Southwest Indian 4 State Trip 2017

On our trip we have viewed the remains of Ancestral Pueblo dwellings and villages at 6 or 7 sites throughout the Four Corners area.  Still we were astonished when we saw Cliff Palace at Mesa Verde National Park in southwest Colorado. The largest and one of the best preserved cliff dwellings (built on a ledge beneath overhanging cliffs) in America, it was constructed over roughly a 20-year period in the 13 th  century and contains 150 rooms for living and storage, as well as 21 kivas and many open spaces, for about 100 residents. It was a bustling and busy community, surrounded at Mesa Verde by many other dwellings and small villages.  Leaving their cliff dwelling – to farm on the mesa top, to hunt, to gather materials, water and foods, or to visit – meant climbing to the mesa top using hand and toeholds carved into the rock face.  Everyone, whatever their age, did this. Even using a regular ladder, erected by the Park Service to facilitate guided tours, is dau...

Seared in Navajo national memory is the terrible four years they spent in forced exile from their homeland between 1864-68.  During this time 9,000 Navajo captives endured the  Long Walk , a forced march of 450 miles to an internment camp in a barren area of New Mexico, called Bosque Redondo. This was  Hweeldi , or their place of suffering for four terrible years. Almost 20 percent of the Dine died during the three week forced march or at the camp, from disease, hunger, despair and the poor conditions they endured. While visiting the Navajo reservation we frequently heard about the Long Walk and Hweeldi, but visiting the Bosque Redondo Memorial a few days ago provided a moving statement about the traumatic events that happened there 150 years ago. The Memorial was established by the state of New Mexico in collaboration with the Navajo and Mescalero Apache people (also interned there though in much smaller numbers than the Navajo). With Navajo resistance a ...

Pojoaque Pueblo is fascinating because their recent history is so different from Zuni and other Pueblos.  Pojoaque is one of six Tewa-speaking pueblos surrounding Santa Fe.  In fact the whole area around and between Albuquerque and Santa Fe is filled with Indian Pueblos.  In Pojoaque we visited their Poeh Cultural Center/Museum and also drove through the actual pueblo village on a mesa above the museum. While the Pojoaque Pueblo is relatively new (see below) the museum highlighted and is very proud of the exhibit of  the “old,”  nine historic Tewa pots made between 1800-1900 that were recently returned to them from the  Smithsonian American Indian collection in Washington.  The expectation is that the pots now will be always housed at the Poeh Museum and is an effort to reclaim Tewa cultural history through repatriation of cultural artifacts like the pots.  In the near future another 90 or so pots will also be “coming home” to this site. The ...

Zuni Pueblo is the largest of the 19 pueblos in New Mexico.  Each of the pueblos is a sovereign Indian nation though relatively small in size (Zuni encompasses about 450,000 acres and less than 10,000 residents). They have a common history and are descendants of the Ancestral Puebloan inhabitants of the Colorado Plateau/Four Corners area.  In Zuni we spent a very busy 24 hours, including 4 ½ hours with a Zuni archeologist/religious leader/tour guide,  Kenny  Bowekaty . The highlight of our time there was a visit to the ancient Zuni Village of the Great Kivas, about 17 miles from the currently inhabited Zuni village. This site was originally excavated in the 1930, but has recently been rediscovered with some further excavation done. Over 1,000 years old it appears to have been a small village but with major religious significance due to the presence of two great kivas, large circular spaces used for religious/community ceremonies, associated with smaller undergro...

We are not sure how many of our friends and family know of the Navajo Code Talkers, but their image throughout the Navajo Nation is very powerful and ubiquitous. Practically everywhere we go there is a memorial or exhibit dedicated to them or a road named for them, and every museum and visitor center seems to have something about them.  The most unique, perhaps, is in a Burger King in Kayenta. Owned by the son of a Code Talker, it displays a large selection of paraphernalia and descriptions of their war role.  But there are many others and new ones are going up regularly. The Code Talkers played a unique and important role in World War II and received national honors for it, and this swells the pride of the Navajo.  But beyond this, military service itself appears to have a certain resonance among American Indians who provide more military recruits per capita than any other ethnic group and have been awarded 27 Medals of Honor. During World War II, almost 50,000 Indi...

  Canyon de Chelly (Tseyi dee’nanise’ attaas’ei) pronounced d’shay, is a 84,000 acre National Historic Monument within the Navajo Nation that is jointly managed by the Park Service and the Navajo. We spent a couple of days here during which we took a 4-hour jeep tour with a Navajo guide through parts of the main canyon and an adjacent canyon, Canyon Del Muerto. We also took a 2 ½ mile hike ourselves almost 600 feet down into the canyon to the remains of an Ancestral Puebloan village, called White House Ruins. This hike is the only activity within the Canyon accessible without a Navajo guide. The Canyon has been continuously inhabited for 5,000 years and is a special place historically and spiritually for the Navajo. Our activities there exposed us to the beauty of the Canyon, which was particularly evident on our descent into the canyon on our hike. On the hike and jeep tour we also observed many remnants of Ancestral Puebloan (750-1300) cliff dwellings/communities; White Hou...

Within less than a ½ hour as we travel the road from Kayenta to Monument Valley in the Navajo Nation we bear witness to two faces of Navajo economic and social development. One represents the past and was essentially forced on the Navajo; the other is a potential future and alternative development strategy. The first face comes into view as we approach Kayenta from the east. We see a large conveyer belt over the road.  It carries coal to rail cars where the coal heads to the Navajo Generating Station (NGS) in Page, Arizona.  For 40 years this industry has provided jobs and revenue while polluting the environment (NGS is the nation’s 8 th -largest climate polluter).  Now,  within 2 years , Peabody Coal will cease operating the mine and it will close.  With it the generating station will also close. The closure of the mine and NGS will have a potentially devastating effect on the economic fortunes of many Navajo and Hopi families.  Through lease agreemen...

We spent two days/three nights on the Hopi reservation in northern Arizona. The Hopi live on only a relatively small portion of the reservation in 12 distinct self-governing villages on three high desert mesas (though there is also an elected tribal government; population about 7,000).   The Hopi appeared to us to be different in at least one significant sense than others we have experienced in our travels to Indian reservations this year and last. That is that they still maintain many elements of a very traditional way of life.  Perhaps it is the fact that the Hopi have lived in this very spot for over a thousand years.  But it is more than this. First their spiritual customs going back generations appear to still have a significant hold. For example, many events occur seasonally, Around the time we were there it was time for the village women’s basket dances conducted on a village basis by the women.One professional woman we met, the head of the local commun...