Ancient Pathways, Modern Footprints – Tsankawi, Bandelier National Monument

 Experience is a hard teacher because she gives the test first,

the lesson afterwards. 

Vernon Sanders

Seven-hundred-year-old path along high mesa

Carved by thousands of Tewa Puebloan footsteps

To escape the heat, and let it be said a bit of boredom as well, it is time to explore areas up in the New Mexico mountains.  Heading up from 5,600 feet, where I live, to as much as 8,500 feet of altitude.  A welcome reprieve to cleaner and cooler air.   

A timeless place where echoes of a distant past intersect with the present right under my feet.

In Tewa, Tsankawi is said to mean ‘village between two canyons at the clump of sharp, round cacti’.  Tewa, the local language of the time is now only spoken by fewer than 1,300 souls (1980 figure) in six Pueblos located mostly in the Rio Grande Valley, NM, with some in Arizona.

Entrance to the mesa and its many ancestral stairsteps and pathways

Sitting at 6,600 feet upon the edge of this mesa at Tsankawi, joyfully beating heart dangling above junipers, savoring a welcoming warmish morning sun, one looks out over the vast expanse below making it possible to imagine why the ancient ones chose to live here more six-seven centuries ago.

Part of this trail forks into double pathways

In that lower valley they grew dry land crops such as corn, beans and squash (the three sisters of crops, also grown together in most parts of Mexico), gathered wood, food, and water and hunted game.  Their constant comings and goings, barefoot or with handmade yucca fiber sandals, cut knee to waist deep steps and trails into the soft rock crisscrossing the site allowing us a glimpse of what their world must have been like back then.  

For one, just imagine carrying a small child or a vessel filled with water up and down these steep, narrow staircases.  There were no wheeled vehicles nor beasts of burden to assist in the movement of these items.  Envision walking miles and miles, carrying your trade items upon your back.  

The nearby Jemez Volcano erupted more than 1.25 million years ago.  This powerful volcano (300-500 times stronger than Mt St Helens, depending on type of measurement used), ejected enough material to cover this 400 square mile area with a layer of volcanic ash up to 1,000 feet thick.  The pinkish/yellowish/whitish rocks look like sandstone but are volcanic ashes compacted over time into a soft, crumbly rock called tuff.  Over time the exposed rock takes on a Swiss cheese or sponge-like appearance.  This soft rock makes excellent building material.  

Old steps (left) versus today’s ladder

The trail follows deep, worn footpaths, and stone stairways.  Here, you are free to hike the exact same trails used by the Ancestral Tewa Pueblo people in the 1400-1500’s. 

This pleasant hike through the ancestral home of the nearby San Ildefonso Pueblo people is as evocative and unique as any site in the Southwest.  It somehow feels untouched and mysterious, whilst located near a busy highway. 

The area receives only about fifteen inches of precipitation per year, mostly in the form of snowfall and late summer afternoon thunderstorms (monsoon).  Today there is no permanent source of water.  Prior to the development of the modern community of Los Alamos, there may have been a permanent stream in the canyon to the north.  

Although there is no evidence of warfare or strife here, this mesa-top location may have been chosen for defensive purposes and for better communications with nearby villages.  

Easy to find in the right light!

Lichens doing their patient work covering the past

For a time, Spanish sheepherders kept their stock in small pens built under rock outcroppings here at Tsankawi.  Therefore, some less weathered petroglyphs date from the late 1800’s to early 1900’s.  

The Ancestral Tewa Pueblo lived and stored items in cavates, or rooms hollowed out or excavated from rocks or natural niches, in the southern facing cliff's soft volcanic tuff walls. The interior walls were often plastered with mud and the ceilings were blackened with smoke, which increased their resistance to crumbling. Petroglyphs can be found both inside the cavates and on nearby rock walls and boulders. 

Crawling into one of the sandy floored cavates after ensuring no signs of rattle snakes or other critters, a visitor finds the roof also blackened by the smoke of previous cooking fires, feels coolness in the summer, warmth in the winter, and possibly, sees a small window providing a view upon the valley and the far-off Sangre de Cristo Mountains.

Quickly changing weather up on the mesa – very exposed – beware

You can easily see the well-worn path from this distance

Much of Tsankawi and nearly 3,000 other archaeological sites at Bandelier (next post) remain unexcavated, at the wishes (for preservation of cultural significance) of the San Ildefonso Puebloans.  Thanks to modern technology, much can be learned about these sites without ever having to uncover them.  In Tsankawi’s case that technology allowed archeologists to determine the village consisted of 275 ground-floor rooms on the mesa top.  The structures were one to two stories high and surrounded a large nearly rectangular central plaza.  Today, one can still see many ceramic potsherds strewn around the area and a few partially exposed walls.

A bit harder to see, many steps following the contour of this very fluid landscape

It is believed that the ancestors of San Ildefonso Pueblo left their mesa-top village sometime during the 1500’s to relocate in the valley below along the banks of the lusher Rio Grande. 

Today, their descendants live in the nearby San Ildefonso Pueblo and like to claim: 

‘We’re the only tribe in the USA that borders on a nuclear facility. In 1940-42 our people had no knowledge of what was going on. We didn’t know much about it until the 1960’s and now today our pueblo is working closely with the lab.’ The ‘lab’ is Los Alamos National Laboratory, which developed the atomic bomb. It’s not unusual that the people at San Ildefonso Pueblo didn’t know what was going on up there during WWII. Neither did the rest of the country. 

‘Now we work together to monitor State and Federal levels of what can go into the Rio Grande River.’ Elmer Torres worked for the lab as a liaison between the lab and San Ildefonso Pueblo. As a descendant of Ancestral Tewa Puebloans, he also served as Lieutenant Governor and then Governor of the pueblo.

A few more petroglyphs tinted yellow with lichens

Visualize them carrying loads up and down these steps

Beautifully flowing, simple efficient contouring

Cholla in bloom among the covered ruins

Retracing the steps of the Ancestral Tewa Puebloans was a particularly sobering experience for me.  These people knew how to survive in harsh environments in harmony with their surroundings.  We could learn much from them today.  I was going to visit Los Alamos next, but they were still closed due to Covid-19.  I will have to close that bookend next time.