Great Sites: Chaco Culture National Historical Park, part 2: Pueblo Bonito

Aerial view of Pueblo Bonito

It is the largest of the Great Houses at Chaco Canyon and possibly the largest anywhere in North America.   It is the most thoroughly investigated and excavated and there is good evidence that the massive structure was intricately pre-planned down to its odd placement in the canyon.  For instance, the thickness of the walls on the ground floor rooms indicate that it was planned to be five stories high from the beginning although construction, started in 850 A.D., would take 200 years to complete.



Aerial view of Pueblo Bonito
Note the remains of "Threatening Rock"
in upper right

And it was placed too close to the canyon wall indicating that its placement was based on a higher
purpose.  Despite a large piece of the canyon wall, later named “Threatening Rock”,  that had broken loose and would undoubtedly fall someday, they stubbornly stuck to their plan.  Threatening Rock did come down and knocked out a good portion of the back wall January 1941 (note the rock pile in the lower left of the picture above).  Something about that spot made it critical that it be placed there.




What is the structure?  It is Pueblo Bonito at Chaco Culture National Historical Park in northwestern New Mexico.

Another interesting anomaly is the design of Pueblo Bonito.  The floor plan is in the shape of a “D” or, as our tour guide pointed out, a “half moon”.  Looking at the aerial view are you seeing another striking similarity to the moon?  The craters?  Well, before we get too carried away, the round kivas would have been covered!   Most Great Houses were square or rectangular or, if they had a curved wall, it was in front of the courtyard.  But almost always, the back wall was straight. (Of course, other would be houses that were unplanned or built on covered ledges like at Mesa Verde).   At Pueblo Bonito, the entire back wall is curved and the wall in front of the courtyard is straight. 



Tour of Casa Rincanada
Canyon wall between Pueblo Bonito and Chetro Ketl
is in the background
 

An interesting phenomenon resides between Pueblo Bonito and Chetro Ketl, the Great House to the east, according to our guide.  This cliff face produces great acoustics.  The field between Pueblo Bonito and Chetro Ketl showed signs of use, but was not used for agricultural purposes.  Our guide speculates that it was a community gathering place.  The sound from drums and flutes played next to the cliff face would have carried across the valley.

Although Pueblo Bonito probably contained over 800 rooms in its heyday,  research suggests that very few people lived in the Great Houses permanently.  For instance, there were very few burials found in the canyon.   This would suggest that the Great Houses in Chaco canyon were more like resorts than villages.  Goods from all over the southwest, Central America, and the east support the theory that Chaco Canyon was a central trading hub.  It is more likely, that people came to the canyon to trade their goods and while there experience the lavish ceremonial events staged in the Great Kivas, large dance fields, and great plazas.

Pueblo Bonito would have been a most impressive place to visit back then.  With the best architecture and construction, oversized rooms,  grand courtyards, huge Kivas, and massive storage facilities, it would have been a spectacle.   It was like no other place in the southwest.  Even in a canyon where Great Houses dotted the valley and canyon rims, it was (and is) unique.

Imagine approaching this enormous, five-story “hotel” covering three acres with an enormous courtyard in front where dancers in brightly colored costumes were dancing to the thundering beat of massive foot drums, melodious flutes, rattles and chanting singers.  A massive round Kiva sitting in the center of the courtyard held impressive ceremonial rituals.  I imagine that it might have been like going to New York City on business and taking in Broadway plays and shopping.


A SIDE NOTE:

These cylinder jars from Pueblo Bonito contained chocolate!  It was in liquid form and imported from Central America for elite guests.  In some Maya ceremonies a cacao beverage was frothed by pouring the liquid from one vessel to another.  The Maya were known to ground cacao beans, mix them with spices, chilies, and water, and frothed the drink for consumption either hot or cold.  In addition to this exotic drink, trade with Central America included rare Quetzal feathers and parrots.

 

For more interesting facts about the Chaco Culture, check out these brochures

 

-- Courtney Miller

 

Link to Part 1

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Great Sites: Chaco Culture National Park part 1

Part 1: Introduction to the Park



Approaching Chaco Canyon
Fajada Butte can be seen in the distance

Recently, I revisited Chaco Culture National Park.  It is one of the most magical/mystical places I’ve ever been to.  There is nothing else there—no amusement park, no big city, no hotels or restaurants, no residents (other than National Park staff)—just the remains of the ancient Puebloan center we call Chaco today.  Even though you may occasionally be passing other tourists, you cannot help but feel a personal connection as you wander among these large and imposing silent ancient structures and wonder what happened here.

 

This beautiful site is located in north-western New Mexico.   I usually come into the park from Hwy 550 either from Bloomfield (north) or from Albuquerque (south).   I turn off US 550 at CR 7900--3 miles southeast of Nageezi and approximately 50 miles west of Cuba (at mile 112.5). This  route is clearly signed from US 550 to the park boundary (21 miles). The route includes 8 miles of paved road (CR 7900) and 13 miles of rough dirt road (CR7950).   But if you are coming in from I40, take the Thoreau exit north Hwy 371, after Crown point turn east on hwy 9, then north on Hwy 57 all the way to the park entrance.  Click for more specific directions

 

 



Be sure to check “Traffic and Travel Tips” on the National Park Service web site before leaving.  Sometimes the roads leading in (which are dirt roads) are closed.

The park is open every day from 7:00 a.m. to sunset. The Visitor Center is open from 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. The Visitor Center is closed on Thanksgiving, Christmas Day, and New Year's Day but the park's roads, sites, trails and campground remain open. 

I have stayed at the campground before both with a travel trailer and with a tent.  Be aware that there are no hookups in the camp ground but there is a bath and restroom facility.  Note that the roads in are rub-board most of the way, so batten down the hatches and check for rain—you don’t want to attempt these dirt roads when they are muddy.  If you set up a tent, make sure you are not right below the canyon rim.  If there is even a small rain storm, water from all around will cascade down over the rim and flood you; I know because we got drenched one summer.  So place your tent away from the rim on high ground.

Park tours of the ruins are excellent and I highly recommend you join one.  There were two each day we were there.  Just check with the visitor center for time and location.
The main, excavated ruins are easily accessible from a paved road inside the park.  But if you are a hiker, there are some great hiking trails to remote sites.  And experiencing the ruins from the rim is awe inspiring.
 

 

Next week, I will talk more about the ruins and their significance.

 

-- Courtney Miller

Video: The land around Chaco
 



 

 

 

 

Cherokee Witchcraft: How the medicine men dealt with a Raven Mocker

Part 4

The Raven Mocker witch
could shape-shift into a raven

The most feared Cherokee witch, the one they called “Raven Mocker”,  was not completely invincible.  The skilled medicine man knew the signs of the Raven Mocker and its malicious intents.  He knew that the Raven Mocker preferred the nights and that he preferred preying on the sick and the weak.  So, when a loved one was sick, these special medicine men (or women) were sought out and asked to sit with their loved one through the night.

 
There were numerous methods that were known to enable the detection of the witch.  The Raven Mocker, according to accounts recorded by James Mooney, “… flies through the air in fiery shape, with arms outstretched like wings, and sparks trailing behind … Every little while as he flies he makes a cry like the cry of a raven”.  [refer to the previous article from Native American Antiquity:  Cherokee Witches: Kâ'lanû Ahkyeli'skï]

Ayunini (Swimmer)
Famous Cherokee Medicine Man

Another method, quoting from “The Swimmer Manuscript” by James Mooney, revised and edited by Frans Olbrects (Swimmer was a famous Cherokee medicine man that was Mooney’s principle informant on the history, mythology, … medicine and botany of the Cherokee), “This work consists in smoothing a small heap of ashes, about 20-25 centimeters in diameter, aside from the hearth, and occasionally dropping a tiny pinch of finely crushed tso’ lagayo-nli (“old tobacco,” Nicotiana rustica L) on it; the center of the hot ashes are thought of as representing the patient’s cabin; any particle of the tobacco dust catching fire, to the right or to the left of the center, indicates the position from where the witch is approaching.  If the dust alights on the center of the ashes it is a sign that the witch is right overhead, and should the tobacco, as it drops on the center, take fire with a crack or a burst, it shows that the witch has already entered the room.  In this case the burst will cause the death of the witch within four days, if she is one of the kind that has fasted for four days to attain her occult power; within seven days if she is one of the kind that ‘has got the utmost’”

It was also believed that by drinking a special mixture, sometimes called the “witch’s tea”, the

consumer could “see” the witch in his natural form and, thereby, cause the witch’s death.  According to Alan Kilpatrick, in his book “The Night Has a Naked Soul”, “… the four ingredients of this exotic brew (which were crushed and steeped in water) were algae collected from rocks in a mountain stream, phosphorescent wood extracted from a putrified stump, and two species of insect plants (Cordyceps) that contain the hallucinatory properties of ergot and lysergic acid diethylamide.”

Witches, whether a Raven Mocker or just a common witch, were blamed for a person’s sickness.  When interrogating a patient, the medicine man would usually ask if the patient knew “who put the thing [curse] under them” that disrupted their healthy condition.  The medicine man didn’t treat the sickness as we think of it today, they worked to remove that which was interrupting their health by restoring harmony and balance.  So, a treatment would not only include medicine but required the appropriate prayers or conjures to address the complete health of the patient.  A person’s physical health was linked with his mental health and both had to be addressed to be well.  It bothers me that our doctors today have not learned this and rarely address both when treating their patients.  It is too easy to just prescribe a drug and hope it drives out the sickness. 

Raven Mockers may still exist.  Please refer to the comments on last week’s blog.

 

-- Courtney Miller

Link to Part 1 of the Cherokee Witchcraft series
 

 

Click here to view a video of my upcoming novel featuring the Raven Mocker

Cherokee Witches: Kâ'lanû Ahkyeli'skï

"Of all the Cherokee wizards or witches the most dreaded is the Raven Mocker (Kâ'lanû Ahkyeli'skï), the one that robs the dying man of life. They are of either sex and there is no sure way to know one, though they usually look withered and old, because they have added so many lives to their own.

He flies through the air in fiery shape

"At night, when someone is sick or dying in the settlement, the Raven Mocker goes to the place to take the life. He flies through the air in fiery shape, with arms outstretched like wings, and sparks trailing behind, and a rushing sound like the noise of a strong wind. Every little while as he flies he makes a cry like the cry of a raven when it "dives" in the air--not like the common raven cry--and those who hear are afraid, because they know that some man's life will soon go out. When the Raven Mocker comes to the house he finds others of his kind waiting there, and unless there is a doctor on guard who knows how to drive them away they go inside, all invisible, and frighten and torment the sick

man until they kill him. Sometimes to do this they even lift him from the bed and throw him on the floor, but his friends who are with him think he is only struggling for breath.

"After the witches kill him they take out his heart and eat it, and so add to their own lives as many days or years as they have taken from his. No one in the room can see them, and there is no sear where they take out the heart, but yet there is no heart left in the body.  ...

 

"The following is told on the reservation as an actual happening:

"A young man had been out on a hunting trip and was on his way home when night came on while he was still a long distance from the settlement. He knew of a house not far off the trail where an old man and his wife lived, so he turned in that direction to look for a place to sleep until morning. When he got to the house there was nobody in it. He looked into the âsï and found no one there either. He thought maybe they had gone after water, and so stretched himself out in the farther corner to sleep. Very soon he heard a raven cry outside, and in a little while afterwards the old man came into the âsï and sat down by the fire without noticing the young man, who kept still in the dark corner. Soon there was another raven cry outside, and the old man said to himself, "Now my wife is coming," and sure enough in a little while the old woman came in and sat down by her husband. Then the young man knew they were Raven Mockers and he was frightened and kept very quiet.



Typical Cherokee house

"Said the old man to his wife, "Well, what luck did you have?" "None," said the old woman, "there were too many doctors watching. What luck did you have?" "I got what I went for," said the old man, "there is no reason to fail, but you never have luck. Take this and cook it and lees have something to eat." She fixed the fire and then the young man smelled meat roasting and thought it smelled sweeter than any meat he had ever tasted. He peeped out from one eye, and it looked like a man's heart roasting on a stick.

"Suddenly the old woman said to her husband, "Who is over in the corner?" "Nobody," said the old man. "Yes, there is," said the old woman, "I hear him snoring," and she stirred the fire until it blazed and lighted up the whole place, and there was the young man lying in the corner. He kept quiet and pretended to be asleep. The old man made a noise at the fire to wake him, but still he pretended to sleep. Then the old man came over and shook him, and he sat up and rubbed his eyes as if he had been asleep all the time.

"Now it was near daylight and the old woman was out in the other house getting breakfast ready, but the hunter could hear her crying to herself. "Why is your wife crying?" he asked the old man. "Oh, she has lost some of her friends lately and feels lonesome," said her husband; but the young man knew that she was crying because he had heard them talking.

"When they came out to breakfast the old man put a bowl of corn mush before him and said, "This is all we have--we have had no meat for a long time." After breakfast the young man started on again, but when he had gone a little way the old man ran after him with a fine piece of beadwork and gave it to him, saying, "Take this, and don't tell anybody what you heard last, night, because my wife and I are always quarreling that way." The young man took the piece, but when he came to the first creek he threw it into the water and then went on to the settlement. There he told the whole story, and a party of warriors started back with him to kill the Raven Mockers. When they reached the place it was seven days after the first night. They found the old man and his wife lying dead in the house, so they set fire to it and burned it and the witches together."

From James Mooney, Nineteenth Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology 1897-98, Part I. [1900]:

 

Next week we will take a look at how the Cherokee medicine men dealt with the Raven Mockers.

 

 

-- Courtney Miller

 

Link to Part 1

 

Watch a video of my upcoming book: The First Raven Mocker, a novel

Cherokee Witchcraft: Conquering Stone Clad

Mayan ballplayer
wearing stone "donut"

Last week I introduced a particularly frieghtening and evil Cherokee witch, Nûñ'yunu'wï, which means “dressed in stone” or “Stone Clad”.  I promised to tell how the evil witch was finally conquered.  Quoting, again, from James Mooney:

“The hunter was frightened, and felt sure that it meant mischief, so he hurried on down the mountain and took the shortest trail back to the camp to get there before the old man. When he got there and told his story the medicine-man said the old man was a wicked cannibal monster called Nûñ'yunu'wï, "Dressed in Stone," who lived in that part of the country, and was always going about the mountains looking for some hunter to kill and eat. It was very hard to escape from him, because his stick guided him like a dog, and it was nearly as hard to kill him, because his whole body was covered with a skin of solid rock. If he came he would kill and eat them all, and there was only one way to save themselves …

“He could not bear to look upon a menstrual woman, and if they could find seven menstrual women to stand in the path as he came along the sight would kill him.
 

“So they asked among all the women, and found seven who were sick in that way, and with one of them it had just begun. By the order of the medicine-man they stripped themselves and stood along the path where the old man would come. Soon they heard Nûñ'yunu'wï coming through the woods, feeling his way with his stone cane. He came along the trail to where the first woman was standing, and as soon as he saw her he started and cried out: "Yu! my grandchild; you are in a very bad state!" He hurried past her, but in a moment he met the next woman, and cried out again: "Yu! my child; you are in a terrible way," and hurried past her, but now he was vomiting blood. He hurried on and met the third and the fourth and the fifth woman, but with each one that he saw his step grew weaker until when he came to the last one, with whom the sickness had just begun, the blood poured from his mouth and he fell down on the trail.

“Then the medicine-man drove seven sourwood stakes through his body and pinned him to the ground, and when night came they piled great logs over him and set fire to them, and all the people gathered around to see. Nûñ'yunu'wï was a great ada'wehï and knew many secrets, and now as the fire came close to him he began to talk, and told them the medicine for all kinds of sickness. At midnight he began to sing, and sang the hunting songs for calling up the bear and the deer and all the animals of the woods and mountains. As the blaze grew hotter his voice sank low and lower, until at last when daylight came, the logs were a heap of white ashes and the voice was still.



Cherokee Medicine Man Swimmer

“Then the medicine-man told them to rake off the ashes, and where the body had lain they found only a large lump of red wâ'dï paint and a magic u'lûñsû'ti stone. He kept the stone for himself, and calling the people around him he painted them, on face and breast, with the red wâ'dï, and whatever each person prayed for while the painting was being done-whether for hunting success, for working skill, or for a long life-that gift was his.”

In his book, “The Night Has a Naked Soul”, Alan Kilpatrick explains, “Much of the prestige bestowed upon the Cherokee conjuror can be traced to the ancient myth surrounding the ritual murder of the monster, Stone-Clad, by a medicine man. … This man-eating monster, who operates outside the moral community of humans, is brought under control by the polluting force of ‘unclean’ women.  Then Stone-Clad (and his secret powers) are consecrated and “re-purified” by the cleansing action of the ancient fire.”

Next week we’ll take a look at another evil Cherokee witch and how the medicine man dealt with him.

 

-- Courtney Miller

 

Link to Part 1:  Cherokee Witchcraft: Nûñ'yunu'wï

 

Preview the upcoming book featuring Stone Clad

Cherokee Witchcraft: Nûñ'yunu'wï

Part 1: Nûñ'yunu'wï



Merlin

Voodoo Devil

Mankind seems to have an inherent fascination with witchcraft.   From Merlin in King Arthur’s court to Voo Doo in the Carribean it is celebrated in some cultures and, as with the Salem Witches, denounced by others.  The Cherokee had their share of witches.  Sometimes the difference between a witch and a medicine man was a very fine line.  But the distinction was important because the medicine man was revered, but the witch was reviled. 





Swimmer, Cherokee Medicine Man

Although James Adair made mention of Cherokee witchcraft in 1775, it wasn’t until 1891 that any serious research was published.   James Mooney’s monumental works, “Myths of the Cherokee”, “Sacred Formulas of the Cherokees”  were the culmination of 36 years of research living among the Cherokee while working for the Bureau of American Ethnology.  These works are still the most comprehensive and authoritative publications on the subject.  His notes were later the subject of the book "The Swimmer Manuscript".



In the 1960’s, the subject was comprehensively studied by two distinguished scholars, Dr. Jack Frederick Kilpatrick and his wife, Mrs. Anna Gritts Kilpatrick, both Cherokee.  They interviewed hundreds of Cherokee and collected texts and notes written in native script (Sequoyah syllabary).  They translated these texts and published numerous books and monographs.  Later, their son, Alan Kilpatrick, studied their work and collection and wrote a very enlightening book, “The Night Has a Naked Soul”,  that looks at traditional Cherokee religious practices from a Cherokee anthropologist’s point of view.

Kokopelli with his magic cane
used sometimes as a flute
other times as a planting stick

In this Native American Antiquity series, I want to pull from these sources and take a look at what the characteristics of a Cherokee witch were.  Let’s start with Nûñ'yunu'wï, which translates as “Stone Clad”.   Quoting from Mooney, “This is what the old men told me when I was boy.

“Once when all the people of the settlement were out in the mountains on a great hunt one man who had gone on ahead climbed to the top of a high ridge and found a large river on the other side. While he was looking across he saw an old man walking about on the opposite ridge, with a cane that seemed to be made of some bright, shining rock. The hunter watched and saw that every little while the old man would point his cane in a certain direction, then draw it back and smell the end of it. At last he pointed it in the direction of the hunting camp on the other side of the mountain, and this time when he drew back the staff he sniffed it several times as if it smelled very good, and then started along the ridge straight for the camp. He moved very slowly, with the help of the cane, until he reached the end of the ridge, when he threw the cane out into the air and it became a bridge of shining rock stretching across the river. After he had crossed over upon the bridge it became a cane again, and the old man picked it up and started over the mountain toward the camp.



Mayan ballplayer
with stone "donut" around his body



“The hunter was frightened, and felt sure that it meant mischief, so he hurried on down the mountain and took the shortest trail back to the camp to get there before the old man. When he got there and told his story the medicine-man said the old man was a wicked cannibal monster called Nûñ'yunu'wï, "Dressed in Stone," who lived in that part of the country, and was always going about the mountains looking for some hunter to kill and eat. It was very hard to escape from him, because his stick guided him like a dog, and it was nearly as hard to kill him, because his whole body was covered with a skin of solid rock. If he came he would kill and eat them all, and there was only one way to save themselves …”

I love this story because I think it is an excellent example of the creative story-telling of the Cherokee.  Next week, we will find out what one thing could stop Nûñ'yunu'wï and then discuss the characteristics this amazing witch may share with other witches and what the implications may be.

 

 

-- Courtney Miller

Cherokee Misconceptions

Plains Indians by Caitlan

I am currently writing a seven book series titled "The Cherokee Chronicles".  The Cherokee Chronicles was born out of the research I have done over the years on Native American cultures.  I discovered that what I thought I knew about Native Americans was based on the Hollywood fixation on the Plains Indians and the stereotypical ‘noble savage’.   In an introduction to the book “Incidents of Travel in Yucatan, Victor Wolfgang von Hagen wrote, “The acceptance of an indigenous ‘civilization’ demanded of an American living in 1836 a complete reorientation; to him an ‘Indian’ was one of those barbaric, half-naked tipi dwellers, a rude sub-human people who hunted with animal stealth.”

The Cherokee were nothing like the savage, nomadic, hunter-gatherers portrayed in movies and TV.  The Cherokee never lived in tipis; they have never worn feathered headdresses (except maybe to please tourists); they didn’t ride horses until the Europeans brought them over; there were no Cherokee princesses; they didn’t follow the buffalo around; the “squaw” didn’t humbly follow ten paces behind her husband; they didn’t worship a panoply of gods; they weren’t, by any definition of the word, savages.

Cherokee Chief in London 1762

When describing the “Ascent of Man”, author and philosopher Jacob Bronowski observed, “The largest step in the ascent of man is the change from nomad to village agriculture.”  Long before the Europeans came to America, the Cherokee had made that giant leap and were an agriculturally-based culture that built permanent, framed, mud stucco houses in well-organized villages secured by palisaded walls.  They had sophisticated social structures and highly developed government.   Each village was governed by a peace chief and a war chief.  During peace times, a white flag flew over the majestic, seven-sided council house and the peace chief ruled.  In times of war, a red flag flew over the council house and the war chief ruled.  Villagers were organized by families or clans.  Each clan had its purpose and responsibilities within the tribe and its members were governed and lived by the rules of each clan.   Each of the seven clans preserved and taught one of the seven tenants that enabled the pure to ascend through the seven levels of personal development.

Reconstruction of Cherokee house

The Cherokee were a matriarchal society.  The children were born into the clan of their mother and were raised by the tenants of her clan.  The women owned the houses and fields.  The highest ranking women were known as the “Beloved Women” and were responsible for divining justice.  Women could marry and divorce as they pleased.  When a man proposed, he brought a deer to her doorstep.  She would confide in her grandmother for advice.  If she decided to accept marriage, she simply brought in the deer and prepared an acceptance feast.  A divorce was simple.  The woman simply placed her husband’s belongings outside the house on the doorstep.   When he came home, he got the message.

If a clan member committed a crime, it was up to his clan to administer justice.  The punishment for murder might require his family to bind his hands and feet and push him off a cliff to his death on the rocks below. 

There were no Kings (and consequently no Princesses).  The Cherokee Government at both the local level and at the national level was bicameral – a “white” organization that governed over the peace and “red” organization that governed over war.  The person of highest authority in the white branch was the High Priest, known as the “Uku”.   Below him were assistants and priests from each clan and they were responsible for administering civil law, invoking blessings and prayers for religious well-being, removing the uncleanness from polluted persons to restore them to physical well-being, and they planned and supervised the important ceremonies and celebrations throughout the year.

The red branch of government consisted of a complimentary set of officials whose responsibilities were exclusively related to war.  Author Thomas E. Mails explained, “If either of the two organizations was in any way subordinate to the other, it was the red group, since the Great High Priest could make or unmake the war chiefs.  In addition, the red officials were at frequent intervals elected by popular vote, while the white officials were either to some extent hereditary or subject to appointment by the Great High Priest. … In most instances, red officials acquired their rank as the result of bravery in battle …”

Mails goes on to say, “An assemblage of Beloved Women … was present at every war council.  These served as counselors to the male leaders, and also regulated the treatment dealt to prisoners of war.”

The Cherokee maintained a well-organized military.  The Wolf Clan was primarily responsible for providing warriors, therefore, children of the wolf clan were trained in warfare from the time they could walk.  Many games were created to help develop children’s skills.  And some games became as prominent and important to the village and the nation as football, baseball, or soccer is to us today.   It is said that sometimes war between tribes was avoided by settling the dispute through an Anetsa (Ball Play game similar to La Crosse).

The Cherokee definitely don’t fit the stereotypes we attribute to Native Americans. They deserve to be remembered as a civilized society.





[Right: reconstructed Cherokee seven-sided Townhouse behind dance field -- Cherokee Visitor Center, Tahlequah, OK.]

-- Courtney Miller