The Anasazi, America’s ancient peoples

THE ANASAZI
America’s Ancient Peoples

By Ray Chatelin
Photos by Toshi

CHACO CANYON, NM - The ruins of this place are deep in the desert and when you drive through along the hard-packed dirt road off the highway you have the feeling you're not ever going to find it.

The road that turns to slippery clay when wet seems to continue forever and you wonder how it was that anyone could have lived in this arid, unforgiving landscape. But when you get there, to Chaco Canyon in Northern New Mexico 60 miles south of Farmington, it does make sense.

You needn't travel to Europe to find ancient civilizations, nor need you venture deep into Mexico or Peru. For in the American Southwest are the remnants of the pueblo peoples who built their homes of mud, rock and poles - many of whom settled here, at Chaco Canyon.

If you start just outside Santa Fe, at Bandelier National Monument, you can begin an expedition that will take you through New Mexico, into southern Colorado and then to Arizona where along the way you can be witness to a civilization that eventually simply disappeared.

This was the land of the Anasazi, the ancient ones, who lived in the region from the 9th through the 13th Centuries. What their real tribal names were is anyone's guess. They're called the Anasazi now because the name seems to fit. The truth of the matter is that no-one is totally convinced about what happened to them, why they simply disappeared from the face of the earth many centuries ago.

The small, walled towns that give silent evidence that anyone ever lived here, evoke a quiet excitement in the secluded surroundings. The Anasazi grew crops by irrigation, crafted beautiful pottery and jewelry, and traded with distant peoples - as far south as the Mayan civilization, say archeologists.

Certainly, they were plentiful at one time since their evidence is everywhere in this part of the world - the Cave dwellings of Betatakin and Canyon de Chelly, in Arizona; Mesa Verde in Colorado, and elsewhere.

The great exodus of these communities began in the early 12th Century and ended a hundred years later - probably due to drought and disease. The void was filled by the Navajo Indians sometime in the 1700s and the Navajo continue to occupy the region. No-one really understands what happened to the Anasazi and that adds to the mystery.

Because they left behind the most marvelous ruins, homes you can walk through, ceremonial buildings that were their social focal points and at locations still being discovered. Some of the sites, like Keet Seel Ruin in Navajo National Monument in Arizona, you can reach only by horseback or by a hike of several hours with park guides.

Others, like here at Chaco that once was a thriving place of 7,000 inhabitants, you can simply drive to and walk among the ruins or hike the hundreds of miles of trails the Anasazi carved out of the rugged, 6,200 ft. high plateau.

The centerpiece of Chaco is the great kiva - the place used as the religious centre of the people who lived here.

They made no distinction between sacred and everyday things. The act of planting corn and carrying water to the new shoots was a reverent act as well as an everyday necessity.

When you stand in the circular floor of the kiva - a floor that has a diameter of almost 64 ft. and once had a ceiling of 12 ft. - it dwarfs the imagination. And when the hot breeze blows gently across the mesa, it's a haunting place - at once defining a people and making your own existence seem less permanent.