MESA VERDE NATIONAL PARK, COLORADO

Fire ravaged Mesa Verde National Park was closed until the day we arrived and then only Wetherill Mesa was open. Switch-backing after dawn 15 miles up the mesa (table top) we got some of the few tickets available for tours. Free buses take tourists to various cliff dwellings. With an hour to kill before our tour we walked down a steep paved grade to Step House.

Step house is unique because the ruins of two separate occupations can be compared on the same site. The much earlier 600 AD pit houses of basket weaver peoples are next to AD 1226 Pueblo sandstone masonry. A series of old stone steps show improvements made by the old people. A partly reconstructed typically small pit house, part underground then built up with sticks and mud has its only entrance on top with no windows. Just like the later Pueblo dwellings, living quarters are big enough for sleeping while cooking, playing and socializing are done in the plaza.

Bused to Longhouse over winding roads, weaving between mesas blackened by fire I understood the Ancient Pueblos draw to the area. Not only were the mesas a formidable fortress, but also the elevation offered cooler temperatures and more rain for crops. Sand from wind whipped mesa tops encouraged the Ancients to seek shelter below the cliffs where natural springs create caves and provide reliable drinking water.

Archeology, Spanish conquistador notes and oral history from living Pueblo Peoples provide a picture of life 800 years ago. Each extended family village included aunts and uncles. At the back of the cavern, communal fires reflected heat from the walls warming houses in the winter. Springs along the cave wall trickled slowly into pools enlarged by the Ancients where containers filled every 15 minutes. Water was spooned for personal and communal use. Very ingenious.

Longhouse has a high proportion of kivas (round religious houses) to dwellings, supposedly because this was a shaman center. Each cliff dwelling had a main plaza where women gathered to grind corn and watch the children. Men tended the mesa fields. People gathered wood and probably threw the wood over the lip of the cliff onto the plaza so they did not have to haul it on their backs down hazardous handholds in the steep sandstone. Garbage and human waste was tossed over the edge.

As we leave the cliff dwellings, my mind hears ancient drums echoing among cliffs, children laughing and women grinding and gossiping. Why did the Pueblo People come and where are they now? Perhaps they are still alive in our Southwestern Native Americans.

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