Reassembly

 I have over a period of years deposited my thoughts and some images in two blogs.  One is this, about film photography.  The other is explained by the title, Everything Else. My motivation for adding the second blog was in part to have a place to put digital photographs.  While that division has some logic to it, such an approach can lead to a fragmentation of self-presentation that can be somewhat destructive.  My non-photographic blog posts wander through politics, religion, literature, and current events in no particular order, but there are common threads running through it all, and some connect to my film photography.

One such connection I came across recently was an Everything Else blog post, Haiku and Photography, that really seems now like it should be in my film photography blog. That post also seemed a good companion to one about Chaco which is in the photography blog, and which contains some of my own haiku. I suppose one reason the haiku and photography piece ended up where it did was that there are no images to accompany the text.

So, there, I have reconnected some threads with hypertext links. The effort has also got me thinking about how I might blend in some references to the only other form of poetry I have patience for, the Spanish ballads of the 15th and 16th Centuries known as the Romances (and their 20th Century resurrection by García Lorca). Of course, illustrating those is going to be something of a challenge for me, and certainly for readers of my blogs. Maybe some of my flamenco dance shots would work?

So as not to perpetuate a trend toward imageless posts, here is a bit of whimsy from Everything Else:

A fearless bunny

In the Japanese Garden

posed for my cell phone.

digital

Chaco Architecture

 I finished a roll of color on our walk through the great houses of Chetro Ketl and Pueblo Bonito.  Then we got back in the car and drove to the end of the loop road to visit the Kin Kletso and Pueblo del Arroyo sites.  For that part of our tour I shot Fomapan 200 in my Leica IIIa with the Elmar 3.5/50.  

While there are similarities in the layouts, there is an obvious difference in the architectural styles of these two great houses from the larger ones to the east.   The source of the stone walls at these western sites was the talus slope rubble at the base of the great cliffs, while the two large sites to the east used a lot of thin, tablet-like masonry mined from higher up in the cliffs.

Archaeologists in the past sorted the dozen Chaco sites into three different phases, but I think subsequent dendrochronological analysis determined that the building styles were actually contemporaneous.  In addition to the stonework, all of the sites made extensive use of wood for door and window lintels,  floors, ceilings and platforms.

While I was walking through the Pueblo del Arroyo site a couple passed by and I heard the man comment that it seemed unlikely the many wood beams in evidence were original to the site given the thousand years since the great house was built.  While it is true that there has been some reconstruction and stabilization, there are still a lot of wooden elements that have been preserved by burial in a dry climate.  In fact, thousands of timbers have been cataloged and examined to determine species, age and origins.

Near Pueblo del Arroyo is a stone stairway which leads up over the cliffs to the beginning of one of the ancient roads which radiate out from Chaco Canyon.  In Great Pueblo Architecture of Chaco Canyon,  Stephen H. Lekson mentions that one important use of the roads was the transportation of timber from forty or more kilometers from the Chaco sites.  In browsing around on the net for further information about those roadways I came across the interesting thesis that the big logs were probably rolled down the roads rather than being carried as is often asserted.  That certainly fits with the width and smoothness of the roads and the fact that the Ancestral Puebloans had no beasts of burden or wheeled vehicles to assist with transport.

Time and the elements have sculpted the walls of the great houses into shapes which invite photographic interpretation while also obscuring the original forms and surface appearances of the structures.  I'm thinking it would be rewarding to print out the pdf of Lekson's book and take it along on the next trip to Chaco to help in achieving a more coherent understanding of this extraordinary place.

Some Illustrations from Lekson (National Park Service, Dept. of the Interior - 1984):

Chaco

 Chaco was one of our first stops on our way to choosing New Mexico as the place we wanted to live.  We ended up living in southern New Mexico, but we returned to the Canyon every four or five years.  Now, living in Albuquerque, we can get to Chaco in three hours for a day trip.  It is much more satisfying, though, to stay overnight to fully appreciate the spectacular landscape and the unobstructed night skies.

Fajada Butte is visible for many miles on the way into Chaco.  

The long wall at Chetro Ketl is one of the most impressive structures in the canyon.

The circular subterranean kivas were originally roofed with logs hand carried to the site from many miles away.

Doorways throughout the site are all under five feet in height.

Pueblo Bonito is the largest great house in Chaco with 650 rooms.

The aligned doorways in Pueblo Bonito are emphasized by the light from above thanks to missing roofs.  Less obvious is the interesting remnant on this room's wall of the smooth plaster surface which was likely typical of both internal and external walls throughout Chaco.

Each of the great houses at Chaco have different styles of masonry, depending on the number of stories and the time in which they were built over several centuries.  The sandstone walls at Pueblo Bonito feature thin, neatly laid courses.

Flash floods still occasionally course through the arroyo in the canyon's center during the summer rainy season.  Diminished rainfall in the 14th Century may have contributed to the final abandonment of the site by the Ancestral Puebloan people.

Chaco, 2005

Chaco Canyon in northwest New Mexico is an extraordinary place; it contains the distilled remains of an entire civilization which ceased to exist about 700 years ago. There are many obvious reasons and rewards for visiting Chaco.

One of the things I find interesting and enjoyable about Chaco is the opportunity it provides to play with the idea of Time. The pictures and words which follow this page are partly about that idea. My intent with them is, first, to show a small sample of what exisits on the ground at the canyon in regard to natural features and cultural remains. The other part is to convey a state of mind that the place creates for me and, I am sure, for many others as well.

My proposition is that our conceptualization of Time and Space is a cultural construct which has developed and evolved over time. We do not live our lives by the rules of physicists, astronomers or mathematicians, but rather by patterns of thought that have been instilled by tradition. Because of the time that has elapsed since Chaco flourished and the great differences in how we go about our daily lives compared to that time in the past, I think there can be little doubt that the Chacoan ideas of Time and Space and the place of those people in it were very different from our own.

In assembling the following text and images I have tried to put together pieces of the past and the present side by side to illuminate some of the differences between the distant past and the present. I do not pretend to understand the essence of the Chacoan concept of Time, but I hope that the contrasts between the magnificent cultural remains and the banalities of present-day life portrayed will at least hint at the possibilities.

* * *

We turned south just before Nageezi.  The pavement ran out five miles down the road.  Shortly afterward, I spotted a couple walking along through the afternoon haze.  I stopped to give them a ride.  She was Navajo, a weaver of rugs.  He was Pawnee, a teller of stories.  They had gone out to the highway to report the theft of the carburetor from their truck and were on their way back home - a dozen miles down the road toward Chaco.  Margaret climbed into the back of the RV to open the door for them, and told them to buckle their seatbelts.  He responded, somewhat disdainfully, that we were on Navajo land.  They lived, he said, in a home without TV or electricity, and they liked it that way.  We left them off at a fork in the road five miles from Chaco.

A battle scene of mounted warriors with lances, pitted against foot soldiers armed with bows.

The petroglyph was incised about 25 feet up on the canyon wall sometime after the early 16th Century when horses were introduced to the Southwest by the Spanish. By the time this battle was recorded, the Anasazi builders of Chaco had already been gone for centuries.

    The Navajo and Apache probably first reached the area of Chaco around the time when the first Spanish conquistadores were beginning to explore the area. All were equally war-like and unlikely to have been welcomed by the indigenous Pueblo peoples and other native groups. Later, the region would be subjected to raids by fierce, well-mounted Plains tribes such as the Commanche.

* * *

The sun announces

The longest day for each year

At Fajada Butte. 

Fajada Butte rises up out of the Chacra Mesa about a mile south of the Una Vida great house. 

Near the top of the butte is an archaeoastronomical feature known as the "Sun Dagger". The Anasazi carved a spiral there on a rock face on which shafts of sunlight appear at midday to mark the solstices and equinoxes.

* * *

Windows to windows,

Doorways to infinity :

A world of mirrors.

Pueblo Bonito is the largest of the Anasazi great houses. 

The multi-story complex was built in stages over a 300-year period beginning in about the year 850 A.D. Windows and doorways are frequently aligned in a way that emphasizes a receding perspective similar to what one sees in opposing mirror surfaces. 

    Without roofs and surface plastering, the buildings appear much different from when they were in use a thousand years ago. While the structure is revealed in a way that would not have been apparent to Chacoans, the effects of lighting and ceremonial associations can only be guessed at.

* * *

One path sets the choice :

Up to Pueblo Alto, or

Down to Kin Kletso ?

Agility and stamina are required to negotiate the trail between the great house of Kin Kletso in the canyon bottom to that of Pueblo Alto high on the mesa above. 

Topography is a preeminent shaper of world view for people who do all their traveling on foot. The Anasazi, however, did have an awareness of a world extending far from Chaco Canyon. 

    This trail starts in a crack in the canyon wall, then leads to a thirty-foot-wide roadway which extended many miles to the north. It was just one of many such roads radiating out of Chaco Canyon. Precious ceremonial objects and raw materials traveled to Chaco from deep in the interior of what is now Mexico, and from as far west as the Pacific coast. Religious and political traditions traveled over the same pathways.

* * *

Tlaloc, the Rain God,

Sometimes dons strange disguise

To walk among us.

This representation of the Rain God is distinctly ornate with its spiral eyes and lace-like decoration.

Square-headed, goggle-eyed figures are carved on rock surfaces all along the upper Rio Grande and near-by watersheds.  The origins of the figure can be traced to Central America, but little can be deduced from Anasazi-era representations other than the fact that it was of great importance.

* * *

Low doorways expose

The neck of the enemy

At Chetro Ketl.

No great house doorway permits upright entry other than to a single person with the stature of a small child. 

Was this enforced obeisance for the faithful, a defensive measure, or did it serve some other symbolic or ceremonial purpose?  There seems no way to be certain now.

* * *

We hiked out along the Peñasco Blanco trail.  The wash was full of fast-moving, muddy water.  Margaret tried a crossing near to where an arroyo ran into the wash, but she felt the ground move under her and she was sure it was quicksand.  I took off my boots and tried a narrow spot further downstream.  The bottom was firm, and I was across in a few steps.  I got my boots back on and took just a few steps before I saw a sherd of black and white pottery that had been uncovered by the rains of the past week.  There was another a few feet down the slope toward the wash, and beside that a small arrowhead of the type that would have been used for birds or rabbits.

* * *

Beneath an overhang,

A record of a supernova –

The swallows don't care.

The massive explosion of a star created the Crab Nebula in the year 1054.

This red painted pictograph may portray the cataclysmic stellar event in the Taurus constellation, but gives no hint as to how it was interpreted by Anasazi astronomers.

* * *

Tsé biyahnii’a’ah

The traditional Navajo name for Pueblo Bonito takes note of the ingenuity of Chacoan engineers in protecting the great house from the collapse of a large portion of the canyon wall for a millenium. 

The Navajo built no monumental structures like the great houses. However, they lived close to the earth, and perhaps that gave them the perspective to recognize the clever way the Chacoans were able to stabilize a thirty-thousand ton mass of rock that was a threat to the great house site from the beginning. Or, maybe the Navajo name is a translation of the name the Anasazi gave to the place in whatever language they spoke.
    While the great house at Pueblo Bonito ultimately had no defense against time and gravity, one has to wonder if the 1941 collapse of Threatening Rock onto the structure might not have been delayed another thousand years were it not for excavations and restoration efforts begun in the early Twentieth Century.

* * *

Our rented RV at the Chaco Canyon campground, 2005.

I have been thinking about Chaco lately.  I have a several books lined up to read including a couple by Stephen Lekson.  I'm hoping to visit the site in the Spring.  The words and pictures in this post originally appeared on my website in 2005.  I decided to see if I could repost the material in a form that would work on the blogger platform.  I think it does work ok, and it preserves something of value to me.

Chaco Skies

We drove to Chaco Canyon and spent the afternoon walking through the three Anasazi Great Houses that are close together near the end of the loop road: Pueblo Bonito, Chetro Ketl and Pueblo del Arroyo.

All the pictures were made with my Pentax Spotmatic and the 24mm Super-Takumar lens.  The Fuji 200 film was processed with the Unicolor C-41 kit.

Thinking about Chaco

Before we made our recent trip back to Chaco Canyon I browsed through the currently available literature on the subject in Albuquerque book stores. Chaco Canyon has inspired a huge body of work which in some ways has made the picture more confusing. In my opinion some of the most-read experts have contributed more to obfuscation than to clarity. Among those I include Jared Diamond and John Stuart. Both authors have considerable writing skills and records of accomplishment in research. Diamond's trasgression is using Chaco as a vehicle for arriving at an explanation for everything. Stuart proposes parallels between a speculative history of Chacoan society and our messy political and economic present which inspire little confidence.



Fortunately, there are authors of recent books on Chaco-era subjects which have stuck to more modest agenda, attempting to cast some light on the intriguing mysteries without blinding us with glaring blasts of ill-founded synthesis. A most entertaining and informative look at Chacoan society which I read just before our trip was House of Rain by Craig Childs. He has spent years walking through the Southwest to find the traces of a culture with Chaco Canyon at its center which is much larger than is often realized. Childs is not an academic archaeologist, but his combination of acute observational powers, stamina and logical rigor produces a chronicle of discovery with great credibility.



As luck would have it, a few days after our return from Chaco, Craig Childs showed up in Albuquerque to promote his latest book, Finders Keepers: A Tale of Archaeological Plunder and Obsession. We spent an enjoyable two hours at the Library listening to the author talk about his wide-ranging investigation into how we so often destroy our opportunity to appreciate the distant past by giving in to our acquisitive urges to possess its remnants.



Childs makes the case that the artifacts which illuminate the ancient past are an unrenewable resource, and context is integral to their value. While that is not a new idea, it is one which he would have applied much more widely than has been done up to now. It is not just the commercial pot hunters who rob the past of its value; archaeologists who have built great museum collections and all those of us who have ever pocketed an arrowhead or an ancient shell bead must also confront complicity. Childs concedes that there is no easy, clear path to what he advocates; there are often convincing arguments in favor of protection, restoration, and even personal acquisition. At the same time, all such actions entail an element of destruction through changing or obliterating context. So, whatever the justification, some careful thought needs to enter into the process of examining the past at every opportunity.



Another genial source of information about Chaco that I have found recently is a blog called The Gambler's House, hosted by a precocious grad student who is a talented writer, and who has worked as a volunteer guide in the Chaco Culture National Historical Park. His regular musings about Chaco-era archaeology really make the discipline come alive in a way that very few professional archaeologists achieve. If any of my anthropology professors had shown a fraction of his communicative talents I might have continued on with my early aspiration to join their ranks.

Una Vida

Una Vida is the Chaco Great House that is nearest to Fajada Butte. Its construction was initiated around the year 850, at about the same time as Pueblo Bonito, which is three miles up Chaco Wash. Unlike the larger Bonito Great House, Una Vida was only slightly excavated. The few exposed walls appear to sit on a hill, but that is actually the remains of the collapsed Great House covered with a thick layer of sand.

The general form and size of Una Vida is revealed from above by the surrounding trails and the shadows cast by the morning sun. Tree ring dating from surviving wooden beams indicate that the Great House was built in stages over a couple centuries. It is estimated that the final structure contained about 150 rooms and reached a hight of three stories.



On the talus slope behind the Great House a narrow trail leads to a depression in the sandstone rim rock containing many petroglyph images of both human and animal figures, as well as the ubiquitous spiral design.

Chetro Ketl

With over 500 rooms, Chetro Ketl is the second largest of the Chaco Great Houses. Construction was begun about 1010 and continued in stages over the next century. Like near-by Pueblo Bonito, Chetro Ketl suffered considerable damage in the 1940s as a result of catastrophic flooding. As a result, more reconstruction was undertaken than at most of the Great House sites in order to restore the walls to their appearance as first uncovered during the early Twentieth Century excavations.



Even without natural disasters, the ruins are subject to natural deterioration through the action of wind, rain and invasion by the roots of desert plants. Since the late 19th Century, teams of skilled Navajo craftsmen have been constantly employed in maintaining all the major Great House sites.



The back wall of Chetro Ketl is 470 feet in length, attained a height of at least four stories, and all surfaces would have been smoothly plastered. Although the ruins are impressive in their size and architectural sophistication, the intact building complexes would have had an appearance much different from what is apparent to today's visitors to the site.



The Great Kiva at Chetro Ketl, sixty feet in diameter, is built below ground level like those of Pueblo Bonito and Casa Rinconada just across the arroyo. However, the site also features a unique tower Kiva and a number of smaller round Kiva-like structures.



The finely-crafted masonry walls are built up with relatively small blocks of sandstone. It seems likely that the finished surfaces would have borne murals and designs similar to the petroglyphs and pictographs seen on the canyon walls, but none have survived



The human effort that went into construction of the Great Houses of Chaco is hard to conceive. What kind of social organization supported such massive undertakings -- including dragging thousand-pound log beams across fifty miles of desert -- can only be guessed at.