My first visit to this amazing site had me reeling from all that I saw. The location, set just upslope from Nutria River, was a perfect spot, with ample sandstone, a preferred building material of Ancestral Puebloan people. Then there were the two huge kivas, the smaller attached to the the village and the larger unattached to any building and set just west of the pueblo. It reminded me so much of Penasco Blanco, my favorite Chaco town.

At Penasco Blanco, there are several great kivas, one specifically, is separated from the main ruin and actually lies across the park service fence in what is likely Navajo Reservation or BLM land. (What? Yes, of course I jumped the fence, shhhh don’t tell the Park Service or they may not rehire me.) In a future post I will spend more time on Penasco Blanco and all the wonders there but the clear relationship of a disassociated great kiva intended to serve as a gathering place for outlying smaller communities cannot be ignored. Casa Rinconada, the largest great kiva in Chaco Canyon would be another similar example of an isolated great kiva that comes to mind.

View inside the excavated great kiva of Casa Rinconada on the south side of Chaco Canyon. Pueblo Bonito lies across the wash in the distance at far left and Chettro Ketl in the center right distance, east of Bonito. View to the NE. Photo by M. Severson

This perspective is from the northern overhang, the lower of the two pictograph panels, showing a perspective of the size of the masks and their location. Notice the desert varnish coating the rocks that indicates that there has been water running down the rocks. This contributes to the general greater wear on the pictographs of the lower panel. The view is generally to the southwest. Photo by M. Severson

Finding the array of petroglyphs covering the naturally varnished panels above the site gave life to the ruin, showing much of the thought and dreams of the people who had dwelt there nearly a thousand years before. We walked along that high trail, scouring every flat surface for more rock art. Finally as I worked my way east, it seemed that the finding of the panels was at an end. But the trail went on around the corner and continued around to the east facing bluff. Could there be more glyphs? I had to know.

As I clambered through a notch formed by sandstone boulders that had tumbled down from above I looked up and stopped. I am sure my breathing literally stopped for a moment as I saw things I could not have imagined would be waiting there.

This is the upper panel, the first one you see as you come around the corner and climb between the rocks. There is little or no varnish on these rocks indicating this one is better protected from the elements. Photo by M. Severson

Spread out before me, larger than life and in vivid natural colors were masks, kok’ko masks. Animals, human representations and imaginary creatures surrounded me, wrapped around a slightly concave panel protected by a overhanging roof of stone. Beyond lay another array of masks that were slightly more exposed and so somewhat more weathered and yet nonetheless impressive in their stoic display.

My personal favorite, an ogre that I imagine is asking children if they are listening to their parents. Photo by M. Severson

Shalakos, ogres, animals masks, Comanches and other masks vied with each other for my attention as I sat down on a handy rock and at my leisure simply surveyed the amazing tableau. After perusing the pictographs for a time I began to notice evidence of other drawings that appeared more weathered and older than these. It set me to wondering if there were older paintings that had been replaced and also how long these panels may have been used. Thinking back to Penasco Blanco, anyone who has hiked that trail and seen the numerous petroglyphs that adorn the sandstone walls along the way can only begin to wonder at the lost art — the pictographs that once were left by the ancestral puebloan people in celebration of their lives and religious beliefs.

Various masks from the northern panel show more wear than those on the higher, more protected southern panel. Photo by M. Severson

From the southern panel a Shalako mask to the left. Photo by M. Severson

Notice the figure that stands to the right of this scary creature. To me, with its overall shape and posture, it appears to be a faint representation of another Shalako. This could indicate that these paintings are not a single work of one artist but a compendium of many over a longer period of time. Photo by M. Severson

The Village of the Great Kivas

When my girls were younger they loved going to places like Sea World and Disneyland.  For me it was Chaco Canyon. Chaco Canyon is the place where archaeologists go to vacation. But Chaco is not just one place, it had an enormous effect on the world of the Ancestral Pueblo people. Prehistoric roads stretch out from the canyon enfolding a huge expanse of the region within its grasp.  The towns of Chaco spawned many smaller sites, called outliers by archaeologists.

Lower Nutria Lake on the Zuni Indian Reservation back in the late 80s. The site is to the left out of the picture.

For years I had heard tell of an amazing Chaco outlier site on the Zuni Reservation, excavated by Frank H.H. Roberts, a legend of early southwestern archaeology, in the 1930s. It was called The Village of the Great Kivas because there were two of the huge subterranean rooms at  what was otherwise a relatively minor site. The implications for archaeologists were that it served as a regional center for all the local Chacoan villages, a materials redistribution point and political symbol of Chaco Canyon’s long reach. I wanted to go there.

I knew from my readings that it was near lower Nutria Lake in the northeast corner of reservation lands. From the time I started doing Chacoan tours in the 80s I marked a spot with bright red in my personal itinerary that said, “locate the Village of the Great Kivas.”

As often is the case with me, I chose to look upon it as a quest and a personal challenge rather than a research project. There were certainly people I could have asked for specific instructions and without much doubt they would have probably just told me how to get there but where is the fun in that?

A friend points to the drawings found on some of the lower rocks on level with the ruins. While most of the glyphs are found on the higher trail, there are a few tucked in amongst the boulders to the east of the ruin.

I did mention to one of my Zuni friends, Charles that I was going to look for the site and smiling he responded that he used to like to go out there to fish off the dam, back when he had time. Unfortunately he was just too busy to go fishing now.

Charles had introduced me to Hawikuh, the site where Esteban the Moor had met his end and Father de Niza reported cities of gold. But Hawikuh, a Zuni historic place, had been very close to is family’s traditional farm at Ojo Caliente, so he felt that he had a right to take people there. Nutria was also an area of summer farming communities for Zuni families but Charles’ family was not one of them. He had intimated I was on my own.

I could have asked the Zuni Tribal Office of Tourism about the site. Because security has been greatly augmented over the years, they are the ones you have to see if you want to go there today. They would have helped me, but this was back in the day and I was Illinois Smith (think about it). I’d just do it myself.

Looking up at the site from approximately where the the van was in the previous photo. In the foreground you can see a person standing beside the village, which was excavated by Roberts in the 30s. The petroglyph trail is just below the center row of sandstone blocks above the site.

It wasn’t the first time or the last that I would follow my guiding principle in life: “It’s easier to offer a heartfelt apology than to gain a requested permission.”

My first sally was when I was going from Zuni to Gallup. I took the Nutria turnoff saying, somewhat enigmatically, to the group with me that I wanted to ‘take a look at something’. They being mostly vets of previous trips with me were not the least surprised at the serendipitous event.  I had driven in a couple of clicks toward Nutria lake on a good gravel road when I hit a muddy road that caused my van to fishtail and spin out. Looking ahead I saw no improvement. Never having been one to avoid bad roads when I knew where I was headed, I decided that at this time I would bow to discretion being the better part of valor, I turned around and at the time none but me were the wiser.

I would have to try to find the site again, another time.

View from the petroglyph trail back toward the village with a good perspective of the two great kivas. The smaller, also excavated by Roberts is in the lower center of the photo. The larger lies up and to the right with the large round juniper growing from its walls.

The next try came about a year later, in better weather the road was dry and easy driving.

We got to the lake and I kept watching for signs that I was there. It had to be off to the left somewhere, towards the sandstone talus slopes of the Zuni Mountains.

All the turnoffs looked like they lead to small farms comprised of several dressed sandstone buildings with corrals and clear fence lines. All except one; that one lead back to a rail fence but I saw no buildings. That might be the place but to me it seemed to be too close to the lake.

A few more miles I realized I was gaining altitude, heading for Upper Nutria and I decided. At the first pullout I turned around, went back to the one road near the lake and turned toward the pale stone cliffs. Reaching what I had thought to be a rail fence it revealed itself to be road blocks, meant to prevent vehicles from continuing. Just up ahead I saw the telltale indication that the search was over — stacked sandstone blocks in the classic Chacoan style. We were there.

There are many different types of figures seen on the various panels.

I knew from others that had been there that one of the best features of the site was the rock art. We spent a considerable time wandering around the ruins but the trail beckoned so we trudged up the side of the hill to where the petroglyphs were.

A large panel of petroglyphs that includes one that echoes the pictogragh at Penasco Blanco in Chaco Canyon thought to represent the ‘nova’ phenomenon.

Various figures including a ‘kokopelli’ or hump-backed flute player in the upper right.

It was a stiff climb and the old trail up was largely gone now so it was more of a scramble but we got there and were amply rewarded. Nearly all the panels that were exposed on the sandstone boulders above were covered with graphic expressions of the prehistoric world. Humans, animals and creatures of indeterminate etiology vied with symbols and lines and unusual figures.

The climb was more than worth it when we found all that the artists had previously left for us to see. Most exciting for me was the star and moon pairing which seemed to echo a famous pictograph at Penasco Blanco in Chaco Canyon. The meaning of the pictograph is generally agreed upon by archaeologists to represent the Crab Nebula supernova event of 1054 AD.

(Wow! You mean there is actually something that is generally agreed upon by archaeologists? Who knew?)

After a slow leisurely viewing of the Ancestral Puebloan artistic expressions I thought it couldn’t get any better than this. But I was wrong; the best that this incredible archaeological site had to offer the to diligent and persistent traveller was yet to come . . .

In the lower left is a possible kok’ko (Zuni for katsina) mask.

(To be continued.)

I laid my well-worn hat down on the trail as scale to illustrate the scope of some of the glyphs. You may notice the resemblance of some of the figures to the familiar southwestern icon  ’kokopelli’