Naked Southwest

A dog’s bark in the middle of the night awoke me. I wandered out into the night to relieve myself and was greeted by a magnificent starry dome. I sat outside the tent for a while in the moonlight which bathed the red rock cliff beside the tent. A calm, millions of years old, sage as the moon in the inky sky and stealthy as the wind, had stolen into the canyon and settled between the walls of earthy stone. It was at once intoxicating and sobering, a feeling of expansiveness and infinitude. At last I slipped out of me shoes, unzipped the tent and crawled back into my sleeping bag.

We awoke with the sunrise, the interior of the tent already hot. Breakfasted on bananas and granola bars, packed up the tent, and headed off to explore Pueblo Bonito. These ruins, sprawling out onto the valley floor from the base of the canyon wall, are perhaps the best and most famous example of what is generally referred to as a Great House, large, intentionally planned (as opposed to the half hazard planning that typifies other ruins), multi-story complexes with extensive grain/food storage facilities and kivas (circular underground ceremonial rooms). Despite the fact that several enormous boulders which sheared off of the cliff behind Pueblo Bonito in 1941 have crushed a rear portion of the ruin, the enormity and the complexity of this development is astounding.

Upon arrival at the site, we searched around for the ranger-lead tour that we were scheduled for, but didn’t locate the group until much later. So we wandered off along with assistance from the printed guide we had received at the ranger station. We shot more photographs than necessary, perhaps, but it was impossible to resist the temptation to turn the lens on each new detail, each new view. Truly spectacular.

We found ourselves wondering the same sorts of things that have mystified archeologists and anthropologists for years. What exactly were the functions of this and other Great Houses? Why were they built in this area? What explains the extensive number of storage facilities and the rather limited number of residential facilities? What happened to the inhabitants of these settlements?

It seems that most conventional wisdom points toward the possibility that these Great Houses were part of a system of migratory and ceremonial relations between various different native peoples. Indeed this area is present in the oral histories of the Hopi and Pueblo peoples, leading scholars to suspect that it might have been connected to some sort of diplomatic association of unique tribal groups. Fascinating. It seduces the imagination.

Before leaving Chaco, we also hiked through Una Vida, another ruin where we were able to see and photograph some interesting petroglyphs. I’m always on the lookout for rock art, and it was exciting to be able to see these. Such a tangible grasp across time, as if, hand in hand, we could make the sort of intimate connection that we make in a letter, over the telephone or Internet. What will people think hundreds, indeed thousands of years from now when they come across the souvenirs of our quotidian happenings? Our shopping lists scrawled on cocktail napkins, an email printed and forgotten, graffiti on our city walls, and carvings in a high school lavatory?

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