It was time and we are doing it again. About a year ago Russell and I hiked Horseshoe Canyon, part of a detached portion of Utah's Canyonlands National Park. It was during one of our desert trips to visually/digitally capture first peoples' traces in the Colorado Plateau. Two hours drive from Moab and a 7-mile roundtrip hike down the canyon, one reaches herself within view of a 200-feet long, breath-taking procession of pre-ancestral Puebloan figures. As so many of the ancient first peoples' traces, structures, pictographs, petroglyphs and various artifacts are left on-site, and in the mercy of the elements. "Why would anyone move those things? And how? They are part of the cliff walls.... If the rocks collapse, and they will eventually, it will be the natural course of things. Nothing lives forever.", the NPS ranger told me, quite puzzled by my question as to why aren't such significant historical traces protected, and -when possible- moved to a museum.
It is interesting how one's cultural indoctrination lurks in thought processes and utterances that, when confronted by a different world view, surprise, leave one speechless, and often reveal subjectivities of such enormity that render what might be considered "true", simply comical. How many crimes have been committed involving pieces of Art, ancient artifacts, historical testimonies of times long past. To what lengths networks of such illicit trades have stretched simply to "push" counterfeits... or, how many ancient or antique "one-of-a-kind" pieces have been in display in museums or galleries, faraway from their country of origin -and resonance-, often a result of a shady exchange...
No such backstage drama when it comes to the "shrouds of white earth" (as Gerald Vizenor might say) in the Colorado Plateau. The scorching heat of the desert, the relentless whiplashes of the sand or the wind, the rain, visitors' curious fingers or vandals' carvings over ancient visual narratives, and rock erosion are the curators of the first peoples' early depictions of their worlds and visions. Clinging onto no illusions of permanence, or balanced linear block building, or any notion that stubbornly insists beyond time and space; or glorifying their self-proclaimed greatness.
Perhaps this is one of the reasons these peoples have defined their sense of Place so masterfully. And perhaps this is one of the reasons too that, despite all that they have collectively experienced, they so still endure.
It will be hot in southern Utah next week.
http://www.nps.gov/cany/planyourvisit/upload/HorseshoeBook.pdf
http://www.utah.com/nationalparks/canyonlands/horseshoe_canyon.htm
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