Ethnographic Landscapes in the Petroglyph National Monument: Working with
Traditionally Associated Peoples in New Mexico
T. J. Ferguson and Kurt F. Anschuetz, Anthropological Research, L.L.C.
February 25, 2003
Abstract: The National Park Service (NPS) contracted with the Rio Grande Foundation to prepare a report on the ethnographic landscapes of the Petroglyph National Monument in Albuquerque, New Mexico. This Monument contains petroglyphs, volcanoes, plants, animals, and natural landscape features of interest to many different traditional and historic communities. This constituency includes the 16 Eastern Pueblos, the 4 Western Pueblos, the Navajo Nation, the Jicarilla and Mescalero Apache Tribes, and the descendent communities of the Atrisco Land Grant. Urban development rapidly is encircling the Petroglyph National Monument today. Because new constituencies demand highways and other amenities, the Monument has been the focus of intense interest locally, regionally and nationally since its inception in 1990. Within this highly charged economic, social and political landscape, issues related to the West Mesa's importance to traditionally associated communities and the responsible management of the Petroglyph National Monument occupy an emotional center stage. Through various public forums, including Congressional testimonies in support of the Monument's creation and local hearings on highway and airport development, Eastern Pueblo representatives shared unprecedented ethnographic information about their peoples' associations with this landscape. Building on foundations established by two earlier ethnographic studies and drawing from available public testimonies, the Rio Grande Foundation assembled a team of consultants to work with these diverse traditionally associated peoples. Through the adoption of a landscape approach, the resulting study successfully documents a wide range of values and beliefs that relate to tangible and intangible resources within and around the Petroglyph National Monument. In this presentation, we describe how the goals and objectives of the study were met in various ways by different researchers, by taking into account the cultural values and the organization of knowledge in different associated communities. Each community or set of communities presented different challenges for data collection and evaluation of information. We describe how issues of trust and funding played a critical role in determining how different traditionally associated communities elected to participate in field research and review of the report. We also discuss the particular challenge posed by the Eastern Pueblos who maintained, "Everything that needs to be said has been said. Why don't you people [i.e., the Anglo-American community] listen?" In making this strong statement, community representatives asked us to provide contexts for understanding landscapes, places, and resources as living cultural-historical processes within webs of relationship. This challenge also helped frame anthropological examination of cultural perspectives held by the Anglo-American community in constructing its understandings of the Petroglyph National Monument. In this process, we documented why some people traditionally associated with the Monument find governmental consultation, whose purpose is to contribute to the preservation of cultural resources, as a sterile, intimidating, and even neglectful exercise that threatens the historical relationships that the people consider essential for sustaining community and identity into the future. With hindsight, we offer a number of observations about this particular study, and how similar studies might be productively conducted in the future.
The National Park Service (NPS) contracted with the Rio Grande Foundation to prepare a report on the ethnographic landscapes of the Petroglyph National Monument in Albuquerque, New Mexico. This monument contains petroglyphs, volcanoes, plants, animals, and natural landscape features of interest to many different traditional and historic communities. This constituency includes the 16 Eastern Pueblos, the 4 Western Pueblos, the Navajo Nation, the Jicarilla and Mescalero Apache Tribes, and the descendent Hispano Atrisco Land Grant community.
Urban development is rapidly encircling the Petroglyph National Monument. Some residents and developers are demanding highways and other amentias be constructed within the monument, while other stakeholders contest these developments. Consequently, since its inception in 1990, the Petroglyph National Monument has been the focus of intense local, regional, and national interest. Within this highly charged economic, social, and political context, the cultural importance of the Albuquerque West Mesa for traditionally associated communities and the responsible management of the Petroglyph National Monument occupy an emotional center stage. Through various public forums, including Congressional testimony in support of the monument's creation and local hearings on highway and airport development, Eastern Pueblo representatives shared unprecedented ethnographic information about their peoples' associations with this landscape.
Building on foundations established by two earlier ethnographic studies and drawing from available public testimony, the Rio Grande Foundation assembled a team of consultants to work with these diverse traditionally associated peoples. Klara Kelley and Harris Francis worked with the Navajo Nation; Frances Levine and Charles M. Carrillo worked with the Hispano community; Thomas W. Merlan and Tessie Naranjo worked with the Eastern Pueblos and the Apache; T. J. Ferguson worked with the Western Pueblos. Kurt F. Anschuetz, supported by Cherie Scheick and Glenda Deyloff of the Rio Grande Foundation, served as the Principal Investigator and worked with Apache, Eastern Pueblo, Hispano, and Anglo communities.
Through the adoption of a landscape approach, which views the ethnographic landscape as memory, the resulting study successfully documents a wide range of values and beliefs that relate to tangible and intangible resources within and around the Petroglyph National Monument. In this perspective, archaeological sites and other cultural resources revered by traditional communities are historical monuments. Because traditional history and culture are embedded in the land and expressed as "storied landscapes" to which people refer in their respective community's oral narratives, songs, and blessings, there exist important cultural associations that span great geographical distances Also, because landscapes connect the past with the present and serve as foundations with which traditional peoples prepare for the future, they not only record each community's history, they are a essential medium through which people sustain their cultural identities across the generations.
The landscape approach additionally recognizes ethnographic landscapes as multi-layered cultural phenomena. That is, each stakeholder community constructs it own fabric of relationship and meaning for the same geographic space. Consequently, spaces such as the Petroglyph National Monument may be places imbued with a diversity of cultural values. Certain principles and understandings held among traditional stakeholders characteristically complement one another in the sense that they highlight how people sustain their cultural identities from the land. When contrasting values for a particular geographic location are based on qualitatively different worldviews, however, competition can fuel heartfelt disagreement among stakeholder communities.
Significant elements of ethnographic landscapes at the Petroglyph National Monument identified by traditional Indian and Hispano research participants include petroglyphs, shrines, volcanoes, caves, lava flows, ancestral villages and archaeological sites, trails, plants, animals, vistas, and personal attachments. The ethnographic landscape of each traditionally associated people was formed by a unique interrelationship of these elements.
The goals and objectives of the landscape study were met in various ways by different researchers, each taking into account the cultural values and the organization of knowledge maintained by the different associated communities. Each community or set of communities presented different challenges for data collection and information evaluation, and the research design retained the flexibility to adjust the plan of work according to the recommendations of different communities. Issues of trust and funding played a critical role in determining how different traditionally associated communities elected to participate in field research and review of the report.
One challenge was posed by the late William Weahkee, from Cochiti Pueblo, who said to us at the outset of our work: "Everything that needs to be said has been said. Why don't you people [i.e., the Anglo-American community] listen?" In making this strong statement, Mr. Weahkee, just as other community representatives with whom we worked, asked us to provide contexts for understanding landscapes, places, and resources as living cultural-historical processes within webs of relationship. This challenge helped us frame anthropological examination of cultural perspectives held by the Anglo-American community in constructing its understandings of the Petroglyph National Monument. In this process, we documented why some people traditionally associated with the monument find governmental consultation, whose purpose is to contribute to the preservation of cultural resources, to be a sterile, intimidating, and even neglectful exercise that threatens the historical relationships that the people consider essential for sustaining their respective communities and cultural identities into the future.
In assessing the project, we recognize that the compilation of specific data varied among the communities, in part because each group had different thresholds for what information is appropriate to share with anthropologists and the general public. The sometimes emotional responses by traditional communities to the contemporary economics and politics underlying the ongoing metropolitan development of the Albuquerque West Mesa resulted in varying degrees of stakeholder participation in the study. We found that it was easier to document the history of land use within the monument for communities with a documentary history (i.e., the Hispano and Anglo communities) than it was in Pueblo communities where the oral history of land use is linked to sensitive cultural practices and esoteric knowledge. Documentation of history for the Apache groups was the most difficult of all, because the memory of their history of interaction with the monument's natural and cultural resources largely has faded over time and distance.
The project goal of investigating the meaning of places and landscapes within the Petroglyph National Monument in relation to cultural histories and social identities was best accomplished where there is both an extensive anthropological literature and an active group of cultural experts, such as the Navajo Medicine Man's Association whose members were willing to talk about Navajo stories and the Western Pueblo cultural advisory teams that were willing to share information needed to effectively consult with federal agencies. A rich literature written by scholars and authors from the associated communities themselves made it possible to do research among other traditional stakeholder groups, such as the Eastern Pueblos. Where there was little published literature and no willing research participants, such as the case with the Jicarilla Apache Nation, research was difficult.
The significant differences in the relationships among the various stakeholders to the monument affected the conduct and outcome of our research. These differences include community values for objective or subjective knowledge, an urban or rural orientation, individual or communal land use practices, and an active or passive organization of practices through which a group maintains its relationship with the monument.
We identified two fundamental obstacles to the managerial dialog that the NPS desires to engage traditionally associated peoples. First, culturally significant meanings are ascribed to landscapes where material traces of human occupation are rare and whose physical morphology defies quantitative description. Second, communities consider their ethnographic landscapes as inviolate and essential aspects of cultural heritage. As David Lowenthal has written, "Not every prospect pleases," and many traditionally associated peoples are offended by development that they perceive as violating their cultural values for the land.
In closing, we note that traditional communities with political sovereignty will more eagerly participate in cultural resource management consultation if they are given a role in the decision making process that acknowledges their expertise concerning tribal resources. Communities ask to engage in the management process directly through government-to-government protocols instead of being asked to work with agents (scholars) working under contract for government agencies. Successful cultural resource management depends on a lasting participation from traditional communities that embraces a historical perspective. Process is an important as product in building long-term relationships with traditionally associated peoples.
