PRISMATIST

Mom told us that Mesa Verde meant green table in Spanish, but when I saw it from a distance after crossing the Rocky Mountains onto the high plains of southwestern, Colorado it didn’t look green to me. It was more sand colored, which made sense after my Dad said it was made of sandstone. I wanted to ask him how stone could also be sand, but I didn’t want to sound stupid, especially in front of my older brother, Glenn, and my younger sister, Lilly. After all, I was going to be in the fourth grade when the summer was over and should know stuff like that.

 

Knowing stuff was why my parents decided that we should go camping on top of Mesa Verde.  They said that there were Indian ruins called cliff dwellings, so it would be an educational experience.  Since I was on summer vacation from school it didn’t seem fair that I should have to have an educational experience, especially about people who were dead and other old stuff.  If there were real live Indians who were living in tipis that would be different.  Still, I was curious  how a house could be inside a cave in a cliff and also looked forward to camping on top of a mesa. 

 

In the 1950’s the campground at Mesa Verde National Park was near the Museum, where only picnicking is allowed now. After setting up our tent, which required all of us since it was big enough to sleep all five of us, my parents said we were free for a half hour before washing up and having dinner. After dinner, we would be going to a campfire talk about the Indian cliff dwellings given by one of the park rangers.  Glenn quickly disappeared to go exploring on his own. I headed the other direction and after a short walk climbed on top of a large boulder at the edge of the cliff.  Trying to ignore Lilly, who had tagged along behind me, I sat cross legged and looked down into the canyon to see if I could spot a cliff dwelling.  Not knowing exactly what a cliff dwelling looked like, except that it wasn’t the kind of house we lived in, I scanned the cliff on the other side of the canyon. All I saw was sand colored rock that reminded me of the blackboards at my grade school after everything had been erased. 

 

“The cliff is smiling at us,” Lilly squealed from her perch next to me.  She pointed the finger of her right hand at a spot on the cliff.

 

I looked where she was pointing and sure enough the rock wall was giving us a toothy grin.  Surprised, I stared at the grinning rock until I realized that the toothy grin was bricks stacked at the mouth of a small cave.  I turned to Lilly and proclaimed with all the authority of an older brother, “That’s not a smile, it’s one of those cliff dwellings.” 

 

 

 

"I just don’t understand how the people who lived here could just disappear,” My Mom said to Ranger Bill, which is how he’d introduced himself when he gave the campfire talk. My parents had invited him over for smores and coffee after the talk and we were sitting around our own campfire. 

 

He wiped the warm marshmallows and chocolate from his lips. “You and me both.  As I said back at the campfire, there are a lot of theories as to what might have caused the Anasazi, which means ancient ones, to leave. All we know for sure is that they suddenly left these cliff dwellings a thousand years ago.”

 

“Why didn’t they leave a note behind?” Lilly asked.

 

“How could they leave a note if they didn’t have paper or pencils,” Glenn said in a tone that made it clear how ignorant she was and then added for good measure, “Besides, they didn’t know how to write.”

 

“Actually, they did know how to write,” Ranger Bill said. “We just don’t understand what they wrote. Their writing is very different than ours. It’s done using what we call pictographs that were drawn on the stone or petroglyphs that were carved into it.”

 

“You mean they wrote with pictures?” I asked, poking a stick with a marshmallow on it into the flames.  

 

“Sort of.”

 

“More like hieroglyphics,” my Dad said. “That’s what the ancient Egyptians wrote in. Your Uncle Harold can read hieroglyphics.”  He explained to Ranger Bill that Uncle Harold was his older brother and was an archeologist. “In fact, he’s in Egypt right now on a dig.”

 

“Egypt is where they have the pyramids and mummies,” Glenn added, then added, “I’m going to be an archeologist just like Uncle Harold and find mummies.”

 

“Speaking of finding mummies, we found some here at Mesa Verde,” Ranger Bill said. “They weren’t embalmed, like the ones in Egypt, but were mummified through being exposed to the dry air for centuries. Some of them are on display here at the museum.”

 

“Wow,” Glenn said. “I can’t wait to see them.”

 

“Me too,” I added.

 

“You aren’t going to see any mummies,” my Mom said. “It would give you nightmares and, besides, your father and I don’t think it’s right. After all, would you like your body to be displayed in a case for people to look at?”

 

“I don’t see how that’s worse than being buried in the dirt and having the worms eat you,” I said, then yanked the stick with a flaming marshmallow on its end from the fire.

 

“You heard your mother,” my Dad said, firmly. “No mummies.” 

 

“But you told us Uncle Harold looks at mummies,” Glenn said.

 

“That’s different, he’s an archeologist doing scientific research.”

 

“Why can’t I do research since I’m going to be an archeologist?”

 

“There are plenty of other things for you to research here than dead bodies.”

 

“Like what?” I asked, my lips dripping with burnt marshmallow.

 

“I know what!” Lilly exclaimed, raising her hand and jumping up from the canvas camp stool she was sitting on, “We could research the pictures that are on the stones.” 

 

“They’re not pictures, they’re pictographs and how could we figure out what they really mean,” Glenn said, hardly hiding his irritation. 

 

“Uncle Harold could help us since he knows herogivemickeys.”

 

“He’s in Egypt how would he be able to help us?” Glenn replied, shaking his head.

 

“I can draw them and mail them to him,” Lilly said. 

 

Rangers Bill, who had been silent since informing us that there were mummies in the museum, said, “I’m afraid being able to read hieroglyphics wouldn’t necessarily help someone like your uncle translate the pictographs and petroglyphs that are here. In the case of hieroglyphics they found a stone that had the same thing that was written in hieroglyphics inscribed in two other languages. Since they knew those languages they could understand what the hieroglyphics meant.”

 

“It’s called the Rosetta Stone,” my Dad added.

 

“Right,” Ranger Bill said. “Although the pictographs and petroglyphs here in Mesa Verde resemble ones done by the Pueblo Indians, which is the name for the Indian tribes like the Hopi who live in pueblos in New Mexico, that doesn’t mean the pictures and symbols used in the Anasazi pictographs have the same meaning.” 

 

“Maybe we can find a Rosanna Stone here,” Lilly said.

 

“It’s Rosetta not rosanna,” Glenn laughed. “And if there was one around here how would we be able to find it when there are stones all over the place.”  He reached down and picked one up looked at it. “Nothing on this one,” he said and then tossed it into the darkness beyond the light of the campfire.

 

 

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After eating our smores, we were told it was time for us kids to go to bed. As our parents and Ranger Bill continued to talk around the campfire we crawled into our sleeping bags at one end of the tent. Glenn whispered, “I’m getting up early and going to find some mummies and I don’t want you scaredy cats tagging along.”

 

Lilly, who’s sleeping bag was between mine and Glenn’s said, “I’m getting up early too so, I can find some pictures on the rocks and copy them in my tablet and mail them to Uncle Harold.”

 

“I’m going to find something, too,” I mumbled.

 

“What are you going to look for?” Lilly asked.

 

Since Glenn had made it clear that he didn’t want my company and I certainly wasn’t going to look for mummies on my own and I wasn’t going to tag along after Lilly, I just burrowed into my sleeping bag.

 

 

 

Early the next morning all three of us crawled quietly out of the tent, as Mom and Dad slept in their sleeping bags at the other end.  Glenn wrote a note for them on a page from Lilly’s Big Chief tablet telling them we were going for a walk and would be back in time for breakfast.  There were only a few people up as we walked quietly through the campground. The sun had just risen turning the canyons different shades of red.  We passed the campfire where Ranger Bill had given his talk last night.  It was now just a pile of charred wood, still damp from the water that it had been doused with. Near the Museum we saw a trail with a sign that said Spruce Tree House.

 

“Ranger Bill said that’s the closest cliff dwelling,” I said.

 

“I thought they were in cliffs not trees,” Lilly said.

 

“Does that look like a tree?” Glenn said, pointing down into the canyon at what seemed like a whole town in the mouth of a cave. “That looks like it should be crawling with mummies.”

 

“Won’t you be scared if you find one?” Lilly asked.

 

Glenn stood with his hands on his hips. “Archeologists aren’t afraid of mummies.” With that he started jogging down the trail.

 

A few minutes later Lilly and I arrived at Spruce Tree House.  It was made of the same sand colored bricks as the cliff dwelling we’d seen across from the campground the day before.  After telling Lilly to go look for pictographs to copy I scrambled up to a courtyard paved with stone in front of the cliff dwelling. By now Glenn was nowhere in sight.  Maybe he’d already found some mummies and was doing his research. Looking around I saw the top of a ladder sticking out of a hole. I crept over to the hole and peered down. The light through the opening lit the bottom of the ladder revealing nothing but a stone floor. Maybe it was a tomb like the ones that Uncle Harold found in Egypt only this one was underground rather than inside a pyramid? I figured that since there was a ladder, whatever was in the space below had already been discovered and if there were any mummies they would have been taken to the museum.  That meant there was nothing to be scared of I told myself. Still, I repeated “I’m not scared,” several times out loud before I stepped onto the top rung.

 

Despite telling myself that I wasn’t scared I half expected a mummy to grab my foot as I slowly descended. Finally, I reached the last rung and looked around. I could barely see anything in the dim light and I wished I’d brought with me the flashlight I used at night when I had to go to the outhouse.  Uncle Harold would have always carried one when he explored a tomb.  In fact, he’d probably more than one, probably even some big lanterns like the one that lit the inside of our tent at night. My right foot dangled in the air above the stone floor as I debated climbing back up and returning later with my flashlight. That’s when I saw the mummy. Instead of high tailing it up the ladder I remained frozen as the mummy walked toward me. 

 

“Don’t be afraid,” the mummy said.

 

I didn’t know that mummies spoke, especially in a friendly voice. Then I saw that what I’d thought was mummy wrapping was a blanket and not just any blanket, but one with all sorts of designs on it. That’s when the mummy pulled the blanket down around his shoulders revealing a smiling face. Mummies didn’t smile, at least not the one’s I’d seen in the movies. 

 

“You’re not a mummy!” I exclaimed.

 

“Last time I checked I wasn’t,” he replied with a laugh.

 

I was pretty sure a mummy didn’t laugh, so I believed him and stepped down from the bottom rung onto the stone floor.  “But this is a tomb and that’s where mummies live.”

 

“This isn’t a tomb and there aren’t any mummies here.”

 

“There are Anasazi mummies in the Museum,” I said, proud that I had remembered that they were called Anasazi.  “But my folks won’t let us see them because they don’t think it’s right.”

 

“I agree with your parents,” the man said. “In fact, I don’t believe anyone should be allowed to see them.  By the way I don’t like the name Anasazi, because it is a Navajo word that means ancient enemy.”

 

“What do you call them?”

 

 “Hisatsinom, which is the Hopi word for ancient ancestors.”

 

I would have repeated the name out loud, but it was too much of a tongue twister. Instead, I asked what he was doing there.

 

“I come here every morning at sunrise to sit and meditate.”

 

“Why down here?” 

 

“Because a Kiva is a sacred space.”

 

“You mean this is a church?”

 

“Sort of. Puebloans like the Hopi, which is the tribe I belong to, believe that the first people came up from beneath the earth.” His right hand came out from under the blanket and pointed to a hole in the floor. “That opening over there is called a sipapu and it represents the passage they used to come up from the underworld.”

 

I couldn’t imagine my Dad preaching in an underground church with a hole in the floor. “Why do you have a blanket over you if you’re in a church? We’re not supposed to sleep in ours.”

 

“That’s not the reason for this blanket,” he chuckled and lifted the blanket from his shoulders. “I put this blanket over me because my grandfather wove it for me before he died. With the Hopi’s the men do the weaving not the women.  We believe that a person’s breath is woven into the blankets they weave.”

 

“You mean that blanket is breathing?” 

 

“Decide for yourself.”  He walked over and draped the blanket around my shoulders. “Now, you have to sit down on the floor and be very still.”

 

You’re not going to leave me here alone are you?” 

 

“No, I’ll be right here.”

 

I sat down cross legged on the floor of the Kiva and closed my eyes. At first all I was aware of was the silence. Suddenly, I felt air blow against my face. Startled, I opened my eyes wide. The man was sitting on a rung of the ladder looking at me. “I felt something blowing on me, but it could have just been some air coming down through the hole up there?” I stammered then stood, took off the blanket and handed it to him.

 

“Maybe, or maybe it was my grandfather’s breath giving you a blessing and maybe it was also the breath of my ancient ancestors,” he replied, then rose from the rung of the ladder where he had been sitting and carefully folded the blanket. “I have to go to work now. You go up the ladder first. I’ll be right behind you in case you lose your footing.”

 

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As my head came out of the Kiva’s entrance hole into the blinding sunlight I heard Lilly shout, “He’s here.” 

 

Glenn trotted over from the direction of the ruins and yelled, “We’ve been looking all over for you.”

 

“You disappeared and we thought a mummy got you,” Lilly said, with relief.

 

Before I could reply, I noticed that the man I’d met in the Kiva was standing next to me. “I’m Jim Polacca,” he said. 

 

“I could see now that he had green outfit on with a badge on his chest. “You’re a ranger!” 

 

He looked down at the badge and chuckled, “According to this badge I am.”

 

I explained to Lilly and Glenn that Ranger Jim was a Hopi Indian who I’d met in the Kiva.  “That’s what they call the room below us that you get to by going down this ladder.” I tapped the top of the ladder.  “It’s sort of like a church.”

 

“A church down there?” Lilly crept to the edge of the hole and looked down, while holding onto the top of the ladder. “But churches have windows with colored glass in them.”

 

Ranger Jim laughed, then explained what a Kiva was and how it was still used even today by the Hopi who were the tribe he belonged to. “We Hopi are descendants of the people who once lived here.”

 

“You mean your great, great, great…” she stopped, unable figure out how many great grandparents would fill seven hundred years.

 

Ranger Jim laughed, “Let’s just call them my ancient ancestors.” 

 

“If they disappeared how can they be your ancestors?” Glenn asked.

 

Ranger Jim didn’t say anything, but just smiled then pulled the blanket from where he had tucked it under his left arm and put it around his shoulders.

 

“Because they never disappeared,” I said.

 

Surprised by my statement, Glenn recovered and said, “How would you know? You’re just a little kid not an archeologist like Uncle Harold.” 

 

A breeze blew through the canyon and I felt it on my face like the breath from the blanket when I sat in the Kiva. “I just know.”

THE END

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