Local Petroglyphs and Deep Tradition

By guest writer, Dwight Sims

For over 13,000 years humans have lived in New Mexico and they have left records of their lives throughout the state.  I went recently with two friends, Bob and Carolyn Florek, on an archeologist guided tour of the San Cristobal Pueblo site in the Galisteo Basin, which was occupied from about 900 to 1600 CE.

The Galisteo Basin with the Cerrillos Hills on the left, 
source of most old Native turquoise, 

the blue Sangre de Christo mountains 
above Santa Fe in the distance,

and San Cristobal Pueblo just out of the photo to the right.

Because it is on private property and not usually open to the public, the Pueblo site is relatively undisturbed.  Its estimated 1.600 rooms are now just mounds
of eroded adobe, but its middens are treasure troves of 700 years of pottery sherds. 

Carolyn found this double notched arrowhead, beautifully made,

 and returned it, reluctantly, to the midden 
where it remains part of the archeological record.

In the large rocks above the Pueblo its inhabitants left a spectacular record of many thousands of petroglyphs, images pecked into the rock, many of which are enigmatic.  But they still have much to tell us.  In them we could recognize often images of the hunt, food animals, and snakes:

We saw several panels containing deer or elk that seem grander than mere food:

And there were images of the horned serpent god known among the Pueblos as Awanyu, a bringer of rain and related to Quetzalcoatl, the Aztec god of death and resurrection.  The activities of the beings next to the vertical snakes are up to you to interpret!

And here is an eagle captured by another being, human or otherwise.  The Hopi today still capture eagles for spiritual ceremonies and then release them.

We saw pictographs also, paintings that survive under rock overhangs, this one likely of  shamans or medicine men:

More dramatically, this shaman is in full regalia with an arrow through his septum:

Perhaps the most impressive panel we saw was this one, probably added to over centuries, that portrays the natural and spiritual worlds undivided.  There is corn, the food of life, a rabbit (sitting upright on the right), a turkey, two pronghorn and other animals and birds.  There is also a spirit bear with stars, traditionally called on in healing ceremonies, a horned serpent facing the corn, and several kachinas, some with one or two horns.  In one way or another all these spirit beings connect heaven and earth and in Pueblo tradition maintain the cycle of life.

Another panel shows a two horned kachina bringing rain down on the earth 

as they are believed to do today in response to the frequent Pueblo dances

 that help to maintain harmony in the world:

Being in place with all these wonderous communications from the past was a powerful and moving experience.  These and the many other panels we saw project a wide range of feeling - awe, joy, anger, reverence, humor; their creators had a different world view than mine but similar human concerns and responses.  Their images show too continuity with the traditions and daily experience of the Pueblo people who live here today.  And they remind us immigrant Americans that the land we use here is not ours, but has a long history of use by countless others before us with lives and beliefs as rich and full as ours.  It was a great privilege to visit San Cristobal and experience a little of the life and world view of our predecessors in the Land of Enchantment where I now live.