Seventeen miles west of Pagosa Springs, above the Piedra River Valley, teetering on a narrow mesa, if not a ridge, the two spires of Chimney Rock quietly guard one of the most intriguing archaeological sites in the United States.
Considered to be a distant outlier of Chaco Canyon, the nearly alpine location of the ruins are at the highest elevation and most northern reaches of an entire culture’s history.
Having been declared a national monument in 2012, on Saturday, at the annual Chimney Rock Cultural Gathering, hundreds came together to experience dancing, storytelling, arts and crafts of descendants of the people who once called Chimney Rock home.
In full regalia, a group from Acoma Pueblo, New Mexico, performed a buffalo dance, their feet in step with the beat of a drum, while an elder sang to celebrate their dependence on the animal. A group from Laguna Pueblo, New Mexico, performed a deer dance – the deer, dramatic, in hoods of pine with actual antlers.
A thousand years ago, Chimney Rock was a major destination for ancestral Puebloans, said Terry Sloan, director of Southwest Native Cultures and member of the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs who has been involved with the gathering for 11 of its 20 years and directing it for the last three. The culture spanned across central Arizona and New Mexico, southern Colorado and southeastern Utah, and its people came to Chimney Rock to dance in a great kiva, a round room used in religious ceremonies. It was a rite cherished by the visiting groups.
“These dancers really believe in this site and what it represents,” Sloan said. “They really push for it.”
U.S. Forest Service archaeologist Julie Coleman agreed.
“It’s a special thing for the dancers to really be connected, to get to come and dance where your ancestors danced,” she said.
But it’s not just the location, trade and blending of cultures and resources that make Chimney Rock unique. It represents a deeper connection to the landscape and more to the sky above.
The site is revered and studied for its archaeoastronomy – It’s believed to be an ancient observatory. And while other sites like Chaco have perfected architecture aligned with the annual summer solstice, Chimney Rock’s ancient astronomers were in touch with lunar standstills, which occur every 18.6 years.
“There’s still a lot we don’t know,” Coleman said.
Over the great house below Chimney Rock and its neighboring Companion Rock, moonbeams are said to shine through the two pinnacles during the lunar event, lasting two weeks every two decades.
Coleman, about to begin a three-year ethnography of the 19 pueblos of New Mexico to better understand their cultural connection with Chimney Rock, said recent studies show periods of construction are consistent with the astronomical event.
“There are three building phases, and every one of them is tied to a major lunar standstill. That’s pretty good evidence. It speaks to people being on a landscape for a long time,” she said.
Several hundred feet below the sweeping winds over the great house, Dr. Renee Fajardo, director of the Journey Through Our Heritage program at Metropolitan State University in Denver, called traditional drumming the heartbeat of the universe.
“We are all connected to every living creature,” she said.
The Aztecan group called Huitzilopochtli donned handmade regalia exploding in colors and effect. Peacock and other feathers swung in motion. All wore seed shells called ayayotls that signified water, but each dress was unique.
They danced prayers to “the four directions,” and blew into seashells – caracols – like horns.
Daniel Stang, who said his name is German, his grandfather is Spanish and his mother is Apache, said he danced to find harmony. He wore a great horned owl, its talons reaching his black-painted face.
Farjardo said they wear feathers to raise their energy to the sky.
“Everything is a connection to the Mother Earth and the great spiritual energy that connects us all,” she said.
Above the dances, near the twin pinnacles, ravens floated over the thousand-year-old masonry. The next lunar standstill will be in 2024.
bmathis@durangoherald.com
Chimney Rock festival
The Life at Chimney Rock Festival – featuring arts, crafts, demonstrations, tours, a Native American market and Navajo tacos – will take place next weekend at Chimney Rock National Monument.
Festival hours will be 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday and Sunday at the Visitors Cabin parking area.
Admission to the festival is free. Guided and self-guided tours of the archaeological sites are $15 for adults and $5 for children ages 5-16. Children younger than 5 are free.
For more information, visit www.chimneyrockco.org or call (970) 883-5359.
