Trail of the Ancients

Driving down from American Fork to Moab, I was in a daze.  All the teachings of the Mormons rang in my head.  I listened to some music: Insane Clown Posse, John Denver, Kid Rock.  I thought about why they would name the town Moab, presumably after the ancient homeland of Ruth, the Moabitess who had married Boaz and become the ancestress to King David. 

Moab is a small, outdoorsy town, dedicated to hiking, river rafting, and mountain biking.  As some of you know, I used to enjoy these activities in my youth, but have become sedentary in my middle age, and if I am forced to go on a hike, I enjoy kvetching most of the time.  However, as we set out for Arches National Park the next morning, I was excited for the hike up to “Delicate Arch.”  It was supposed to be only three miles round trip, so I was thinking a stroll around Green Lake in Seattle would be about the size of it.  Of course it was nothing like that, as the elevation gain is huge and you are already at a very high altitude, so we were huffing and puffing and having to pause a lot, but there was no kvetching or whining at any point, only kvelling and admiring the amazing view.  When we reached the Delicate Arch, my heart stopped. 

It was incredible. 

We loved the experience so much that we decided to try the even more challenging hike up to “Devil’s Playground.”  Wow!  Immense arches, spires, views of distant mountains…we were on top of the world!  We took the “primitive loop trail” on the way back for a total of about 9 miles of hiking that day.  Of course, we paid the price the next day as we hobbled around the ancient petroglyphs and ruined cities of the Trail of the Ancients, but it was worth it.

Top of the world!

On the way down to Monument Valley, I wanted to visit some historic sites, of people who had lived in this area for centuries before Europeans ever arrived.  As Leslie, our Navajo guide, said this morning, “You call this the 21^st century, but for our people, it’s the 80^th, or 90^th, or 100^th century.”  Our first stop was “Newspaper Rock,”  a famous wall of graffiti that people have written on for hundreds of years.  Nobody really knows what some of the stories are, but my guess is that they were just  “I was here” type writings.  After about 1900, they stopped allowing folks to write on the wall, but it was pretty cool to see everyone’s marks.

Our appetite for ancient folks whetted, we decided to bypass the Needles area and take a remote National Forest road.  Okay, it wasn’t “we,” so much as “I.”  On a road which will henceforth be known as “the Meyer cutoff,” we barely escaped being stranded in two feet of snow on a road which had not been plowed, somewhere around 7000 feet.  Like the Donner Party after the Hastings Cutoff, we might have remained there through the winter,  resorting to cannibalism after the wheat thins ran out, if not for the brand new tires, the four-wheel drive and the skill of the driver.  While I miss my Cadillac, Cream Puff is definitely not the car for this trip.

Over the past twenty-four hours, we have visited three separate sites of the ancient Pueblo people.  At the Edge of the Cedars, we saw evidence of the people who built kivas and wove blankets from turkey feathers; at Hovenweep, we walked through a village that at its height had accommodated hundreds of people, including the amazingly skillful masons who constructed the buildings that still stand (partially) today.  

 My favorite story from the Ute people was how the Creator wanted to place the people in the center of the sacred valley, so he put them in a sack after making them, and entrusted the sack to Coyote.  He told Coyote not to look in the sack or open it until he had arrived in the valley (I think this would be around the Colorado or San Juan River today).  But of course, you know if someone tells you not to look into something, or not to open something, you’re going to do it, right?  (Pandora, Bluebeard, etc.) So Coyote looked in, and some of the people escaped too soon!  They became the enemies of the Utes, whom Coyote did deposit in the correct place.  I guess every group of people has to believe that it is at the center.  Navajo people believe that in the beginning, everyone spoke Navajo, but then the people went out hunting or fishing, and when they came back, they spoke different languages.  Leslie said that his grandfather told him that Japanese people used to speak Navajo, but they ate so much raw fish that their language changed!  He said every language seems to have a little bit of Navajo in it.

 This morning in Monument Valley,

we had the privilege of touring what is known by the while folks as “Mystery Valley,” the home of the Anasazi people.  Their dwellings and wall drawings are the most mysterious, and also the most spiritually powerful.  Archaeologists don’t know why all these people just stopped living in their communities around 800 years ago.  There is speculation about drought, or overpopulation, or another disaster compelling the people to move.  The Hopis and Utes believe that their spiritual leader simply told them it was time to move on.  The Navajo tell a story something like the Tower of Babel story, that the Anasazi became too powerful and the Creator simply killed them.  Whatever the case, the Navajo do not dwell in any of the locations where the Anasazi once did.  In fact, some Navajo have nightmares if they walk over the land where these ancient ones used to live, or where they are buried.  The Anasazi will appear to them and ask, “What are you doing here?  This is our place.”  And the modern people will move somewhere else. Some Navajo stories even suggest that there were “star people” who used to visit the Anasazi, as depicted in the large figures on the petroglyphs.

Star People?

Anasazi Dwelling

Leslie showed us these ancient ruins, told us how the Navajo continue to reclaim their language and traditions after they were almost lost, showed us which plants were poisonous and which were medicinal, and sat with us in the immense silence as we looked out over the huge stone monoliths.  Finally, he led us up a steep rock into a natural stone archway.  He asked us to close our eyes while he sang a prayer song to the Creator.  For a minute, my rational, inquisitive mind stopped  trying to figure out who the Anasazi were, why they disappeared, how they were related to the Navajo.  I forgot about my plans for tomorrow, my sadness for all the Native peoples who were killed or displaced or dismissed (my “white liberal guilt” as Sherman Alexie calls it), and just listened to the voice of praise and thanksgiving to our Creator.