A journal entry from my residency at Bandelier
Thursday, 9-17-2015
Time: 10:19 am
Weather: low 70s, upper 60s
Sky: Blue without a cloud
Today I have stationed myself on the bench in the shade under the narrow-leafed cottonwoods. Before me is the meandering walkway along the restored and maintained cavates. Ladders are set against the tuff that lead into the rooms in the rocks that visitors can enter.
There are many cavates in Bandelier and the surrounding area in the Jemez Volcanic Complex. Here in Frijoles Canyon, where the creek always flows, was once a vibrant community of Puebloans, a community that farmed the land along the creek.
It is a gift to be here, to be able to scramble up a ladder into their rooms and look out as they did at the canyon—the green Frijoles, shaped like a snake, its tail deep at the source of the canyon, its mouth open and giving to the Rio Grande.
To keep these dwellings intact for us to visit is a continuous task managed and performed by the National Park Service, people like Michael whom I met on my walk out to the bench under the cottonwoods. Michael is in conservation and today is instructing a crew from the Rocky Mountain Youth Corps. They are doing work in the canyon at several locations. I observed a crew of blue-shirted young men at Tyuonyi working on the outer stone wall.
Michael told me about other areas closed off from visitors for the sake of preservation like Area M that can be seen as you drive into the park at the right side of the road. Area M has one cavate that was re-occupied by women and children from the pueblos near the Rio Grande during the Pueblo Revolt of 1680. We talked for about five minutes—Michael was off to check on the crew—the staff at Bandelier seem very busy, and although he needed to get back to work he was generous with his knowledge and enthusiasm.
Michael also told me about the layers of soot and mud in the cavates, how each time a new family moved in they re-sooted the ceiling then applied a smooth layer of mud. The walls were re-mudded leaving the finished dwelling two colors: the ceiling black (the hot soot application method bound the friable/crumbly volcanic ash stabilizing the ceiling) and the walls the reddish pinkish whitish color of the mud made form the earth. He also told me about the murals discovered painted on the walls of the cavates. In Area M a colorful painting of a macaw was discovered under layers of mud that I assume was crumbling off to expose the painting …
Time: 10:19 am
Weather: low 70s, upper 60s
Sky: Blue without a cloud
Today I have stationed myself on the bench in the shade under the narrow-leafed cottonwoods. Before me is the meandering walkway along the restored and maintained cavates. Ladders are set against the tuff that lead into the rooms in the rocks that visitors can enter.
There are many cavates in Bandelier and the surrounding area in the Jemez Volcanic Complex. Here in Frijoles Canyon, where the creek always flows, was once a vibrant community of Puebloans, a community that farmed the land along the creek.
It is a gift to be here, to be able to scramble up a ladder into their rooms and look out as they did at the canyon—the green Frijoles, shaped like a snake, its tail deep at the source of the canyon, its mouth open and giving to the Rio Grande.
To keep these dwellings intact for us to visit is a continuous task managed and performed by the National Park Service, people like Michael whom I met on my walk out to the bench under the cottonwoods. Michael is in conservation and today is instructing a crew from the Rocky Mountain Youth Corps. They are doing work in the canyon at several locations. I observed a crew of blue-shirted young men at Tyuonyi working on the outer stone wall.
Michael told me about other areas closed off from visitors for the sake of preservation like Area M that can be seen as you drive into the park at the right side of the road. Area M has one cavate that was re-occupied by women and children from the pueblos near the Rio Grande during the Pueblo Revolt of 1680. We talked for about five minutes—Michael was off to check on the crew—the staff at Bandelier seem very busy, and although he needed to get back to work he was generous with his knowledge and enthusiasm.
Michael also told me about the layers of soot and mud in the cavates, how each time a new family moved in they re-sooted the ceiling then applied a smooth layer of mud. The walls were re-mudded leaving the finished dwelling two colors: the ceiling black (the hot soot application method bound the friable/crumbly volcanic ash stabilizing the ceiling) and the walls the reddish pinkish whitish color of the mud made form the earth. He also told me about the murals discovered painted on the walls of the cavates. In Area M a colorful painting of a macaw was discovered under layers of mud that I assume was crumbling off to expose the painting …
