiti Pueblo we enjoy hiking in the Tent Rocks. Wind and water have carved huge tents and tipis from the rock walls. The tips of the tents are mostly protected by a big round rock so that the water continues to carve the tent shape. Native Americans once lived here too, in some of the caves we can still see the blackened ceiling.
There are about 30,000 petroglyphs around Albuquerque. The west side of Albuquerque is preserved in the Petroglyph National Monument and thus protected from the cancerous urban sprawl of the city. On short walks one can discover and admire hundreds of petroglyphs. Unfortunately, many vandals have left their mark on the rocks by carving their names or some symbols.
The highlight of our short trip is Acoma Pueblo (pronounced Ácoma, the Acoma tribe is not living in a coma, as our guide explains to us). This pueblo, also called "Sky City" because of its location, is situated on a small mesa, a 3km long and 500m wide rock (2 miles long and 1500 ft. wide) which rises about 120m (360 ft.) over the surrounding lowland. To visit the pueblo we have to join a guided tour. What at first looks like a tourist trap becomes an impressive experience! Crammed into a small bus, our group drives to the village on a road which John Wayne blasted out of the rock for one of his movies. There have been cars up here since John Wayne, and with the cars came sand and dust because the rocks had to be changed into roads. Our guide, a Native American of the Acoma tribe in her sixties, knows how to captivate us with her colorfully narrated stories and funny anecdotes. But she also passes on the long (and sometimes bloody) history of her tribe to us. Together with the pueblos of Taos and Oraibi, Acoma belongs to the oldest continuously inhabited pueblos in the US. Although today only about 30 people still live here year round, the rest of the tribe owns a "cottage" up here.
What we first notice on our walk round the village are the many groups of small outhouses perching over the abyss. The view of the surrounding mesas, the fantastic rock formations, green pastures, juniper and pine forests, in general the endless space of this region, is simply stunning! The mission church, an adobe construction, dominates the pueblo. The cemetery is fenced in with a wall; after taking a closer look we realize that the posts are heads with ears and eyes. These are warriors who watch over the dead. In the wall facing south there is a hole through which souls can escape. The beams for the construction of the church had to be carried from far away. However, if one of the beams fell and touched the ground, it was desecrated and was left as useless there and then. In the altar, as in the other parts of the church, symbols of the Catholic Church are combined with the faith of the Indians, each represented by different shapes and colors. Many more spectacular views are waiting for us around every corner as we walk through the pueblo. The most beautiful houses with the best views are situated right above the abyss. We climb back down on an extremely steep path of stairs which dates back many centuries. This climb is only safe because the Indians chiseled some handholds into the vertical walls.