They Are Still Here: Wupatki Pueblo & the Meaning of Place PDF

three They Are Still Here Wupatki Pueblo and the Meaning of Place Lyle Balenquah This chapter is not your standard scientific paper. vacations with my family visiting the ancient homes Unlike most of...

three They Are Still Here Wupatki Pueblo and the Meaning of Place Lyle Balenquah This chapter is not your standard scientific paper. vacations with my family visiting the ancient homes Unlike most of the other essays in this book, it is of our ancestors throughout the Four Corners of nearly devoid of archaeological information, dates, the American Southwest. We toured many archaeo- and theories. What follows is simply one person’s logical places, including Mesa Verde, Chaco understanding of what ancient places such as Canyon, Kiet Siel, and of course Wupatki. I walked Wupatki Pueblo mean to modern Hopi people. amid the preserved remnants of my ancestors’ I do not claim to speak for all Hopi people, homes and learned that I was a descendant of the clans, villages, or religious societies. Each has its people who had built them. I heard stories about own story, and no individual Hopi can claim to the Hisat’sinom, the Ancient People, who possessed know everything about Hopi culture. But I believe remarkable skill, ingenuity, and determination. The a common bond exists among Hopis in the way stories told of people who could grow crops in the they think, feel, and know about the homes of driest of climates, communicate with supernatural their ancestors. This bond is based on a shared forces, and bring rain and snow with the power of understanding of Hopi history that has been their prayers. Yet as a child I did not fully under- handed down across countless generations. stood what was being said to me. Only later would Explaining the meaning of place is no easy task. I come to appreciate the depth and complexity of It requires one to think beyond the hard data of sci- Hopi ancestry. ence and Western theoretical frameworks. From a Fast forwarding a dozen years, I found myself Hopi perspective, the meaning of place is also again among the places of my ancestors. As a stu- embedded in the emotional and spiritual realms of dent of anthropology at Northern Arizona human existence—realms that are often disregarded University, I accepted a part-time job as an archaeo- in archaeology because they are not readily testable logical technician with the National Park Service with scientific methods. Admittedly, it is difficult to (NPS) in Flagstaff, Arizona. The job reintroduced measure a person’s spiritual or emotional connec- me to Wupatki Pueblo and the surrounding region. tion to a place. Yet I believe such factors deserve For the next eight years I studied the science of consideration within scientific explanations of the archaeology and did my best to be an archaeologist. past, especially when those explanations involve Our main focus at NPS was on documenting the Hopi ancestors. architecture and preserving the ruins at Wupatki My introduction to Wupatki Pueblo left me and Walnut Canyon National Monuments. wanting to learn more about this place and its Painstakingly we mapped and wrote down descrip- inhabitants. As a child, I spent parts of my summer tions of architectural spaces, features, and materials. 11 Figure 3.2. Members of the NPS ruins preservation crew at the Wupatki amphitheater, 2002. Left to right: Woody Coochwytewa, Mike Cooeyate, Lyle Balenquah, Chris Lowe, Delvin Numkena, Lloyd Masayumptewa, Larsen Harris Jr. I learned to analyze what I recorded through me, and more profound. I was now beginning to the lens of scientific inquiry. I filled volumes of data understand how we Hopi people had come to be sheets and tables with every conceivable fact about who we were. I grasped the way ancestral Hopi prehistoric building materials and construction clans had traveled far and long across the landscape styles. I theorized about aspects of social integration to the place we now call home. During these travels and organization. By the end of my sixth year with the people learned how to be Hopi. They learned NPS, I joked with my coworkers—two of whom that being Hopi was not a right but a privilege, hard were also Hopi—that we had probably mapped our earned, at great cost of effort. I was also now old millionth wall stone. enough to participate in certain Hopi ceremonies, Through it all, I wondered who the people were and I learned that during those rites, we reenacted who had built these places of mud and stone. our history. I came to understand that our cere- Sometimes while scrutinizing the stone walls of monies and rituals had their origins deep in the Wupatki, I noticed in the mortar the preserved fin- ancient past of our ancestors. gerprints of Hisat’sinom builders. In such moments I learned from my family members that the arti- I recalled the stories I had heard as a child, and in facts and “ruins” I studied had deeper meanings my mind’s eye I could see these people as they once beyond those my data sheets could reveal. These were. I often discussed my job with my family at objects and places were the footprints of our ances- Hopi. They listened intently to my descriptions of tors, and footprints such as Wupatki Pueblo formed architecture and artifacts, and again I heard stories physical and spiritual connections to our past. As about our ancestors. Leigh Kuwanwisiwma, director of the Hopi Cultural This time, though, the details were clearer to Preservation Office, says, these footprints “are the 12 Lyle Balenquah Figure 3.3. The Hopi pueblo of Walpi, about 1901. hallmark of Hopi stewardship” of “ruins, burials, the past. Through the efforts of tribal departments artifacts, shrines, springs, trails, rock writings…and such as the Hopi Cultural Preservation Office, other physical evidence of occupation and use.” researchers began placing Hopi interests first in Archaeological sites, he writes, “are not mere ves- importance when they explored Hopi culture and tiges; Hopi rites and liturgies recognize them as liv- history. One result of this Hopi-generated research ing entities.” has been the challenging of traditional archaeologi- The material objects manufactured and built by cal concepts and theories about Hopi ancestors. Hopi ancestors underpin an understanding of our Hopis want to study their ancestors not in the past and help educate present-day Hopi people framework of Western science but by using Hopi about both the everyday and the spiritual lives of concepts and knowledge. They seek answers to their ancestors. Through the Hopi teachings I was their own questions about their ancestral past. exposed to, I gained a new lens through which to One example of the way Hopis choose to view the work in which I was participating. That achieve this goal has to do with the very definition work took on new meaning as I came to better of their ancestors. Rather than viewing them as understand my cultural history. neatly defined “cultures” with specific territorial I was fortunate to have entered archaeology at a boundaries, Hopi researchers view their ancestors as time when Hopi people were beginning to demand having been much more dynamic and fluid, with and exercise greater involvement in the work of numerous groups or clans making up ancestral pop- Southwestern archaeologists, anthropologists, and ulations throughout the Southwest. Classifications ethnographers. They expected to be more than sim- such as Sinagua, Anasazi, Cohonina, and Hohokam ply subjects of scientific inquiry, as they had been in are peripheral to Hopi research interests. As the They Are Still Here 13 Hopi anthropologist Ferrell Secakuku puts it, sim- accomplishments of Hopi ancestors and recall their ply but confidently, “To Hopi, these are ancestors spiritual accomplishments as well. They are re- they call Hisat’sinom, the ancient people.” minded that the prosperity of present generations This designation for the ancestors is always of Hopis depends on the gifts of the departed open-ended. Whereas archaeological cultural desig- ancestors. Ferguson and Kuwanwisiwma write, nations tend to confine groups to certain areas and “Ancestral villages that have fallen into ruin are not to the “prehistoric” time period, the Hopi concept dead places whose only meaning comes from scien- of the ancestors implies no such finality. And tific values. The Hopi ancestors who lived in these whereas archaeologists traditionally looked largely villages still spiritually occupy these places.” The at the material objects the ancestors left behind, ancestors play important parts in contemporary Hopi understandings of the past enjoy the added Hopi ceremonies that “bring rain, fertility, and other dimension of a continual connection to spiritual blessings for the Hopi people and their neighbors aspects that are embedded in the material objects. throughout the world.” Much of present-day Hopi culture, including The concept that the ancestors remain spiritu- ceremonies and religion, developed during the ally alive in ruined villages infuses the Hopi notion ancestors’ migrations. Over thousands of years they that the meaning of the past is what it contributes earned and accumulated the knowledge that culmi- to life in the present. This understanding provides a nated in the worldview and beliefs expressed continual connection between modern Hopi people through Hopi ceremonies practiced today. This cul- and their predecessors. I believe this connection is tural knowledge system, known in Hopi as wiimi the bond that Hopi people share in the way they and navoti, is the foundation for the way modern know and feel about their ancestors. Hopi people remain connected to their ancestral These unique perspectives not only teach Hopis past. Micah Lomaovaya and T. J. Ferguson explain: about their cultural history but also help educate “Navoti is a historical understanding derived from others who research and visit ancestral Hopi places. experiences handed down by ancestors to their Some Hopi information is included in formal aca- descendants. Wiimi includes sacred artifacts and the demic efforts to teach archaeologists and anthropolo- knowledge of how to use them properly in religious gists. In academic research, Hopi knowledge of the ceremonies and rituals. Together, navoti and wiimi past is being incorporated alongside the “hard data” provide both the means to know the past and the generated through scientific inquiry. The Western sci- ability to invoke the power of the ancestors in the entific process uncovers things such as the material present through ritual offerings and ceremonies.” composition and spatial relationships of artifacts— When a modern Hopi person is involved in cer- Hopi “footprints”—while Hopi knowledge offers emonial rites and responsibilities, he or she does insights into why the artifacts were made and how not simply go through the motions but actively the ancestors used them. Through archaeological engages the spiritual power that was first developed reports, management plans, and other documents, and handed down by the ancestors. In this way a Hopi perspectives on the ancestral past are being Hopi remains connected to the time of the ances- disseminated to larger audiences. tors—many of whom, Hopis believe, still inhabit Another example of information sharing can be places such as Wupatki. Indeed, it was in places like found at the Wupatki Pueblo visitor center, where these that some Hopi ceremonies, such as the Snake Hopi perspectives are part of the interpretation of Dance, originated. The ceremonies reflect connec- the ruins offered to the visiting public. Exhibits dis- tions that transcend time and set participants play the values and beliefs Hopi people hold about among their ancestors in the present day. their ancestors. Through their own words and writ- When Hopi people visit such places nowadays, ings, Hopis’ physical and spiritual connections to they see not just the remnants of a bygone era but the homes of their ancestors are expressed in voices reflections of who they once were and what they only they can provide. These voices show that the have become. They witness the artistic and technical builders and inhabitants of places such as Wupatki 14 Lyle Balenquah Figure 3.4. Wupatki Pueblo, looking northwest across the Wupatki Basin toward the Doney Cliffs. did not vanish into thin air. They remain in spirit front of us were not just “artifacts,” lifeless things and are ever present in their descendants, who con- that no longer had purpose. Instead, they belonged tinue to practice the ways the ancestors established to someone—they belonged to the Hopis. The thousands of years ago. place, too, belonged to us, and it was our responsi- During my eight years of work in the Wupatki bility to be stewards for its care and protection. area, as I interacted almost daily with traces of my Toward the end of the visit, the three of us split Hopi history, I came to know that these monuments up as each lingered along the trail. Catching up to of stone and mortar are more than just physical my grandmother, I heard her voice coming from objects on the landscape. They embody the essence around the corner of a block of rooms. I could of what Hopi culture has come to stand for: cooper- barely make out the words she spoke softly in the ation, humility, thoughtful prayer, hard work, and Hopi language. At first I thought she was convers- perseverance. These qualities continue to be recog- ing with my uncle, but as I rounded the corner, I nized and honored by modern Hopi people. saw that she was alone, facing an open room. She Once during my time with NPS, my paternal smiled when I asked to whom she was talking. grandmother and uncle visited me at Wupatki. I Shrugging her shoulders she said, “Nobody, really. accompanied them as they walked the interpretive But I know that they are still here, listening and trail, and I read the trail guide out loud. At certain watching.” points my grandmother would interject her own theories and opinions about the remains we looked Lyle Balenquah is a member of the Third Mesa at. She recalled events from her life’s teachings and Greasewood clan from the village of Paaqavi (Reed described the ways certain artifacts were used. She Springs). He has worked for more than 10 years as a would point to an artifact in front of us and say, Hopi archaeologist documenting ancestral Hopi “See, this is where we learned how to do such settlements such as Wupatki Pueblo. He holds a things, and we are still doing it today.” Whether my master’s degree in anthropology from Northern grandmother knew it or not, she was reinforcing the Arizona University in Flagstaff. Hopi sense of place and meaning. The objects in They Are Still Here 15 Figure 4.1. White painted snake figures at Veit Springs.