Dear Cha-Wel-Dor-Sue,

The southwestern part of the USA has intrigued us ever since Pat and I spent a week in a time share at Santa Fe, New Mexico. It was on that trip that a real introduction to the history, culture, and arts and crafts of the American Indian occurred, and a real urge developed to know more about them. Visits to Pueblo, Taos and San Ildefonso gave us some insights as to their adobe type of dwellings and agricultural pursuits, and provided the stimulus required to return to this area. A subsequent time share stay in Ruidoso, New Mexico, afforded us a further opportunity to explore the Indian tribes by a stop at the Mescaleros tribal headquarters, one of the Apache tribes.

While in Oklahoma City with my son Wells, I visited the Oklahoma State Museum of the American Indian and was tremendously impressed with their many colorful diaramas. Out of this visit came the knowledge of our forced migrations of our native American Indians from the Carolinas, Georgia and Florida to reservations in the northeast corner of the state. These tribes that were displaced were the Seminoles, Choctaws, Creeks, Chichasaus and the Cherokees. It was shocking to learn how we mistreated and manhandled our native citizens. As a result of these visits, I responded affirmatively to an appeal by the Smithsonian Institution for support to establish in Washington, DC, on the Mall, a National Museum of the Indian. It is surprising how one's sense of guilt, based on one's country's misbehavior, prompts one to try to make amends to our American Indians!

With this preamble, one can understand why Pat and I decided to fly to Albuquerque, New Mexico, rent a car, and head west toward the "Four Corners" or that area where the states of New Mexico, Arizona, Utah, and Colorado meet each other. It is sometimes called "Canyon Lands", as this is where the Colorado plateau (geological) has been deeply cut by various rivers, most of which are tributaries of the Colorado River and the San Juan River. It is also called the land of the "Anasazi", or the land of the cliff dwellers, who built their adobe multi-storied houses in alcoves high on the cliffs or escarpments of the canyons. Others built their (pit) houses on the tops of mesas while still others lived in the fertile valleys below and were more nomadic in type. The word "Anasazi" means unknowns or ancients and they are considered as prehistoric people in that no written record of their presence exists today. These early people lived from around Christ to somewhere around 1200 or 1300 AD and then suddenly, all of these people migrated elsewhere. Thus, all of the ruins that we saw at Mesa Verde and Chaco Canyon were occupied probably from 1100 to 1300 AD and then within a period of 150 years, abandoned their homes. This may have been due to unfavorable weather conditions such as droughts and prompted them to move to the southeast along the Rio Grande River.

Our first stop on our trip was "Sky City" at Acoma, some 65 miles west of Albuquerque. It is an ancient pueblo still partially occupied by descendants of the cliff dwellers who sought refuge high on the great "Rock of Acuso", a flat type mesa 357 feet high, about the height of a 40 story building!

The name Acoma means "People of the White Rock", and they probably elected to live in this fortress-like abode to escape the warring Apaches to the south. Today, one can be driven to the very top of this mesa, which occupies approximately 70 acres, in a tribal bus, a service provided for a fee by the local Acoma tribe. It is considered to be among the oldest continuously occupied settlements in the US. On top, there are probably 200 or so one and two and three story buildings made of stone and adobe. Outside of many of these houses there were some of the local inhabitants, mostly women, who were displaying their pottery and offering it for sale. Most of the pottery that we observed were pieces of "Traditional" pottery, the shapes created by the hands of the potter, as contrasted to that which was made in molds or using green ware. Each artist had created their own designs and decorations and it was the first time I ever stopped long enough to examine, admire, appreciate and want to possess a piece of pottery! The highest point in Sky City is the Church of San Estevan built by Father Ramirez between 1629 and 1641, and rarely used today except for yearly services to commemmorate Saint Stephen's Day, their patron saint. Most of the Acoma tribe live today in Acomita, a town of approximately 2700 people.

One of the reasons that I was fascinated with the pottery in this area was when I learned how it was created and how it was finally built up into its definitive form. Coils of clay will be rolled by hand and then laid down one coil on top of the other. At no time was a potter's wheel employed! After modeling, the surface was left ribbed or made smooth by scraping with a sharp-edged tool, possibly a bit of gourd, broken shard, or fragment of obsidian. After the decoration is completed, firing occurs and this is done in the kiln using dried cakes of sheep dung as fuel. The final color depends on the origin of the clay (chemical composition) and on the duration of the exposure of the pottery to the smoke in the kiln.

Gallup, New Mexico, was our first overnight stop and the city consists largely of a long commercial strip on the old US Route 66. It seemed that every other building along this strip was selling Indian jewelry and virtually half of the outlets restricted their sales to wholesalers or dealers. Gallup, undoubtedly, is the Indian jewelry capital of the United States and all tribes, regardless of their locations, funnel their jewelry into Gallup for sale. Apparently, jewelry-making is a cottage industry and no factories with production lines exist. This accounts for the marked variety of designs and for the fact that very few pieces are production items. Buses go out from these dealer shops to the reservations to pick up the jewelry. Every attempt on my part to visit an Indian's home was unsuccessful. They are either shy or guard their technique or expertise carefully. We did, however, visit the stores where all of the materials used to make the jewelry were available for purchase by the Indians. Rough turquoise, coral, mother of pearl, various rocks, and silver wire and fetiches were all on display and for sale.

After leaving Gallup, we drove southwest to Zuni and its reservation, expecting to find a great deal of interest. No one could have been more disappointed. It is a sleeping town with a gas station, a few grocery stores, a couple of souvenir shops selling Zuni jewelry, pottery, weaving, and wallhangings. We did visit the Zuni Craftsman Cooperative Association where a few pieces of jewelry were displayed. We were even given a catalog and could order from it if we so desired after we returned home. We had been forewarned that there was very little of interest to see in Zuni but we had to see it for ourselves. My real reason for wanting to visit Zuni was that of all of the Indian jewelry that I had previously seen in my experience, it was the most delicate and exquisite of them all. Their needlework and channelwork inlay designs were the ones that fascinated me most of all.

Leaving Zuni, we drove west on Route 40 to visit the Painted Desert and the Petrified Forest. Each abuts the other with the Desert being in the north and the Forest being in the south, and we used our Senior Citizens Golden Passport card for our admission tickets. Once again, I applauded our Department of the Interior and our National Park Service for providing this free entry for our nation's elderly citizens. Fortunately for us, the day was a crystal clear and cloudless one and we could appreciate the wide range of colors reflecting from the Chinle Geological Formation. The beauty of the desert is definitely a function of light and shadow, and if seen on a cloudy day could be "only a grayish washed-out line of cliffs with no relief and no color". One reporter once claimed he saw 168 distinct colors and shades in the sands of the Desert, and mentioned a ''rainbow of pinks and reds, and oranges, and whites and browns and blues and grays and greens". There is virtually no vegetation except for a few short shrubs and grasses.

The Visitors Center at the desert was of adobe construction and we were given a brochure and map describing the many scenic features of the area. A ranger briefed us on the virtues of each of the lookout points and recommended certain stops for their unique features. A 17 minute film introduced us to the Petrified Forest and how wood is petrified. After getting back in our car, we noted there were eight overlooks and we stopped at half of them, long enough to appreciate the magnificent display of colors provided by the forces of erosion (wind, water, thaw-freeze, etc.) as they carved canyons, large and small, through this high dry table land that was once a vast flood plain crossed by many streams.

As we drove south into the Petrified Forest, we came upon increasing numbers of petrified trees and noted with some disappointment that one cannot take anything from the park, and no souvenirs of petrified wood may be removed from the park. However, in gift shops outside of the park, there are many pieces for sale, rough or polished, and these were secured from petrified trees lying all about the general area but not included within the confines of the park proper. The colors of the natural fragments are muted, whereas the polished ones show startling, crystal-like patterns and are very beautiful.

The story of the Petrified Forest began some 225 million years ago in the late Triassic Period, when the entire area was a vast flood plain. Tall, stately pine trees grew in the western area at the headwaters of many streams, and crocodile-like reptiles, giant fish-eating amphibians, and small dinosaurs lived among a variety of ferns and other plants that are only known as fossils today. Through time, storms, floods, earthquakes, and the like, the tall trees fell and were washed down by swollen streams into the plains below. There, they were covered by silt, mud, and volcanic ash and this blanket of deposits cut off all oxygen and slowed the logs' decay. Gradually, silicabearing ground waters seeped through the logs and bit by bit, encased the original wood tissues with silica deposits. Slowly, the process continued, the silica crystallized into the quartz, and the logs were preserved as petrified wood.

Later in geologic time, the whole area sank, was flooded and covered with freshwater sediments. Later, the area was uplifted far above sea level and this uplift created stresses that cracked the giant logs. Still later in time, wind and water washed away the accumulated layers of hardened sediments, exposing the petrified logs and the fossilized plants and animals. Studies have revealed that fossils and petrified woods still lie below the surface at depths of 300 feet!

We stopped at all the viewpoints and each has something special to observe, although we did not find the petrocliffs at Newspaper Rock.

After leaving the desert and forest, we drove north through a bit of relatively flat land and were surprised at the absence of traffic on the road. It was early July and mobile America should have been on the move, enioying their vacations, or was Canyon deChelly of little or no interest to them? We were aware that we were in the midst of a recession and felt this might be partly responsible. At any event, we drove on and spent the night in Chinle, Arizona, and it appeared relatively deserted. We were in Navajo territory and not much was doing.

Several years ago, I purchased virtually a complete set of brochures or books of our National Parks and prior to leaving on our trip, I looked over the one called Canyon deChelly and decided that this was too beautiful to miss. The word deChelly is taken from the Spanish and pronounced de-shay.

Canyon deChelly has been the "home" for American Indians for over 2000 years, and at first, it was a temporary home for bands of wandering archaic hunters. Later, it fostered the flourishing Anasazi civilizations among its rock walls and today, it is home to the Navajos. Their farms and hogans are still seen in the Canyon. Our visit included stops at both the north and south rims and we chose to do it on our own. Guides, however, were available and we could have elected to take a four wheel all-terrain vehicle and motor down into the canyon itself, but we declined to do this because of Pat's back problems. Viewing the gorge from above, one notes that is is deep and awesome and again, impresses one with the force of a stream and the effect of gravitation. It was on a view from the south rim that we saw "The White House" and our first sight of a cliff dwelling. Later, at Mesa Verde, we were to see many of them.

While at the canyon, we did learn something of the Indians' traditional relationship with the land, and that for all Indians, the entire earth is a living being, and that all things, animals, plants, rocks, rivers, and clouds, are alive and intradependent. For the Indian, there is a balance between man and nature and they strive to maintain it through their entire lives. For the Indian, the earth is "Mother Earth", and the sky "Father Sky", and the Indians show their respect in care one normally shows to one's biological mother. They are perhaps the original environmentalists, and this feature of their culture, I might add, is not unique to the American Indian, as I observed it among some of the primitive tribes in both Borneo and Sumatra.

Following our visit to Canyon deChelly, we drove north, crossed over into Utah (Land of the Utes) and elected not to visit Natural Bridges National Park, as it was 60 miles out of our way and in order to actually get to the site of the bridges, one would have to undertake a long hike on foot for several miles. Moab, Utah, was our home for the evening and to our surprise, there were few vacancies available at the motels. It was the Fourth of July and to our surprise, an additional charge of $5 was assessed to the visitors. We presume it was to pay for the fireworks that were displayed in the evening. Since it was early in the afternoon and the sun was still high, we drove north to visit the spectacular Arches National Park. At this point, I might add that my classmate at Trinity College, Jerry Wykoff, in his book on land forms, tells us that canyons begin as rivers that carve out their meandering path by water erosion and then later, other agents help to widen the cut. Water seeps into cracks in the rocks and freezes, thus exerting enormous pressure that results in exfoliation or peeling off of huge slabs from the canyon walls. Tree roots also dislodge slabs of rock that tumble down into the canyon. Water and weak acids dissolve the cement of the rock and decompose it until eventually, the rocks again become sand and are blown away by the wind. These weathering and erosioning agents are part of the Indians conception of a living and changing earth.

Perhaps the most beautiful geological expression of Mother Nature that we saw was the Arches National Park, and the beauty of this area can be summarized by the introductory remarks in "Arches, The Story Behind the Scenery". "Grain by grain, bit by bit, water and time have sculpted the arid land into an infinity of forms, towering spires, sheer cliffs, balanced rocks, and graceful arches of stone. This giant rock garden seems rugged and changeless, but it is always evolving and continuously being reshaped by erosion. It is a wondrous place in which to feel the power of time."

The park contains more than 950 natural arches, the greatest concentration in the world. Most of the arches are of soft red sandstone deposited over 150 million years ago in a vast desert. As the underlying salt deposits dissolved, the sand-stone collapsed and weathered into a mass of vertical rock called fins. Sections of these fins wore through, thus creating the spectacular arches.

The Scenic Drive takes one through "The Devil's Garden", "Windows", "Courthouse and Towers", "Petrified Dunes", "Balanced Rock" and "Garden of Eden". My words cannot adequately describe our impression of these sites, but perhaps my video camera and Pat's Olympus slides can provide some evidence of the beauty of this area.

As I said, we visited this area in the late afternoon and time did not permit us to see the "Landscape Arch", which is some 360 feet long, nor the "Delicate Arch", as these entailed long walks and the sun had already begun to set. At this point in our journey, the Arches was the most inspiring and impressive of our visits to Canyon Country.

Canyonlands National Park was our next visit and this was done on the morning of July 5th. As we approached the Visitors Center, there was a haze created by billions and billions of gnats and they were with us everywhere. I am sure our impression of this remarkable Park was diminished by our inability to get them out of our eyes, ears, nose and mouth!

The Green River and the Colorado River merge in Canyonlands and due to erosion, there is an "Island in the Sky" surrounded by vast canyons on all sides. Our visit to Canyonlands did not include a visit to another section called "Needles" at the southern end of the park nor to the "Maze" at the western end of the Park. John Wesley Powell, who explored the Colorado River in 1869, scaled the canyon walls at the Confluence and discovered a strangely carved landscape, a "Wilderness of Rocks".

We drove the entire road on the "Island in the Sky" and managed to reach each of the scenic sites, terminating in the Grand View Point Overlook, directly below which is Monument Basin where stone columns (Buttes) rise more than 300 feet from the canyon floor. Billions of years of geological erosion beholds the eyes of the visitor, much as one sees, in much greater fashion, in the views of the Grand Canyon, the most remarkable calendar of geological time! The vegetation we saw was largely yucca plants, pinyon trees and juniper shrubs. Cactus and sagebrush were also prevalent.

Our next visit was Delta, Colorado, to re-visit my Trinity classmate Lou Giffen and his wife Kay. In so doing, we drove along the Colorado River and had remarkable views of the canyon or gorge created by this remarkable river. Seeing it by car relieved me of the desire that I had had to see it in a rubber inflated craft. There were, along this stretch of the river, very few rapids, and nothing exciting at this particular portion of the Colorado River. While in Moab, we did miss the opportunity to see a "Light and Sound Show", with appropriate music on our only night's stay in Moab. Our night in Delta was spent at the Riverwood Motel, along the Gunnison River, and it was this river that carved a 2000 foot deep gorge that we saw on the following day. Since one's approach to the black gorge of the Gunnison is on a gradual incline over relatively flat territory, it comes as a great surprise when one reaches the summit and then looks down into this massive gorge. The narrowness of the gorge really enhances the feeling of the tremendous depth of the gorge itself.

Lou and I were classmates at Trinity College and he was one whom I admired throughout our four years at college together. He was our Valedictorian and Outstanding Scholar and, in fact, his valedictory address was delivered in Latin! None of his classmates knew what in the world he was talking about but we all assumed he had something worthwhile to say. In the evening, Lou and Kay stopped by and picked us up and took us out to dinner at a delightful spot and there, we reminisced a great deal about our student days together. In the morning, Lou and Kay served breakfast to us on their lovely terrace and provided us with a beautiful view of the mountains to the east. Lou, upon graduation from Trinity, went off to Harvard Medical School and then later, took his surgical internship at Bellevue Hospital in New York on the Cornell Division. Subsequently, he was a Fellow in Surgery at the Mayo Clinic and returned to the Hartford area to do General Surgery at the Hartford Hospital. Upon his retirement, he built a villa in LaJijic in Mexico on Lake Chapala just south of Guadalajara. We visited them during one of our trips in this area.

Durango, Colorado, had always been one of our future destinations and we headed south after leaving Delta. Our first stop was Silverton, formerly a rich mining town high in the San Carlos Mountains. It had been our intention to take the Durango-Silverton Steam Train and to view the scenery in this area but after driving our car along the mountain passes, we decided that we were not going to carry out our original plans and take this beautiful train ride. We did cross a pass at 10,200 feet and also one at 11,000 feet and these were the two highest passes that we had ever driven except for Independence Pass just south of Aspen, Colordao.

We spent the night in Durango and the following morning, drove on to Mesa Verde (in Spanish, means green table). It requires a minimum of two days to visit and since we only spent a full day there, we missed more than half of it. We stayed at a lodge situated next to the Visitors Center as we would have lost a great deal of time driving to and from the Park had we chosen to stay in Cortez, Colorado. It is at Mesa Verde that there is the largest concentration of cliff dwellings anywhere in the world and here, archaeologists have located more than 4000 prehistoric sites dating from about 550 AD to 1270 AD. The dating is done by the tree ring technique which they claim is more accurate than the carbon-14 test, particularly if one is determining the date within the past 2000 years. They can even analyze timbers that are charred and claim that they can determine the precise year that the tree was cut down. It seems that for each year and location, there is a master calendar obtained by examining the tree rings of hard woods in that particular area, and they can determine the climate that existed for each year in times past. Each year in the past has a characteristic "fingerprint" that is readily recognized by experts.

Some 40 pueblos and cliff dwellings are visible from park roads and overlooks, and we did see a good many of them. The most impressive was the "Cliff Palace" which had 217 rooms and 23 kivas, and housed about 250 persons. A kiva is a Hopi word for "Ceremonial Room". The Anasazi may have used them to conduct healing rites and to pray for rain, luck in hunting, or good crops. A roof of beams and mud covered each kiva, and access was by ladder through a hole in the center. Each has a small hole in the floor called a Sipapu, a symbolic entrance to the underworld. While the largest dwelling was the "Cliff Palace", the most perilous site was the "Balcony House", and this was a difficult site to reach. One had to climb up and down wooden ladders that were almost parallel to the cliffside. One only looked toward the cliff rather than looking down the precipitous cliff wall into Montezuma Valley below. It was tiring and Pat made the right decision to omit this experience from her day's itinerary.

On top of the Mesa, there were many ruin sites, some of which had "Pit Houses" which apparently were one of the first types of housing adopted by the Anasazi. Their basic features included a squarish-shaped living room sunk into the ground and containing a fire pit with an air deflector and Sipapu, and an ante-chamber with storage bins (AD 550-AD 750). What is of interest is that the cliff dwellings were the final form or the most highly evolved form of housing that developed among these ancient Indians. They left the flat-topped mesas which were suitable for growing their staples of maize, beans and squash for the inaccessible sites in the natural caves or alcoves of the cliffs! The Anasazi people were particularly skilled at making finely woven baskets and this art preceded that of making pottery. They used the baskets to collect and hold water. In setting out the periods of cultural development, archaeologists speak of 1) "The Basketmakers" (AD 100-550), 2) "The Modified Basketmakers" (AD 550-AD 750), 3) "The Developmental Pueblo" (AD 750-AD 1100), and finally, 4) "The Classic or Great Pueblo Period" (AD 1100-AD 1300).

We were fortunate to be at Mesa Verde while the Nordenskjold Exibit was being shown and this is being held in commemoration of the 100th Anniversary of the visit to Mesa Verde in 1891 by Gustav Nordenskjold, the young Swedish archaeologist. His explorations were thorough and well organized and served as modules for all subsequent studies of this kind. Most of the artifacts were taken home to a museum in Finland and there reside in their National Museum. Many of the artifacts were loaned temporarily to our National Park Service for this special anniversary celebration. He was, in addition to being a fine archaeologist, a very good photographer, and left over 150 photos of his early findings. Unfortunately, he died shortly after returning to Sweden of tuberculosis at the young age of 26. It was his shipping of the artifacts back to Scandinavia that incited the first efforts on our part to protect the archaeological resources of Mesa Verde.

On our way back to Albuquerque, we stopped off to see the Aztec Ruins, another Natural Monument, and yet another site of Anasazi presence. It was misnamed Aztec when the early Anglo settlers in this area thought it had been built by the Aztecs of Central Mexico. The chief interest here was the Great Kiva, the largest in the southwest. After leaving Aztec, we returned to Albuquerque, visiting en route the Jemez and Zia Indian Reservations.

While in Albuquerque, we revisited "Old Town", a collection of art and gift shops housed in old buildings on the site, and we also enjoyed our first visit to the Cultural Museum of the Rio Grande Pueblo Tribes. It is a non-profit organization beautifully housed in a round adobe type of building with a central area reserved for shows and theater performances, and surrounded by a fine museum and shops displaying every facet of Indian art and craftsmanship. Profits from this cooperative enterprise are funneled back to the reservations to support the arts of the people and their educational programs.

Our trip enriched us with a further knowledge of our Natural Parks and of the native people who inhabited our country before the arrival of Christopher Columbus. It was he who called these people Indians, thinking he had found a way to India by sailing west across the Atlantic Ocean. At one time, I saw a quote which said "A man traces the world over to find what he needs and returns home to find it". In some respects, this is true in our case because after returning home, I have innumerable books which will amplify the information I acquired during the actual trip itself.

With Love,

Dad

CEJ/ngb

T10/4/91