Mesa Top Loop Drive Audio Tour: A Pueblo Perspective on Mesa Verde

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"Welcome to this special place. My name is TJ Atsye. I am a park ranger at Mesa Verde and am Laguna Pueblo, a direct descendant of the people who used to live here. Please join me as we follow the footsteps left behind by my Pueblo ancestors." Download the audio tour and listen in your car as you drive the 6-mile (10km) Mesa Top Loop, or on your phone as you explore each stop along the way. You can also listen from home or school to explore Mesa Verde virtually. The entire podcast is 43 minutes.

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June 5, 2020

Stop 9: Fire Temple and New Fire House

Transcript

Transcript

Stop 9: Fire Temple and New Fire House

Looking down at the head of this canyon, you can see one of these lush springs. Across the canyon and to the right, you can see the upper and lower alcoves of New Fire House. Can you see the hand-and-toe-hold trail connecting them?

On the left is Fire Temple, with a large open plaza. Of the nearly 5,000 archeological sites found at Mesa Verde, there are only a few plazas like the one at Fire Temple. This plaza here, like the one in Long House, is very similar to the plazas built in the center of modern-day Pueblos. Can you see the white plaster on the back wall of the plaza? When archeologists uncovered it in the early 1900s, it was still adorned with paintings of rain clouds, people, animals, and cacti.

Every Pueblo today has a plaza like this at its center, where we hold feast days and dances. One of my favorite places in Mesa Verde is Long House, over on Wetherill Mesa.

Every time I descend into the little canyon and walk into the big plaza, I can imagine seeing it filled with dancers, little kids in full regalia, and all the people gathered, crowded together, sitting on the rooftops. I can hear and feel the drums. It makes me want to put on my traditional sewn dresses under my black manta and my moccasins that my father made for me a long time ago and join in, dancing each step to match the beat of the drum.

I think that arriving at one of these plazas here would have been very similar to what you will experience at a present-day Pueblo feast day. You'll see the people honoring the dancers, enjoying the festivity, listening to the singers, feeling the beat of the drums.

The best way that we pray is through song and dance, so everyone in the community joins in. The plaza is alive. It generates so much warmth and hospitality. Many will put out blankets and food and invite everyone to eat there. The plaza is an important part of Pueblo life, who we are, and how we carry on today.

If you have a chance to visit any of the Pueblos, you will see these traditions. You are welcome to come to one of our Pueblo feast days or dances and make that connection for yourself.

Now, let’s continue on to Sun Temple. When you reach the fork in the road, turn right.

Fire Temple and New Fire House

June 5, 2020

Stop 10: Sun Temple—Seeking a New Home

Transcript

Transcript

Stop 10: Sun Temple—Seeking a New Home

Sun Temple has a thousand feet of carefully pecked, finely-cut stone walls, with nearly thirty rooms and three kivas, arranged in a D-shape. A tower, which would have had a clear view across this densely populated canyon junction, stands off to the side. The fact that archeologists found neither roof beams nor household goods here suggests that Sun Temple was unroofed, or was never finished, or maybe its beams were recycled for later construction.

Whatever the case may be, the walls of Sun Temple stood witness to the migration that was about to unfold. In the 1200s, the people here started to leave, not as a big group, but family by family, and village by village. By 1300 they were gone from the area.

Why did everybody leave? It's one of the most asked questions here at Mesa Verde. There are many books written by archeologists, anthropologists, and historians about why. But from a Pueblo perspective, I think it was just their time to go. They received a sign that it was time to move on. They did what they were supposed to do while they were here.

Migration is a movement of people for many different reasons. Maybe as families grew over time, they started to deplete their resources. The fertile areas became played out. There were a series of long droughts. They had to go further distances for game and for timber. Eventually, people began to think, "We had better find another place. Otherwise, we won't be able to survive." The ancient ones knew that in order for them to survive and sustain, they needed to leave. They realized that they needed to branch out so they could become who we are today.

Migration also means exploration. Our ancestors would have done their research, to be sure that there would be enough resources so that they could grow food and defend themselves and survive in a new home. I think the ancient Pueblo people searched all around this Four Corners area and came back to tell their families and their leaders, "Hey, we walked for days and days and we found this big river way down south where it's lush and green. It would be a really great place to farm and see how we do." It took different strategies and spiritual signs and indicators to lead us to become who we are today.

But just look at what they left behind for all of us to marvel at! Look at the beautiful bowls and painted mugs, the weavings of feather and cotton, the tools made from stone and bone, and their homes that still stand after all these centuries. I'm so thankful that when our people chose to leave here, they left behind so much for us to appreciate and wonder at.

Let’s walk past Sun Temple to the overlook of Cliff Palace for the last stop on our journey.

Sun Temple—Seeking a New Home

June 5, 2020

Stop 11: Cliff Palace View—The Pueblo Today

Transcript

Transcript

Stop 11: Cliff Palace View—The Pueblo Today

This spectacular view showcases Cliff Palace, the largest cliff dwelling in North America and one of the world's most magnificent treasures. There are more than 150 rooms and 21 kivas inside. Cliff Palace was built and occupied over a period of about 100 years.

Our culture flourished here, and though the people left, the culture was not lost. They left their pottery, their ropes, and their homes, but they brought the most important things with them. They brought their stories, their memories, and their traditions.

Many people have lived in our present-day homes since at least 1300, from the time they left Mesa Verde until today. Some of us have been in our center places since before that. Taos Pueblo, Acoma Pueblo, and the Oraibi Village out in Hopi are known to have been settled nearly one thousand years ago.

Once we found our center places, we became settled. We weren't going to move. So we fought the Spanish, we fought the Mexicans, and we fought the Cavalry. And we're still here. I look at American history and feel sorrow for how many tribes were displaced and removed from their ancestral lands, from their sacred places, and their natural resources. But the Pueblo people are still where we belong.

When the Spanish first came to our country in 1540, there were about 300 different Pueblos. Today, only 21 remain. There are the Hopi, in Arizona, east of the Grand Canyon, and the Pueblo of Isleta del Sur on the Rio Grande near El Paso, Texas, and nineteen are spread across New Mexico: the Pueblos of Acoma, Cochiti, Isleta, Jemez, Laguna, Nambe, Ohkay Owingeh, Picuris, Pojoaque, Sandia, San Felipe, San Ildefonso, Santa Ana, Santa Clara, Santo Domingo, Taos, Tesuque, Zia, and Zuni.

We don't have to travel very far to visit our ancestors. We go to places like Chaco Canyon and Aztec Ruins, Bandelier and Mesa Verde. It's important that these are protected by the National Park Service and held sacred by everyone. They are important to us, because this is where our people began.

This is my history. This is our history. This is also American history. Why do our textbooks always start in 1776? Or 1492? Why don't we start our history with the first people who lived on this land?

We as Pueblo people understand how much stories matter. When people are written out of their histories, they are rendered powerless. We believe that people can learn from our history, our successes as well as our mistakes and failures.

I hope people will come here and keep themselves open. I hope that people will recognize that this is more than just a place to tour and pick up souvenirs. I hope our visitors will learn from Mesa Verde and not just about it.

Our forefathers and foremothers were pretty inventive and sharp. We have survived this long because we live as a community. We are about us and we, not about me and I.

The ancestors recognized that everything around them is connected. We must pass on this lesson. Everything has a spirit and we must treat everything—the rocks, trees, birds, animals, and other human beings—with mutual respect.

Can we come together and learn from each other to find common ground? I truly hope and pray that together we can figure out a way to lessen the impact of our footprints on Mother Earth, to acknowledge that we are not owners, but we are just visitors here in this incredible, beautiful place we call Mesa Verde—the home of my ancestors.

What I know of the Ancestral Pueblo people who have gone before me is that they possessed endurance, integrity, belief in powers greater than themselves, and a commitment, obligation, and responsibility to the sacred.

Thank you for coming with me on this Mesa Top Loop. I am proud to be a native Pueblo person, and to be here to share our history with you today.

Cliff Palace View—The Pueblo Today

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