Near Blanding, SE Utah
Anasazi cliffdwellings
For a number of years now I’ve been following research related to cannibalism within the Anasazi culture, as an Indigenous person an expectation exists that I should be outraged at the suggestion, and initially I was, yet I believe the evidence has become incontrovertible and I will not run from it.
Acts of cannibalism have existed at some point within every culture on the face of the planet, what interests me, and a “saving grace” if need be for those desiring one, is that within the Anasazi it appears to have been “imported” – if you’ll watch the video in it’s entirety you’ll see what I mean.
I’ve been to many Puebloan sites in the Southwest and the question that always haunted me is what was the motivation for the Anasazi to construct cliff dwellings and then after having done so to abandon them in a few short decades?
Drought has previously been the explanation of choice, but as the video points out droughts weren’t an unknown event and prior ones had been more severe – neither does it explain mass graves with skeletal remains showing clear evidence of a violent end.
The drought that occurred during the period when entire cities/villages and complexes were abandoned may have amounted to the final straw when taking into account a cultural upheaval.
Another thing that always caught my attention were the construction techniques that look for all the world to have a Mesoamerican influence, too much so in my opinion to be mere coincidence.
It is more than a curiosity that the time period coincides with the collapse of the Aztec empire and could dovetail with a migration north by various groups.
In the final analysis if what is presented in the video is correct I can’t help but be reminded of H.G. Welles classic The Time Machine and the relationship between the Morlocks and Eloi.
I believe as stated in the video that among the sixty odd stories passed down among the Hopi not a single one references acts of violence among themselves, this theory involving Chaco may support that in a circuitous way.
I also believe as I have said previously I am of the opinion that in a way maybe not easily understood the Hopi are the spiritual gatekeepers of the nations, perhaps even of this entire hemisphere.
Cultures don’t go into a defensive posture and then suddenly disappear without reason, and that is exactly what cliff dwellings were – defensive. There are no other explanations for such a rigorous lifestyle and fortified communities featuring watchtowers.
Defense, not against what was to become a traditional enemy like the Dine who didn’t appear until a hundred years after the abandonment but as a yet to be determined invader.
Some have said the Spanish are the culprits, but it would be some time before their arrival and what remains is an Indigenous culture from this hemisphere.
Exploration of these sites provide evidence that the abandonment was sudden, essential articles were left behind, intact ears of corn have even been found, pots filled with grains and other edibles.
People fled, they didn’t itemize their belongings, pack them up, and set off with a well planned itinerary.
Something of a curiosity to me in being the animist I am are the ears of abandoned corn shown in the video.
Corn, an edible, left for centuries in the open and easily accessible yet not so much as a mouse would touch it as though something hangs in the air they are able to sense.
This leaving behind of possessions is as though a sudden evil confronted them, something more than they had endured for two plus centuries and their singular priority was to escape it.
It’s as though they wanted to take nothing with them associated with their former life, or didn’t have enough time.
There are no written histories from that era, no photographs or eye witness accounts detailing the events, what is left are physical signs and clues – sometimes that’s all there is to go on.
These physical signs and evidence point in a specific direction, and though I will not say they are the singular definitive answer I believe they go a long way in fitting the pieces of the puzzle together in a coherent fashion.
I value the history of all indigenous people of this hemisphere regardless of how that history is perceived, I’m not willing to sweep any part of it under the rug believing it is important to know and understand all of it.
It is that belief that has led me to previously say that during the age of conquest atrocities were committed on all sides – men, women, and children were victims.
We were scalped and likewise scalped, our women and children were taken captive and abused, we likewise took captives and abused them. Even from other tribes.
Mesoamerica was awash in blood letting and human sacrifice, a reality that cannot be denied-if any remnant of such a culture were to have migrated north they would have brought the same beliefs with them and an agrarian society like the Anasazi would have probably been an easy target for a warrior society.
There is an internet revision taking place, an expectation that as a people we all walked on water as metaphysical beings, that we somehow have all the answers and will lead the world to a better place – I don’t believe that to be true, if it were we would be in a much better situation than we are.
Our beliefs would have remained pristine without the corruption of foreign tenets – no “sacred chalice” being cast at pe sla, no commercial offerings by the likes of Leonard Crow Dog, Dennis Banks, and a bevy of others.
I for one have no desire to be burdened with any of that, to join the ranks of what can only be called indigenous televangelists.
No “star knowledge” affiliation, I want nothing to do with faux clans, blue star churches or “spiritual universities”, no “little grandmother” and tribes of many colors.
I am proud of my people, of the nations – I live in this day and age, it is enough to have to deal with current circumstances and the impact of a genocidal history that has been placed upon us without attempting to meet the expectations of the internet.
I’m not an internet ndn worried about presenting the correct persona or meeting expectations. As an individual I want to be judged on the basis of what I do, not what others do or did, or what they may or may not say.
I believe in the traditions of our people and will continue doing my best to live in a such a manner, a part of which is to speak the truth.
And so in what I have written above I have spoken truthfully in saying there exists a limited number of explanations when it comes to the Anaszai, yet from all I have read, all I have heard, and the many sites I have had the privilege to visit this theory as presented in the video makes more sense to me than any previously.
Is it a controversial theory? Of course it is, but controversy in itself isn’t enough for me to be dismissive, to not weigh what is presented and then expand the search.
I’ve spent time alone hiking and camping throughout the four corners area well off the beaten path for days.
I’ve seen petroglyphs in diverse places, pottery sherds too numerous to count scattered about, bits and pieces of baskets, metates, and tools, leaving them undisturbed as I found them for they belong to this place, the spirits that abide there, and no other.
Once I happened upon a large flat topped boulder with knapping tools and the remnants of work making points, it was as though whoever the craftsman was had just stepped away no more than a few minutes, hours, or days prior to my arrival.
I’ve been wrapped in the silence of this place broken only by the occasional call of a coyote, the voice of an owl, or the rustling of brush as a deer or rabbit passed. I’ve offered and smudged there.
It is a special place, ethereal, at times otherworldly, and like all such places one whose history may never be known in it’s entirety.
I understand with this being the internet there may those who stumble across this blog and say I knew it, a bunch of gd savages, to those I would say look to the history of their own before they attempt to cast stones.
No one of our nations is more important than another, though the approach of some may be to promote themselves as such.
The only value in my estimation any of the faux tribes have is that of entertaining members in a game they have created where they can don costumes as though everyday is Halloween and drone on about crystals, talking feathers, and what the “elders” or “spirits” have imparted/bestowed upon them.
Cultural aberrations abound, they are to be found in every culture or society – current examples are abandoned newborns/infants we read about in the news, the abuse of children even to torturing and starving them – the nut who arms himself and kills multiple people in public venues, droning non combatant women, children, and men – closer to home the sexual and physical abuse of the nations women and children by their own – the presence of drugs, alcohol, and gangs.
We live in a day and age where aberrations are becoming the norm – aberrations of behavior, politics, steam rolling corporate greed, ethical and moral standards, corporate and climate change deniers distain for the environment, commercial manipulation,and the belief that it isn’t what you say or do but how you look when doing so and how much you adhere to the latest fads, whether you have all the tech gadgets.
There is more that has taken place on this continent, within this hemisphere that is commonly known, agreed upon, or accepted.
Rune inscriptions have been found in Arkansas, the northeast, and into Canada.
Pacific Islanders crossed the vast expanse of the Pacific navigating by the stars and lengths of cord with knots tied in them at various intervals to engage in the trade of articles whose remnants have been found and only could have come from them.
Now centuries later Linguists have begun to dispute the Bering migration theory speaking of a reverse migration, perhaps an as yet undefined ebb and flow.
It has become an axiom to say it is a small world, maybe so, but there was a time when it appeared to be without end, an unknown mystery – now it isn’t the world that is a mystery but much of the past accompanied by the mystery of an uncertain future.
If we do not know and understand our history in as much as we can then we may as well be content with allowing revisionists to write it for us or construct one for the internet to meet romantic expectations.
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