Aztec West Audio Tour: Living

Ancestral Pueblo people lived and thrived in the great house for nearly 200 years.

Andy Bleckinger

The trail through the Aztec West great house is 0.5 mile in length and requires about 40 minutes to complete using the audio tour. Most of the trail is paved and accessible to wheelchairs, with some steps and low doorways. Wheelchairs are available at the visitor center to borrow upon request.

• Living

  
  

  The seventh cultural stop along the Aztec West self-guided trail.
  Audio Transcript

  Living. The inner rooms are intimate spaces. During the winter, mothers prepared food while children slept, dreamed, and played. Grandmothers and grandfathers told stories by the light of the fire. Men and boys wove cotton cloth and yucca fiber blankets, prepared hunting arrows, or made ceremonial clothing and jewelry. Women, young and old, made pottery or ground corn on stone metates. There was a natural rhythm to their life and order, which kept time with the days, the seasons, and sacred cycles of nature. Imagine living here at that time. Smell the aroma of corn and venison stew simmering in clay pots over a fire of cedar and pinon wood. Feel the presence of The People.