Macaws, Square Tower Canyon,
Hovenweep Nat. Mon., San Juan
county, UT. Photograph:
Peter Faris, 28 May 1988.
A fascinating subject to study in rock art of the American Southwest, an arid region with much desert, is a picture of a parrot or macaw. But we know that macaws were imported into the American Southwest from their Mesoamerican home during the Ancestral Puebloan periods. On December 15, 2010, I posted a column entitled BIRDS IN ROCK ART - MACAWS, about a group of petroglyphs in Hovenweep National Monument, Utah.
Macaw, West Mesa, Albuquerque,
New Mexico. Photograph: Paul
and Joy Foster.
On March 20, 2011, I posted another column entitled BIRDS IN ROCK ART -PARROTS,
about images found in Petroglyph National Monument in West Mesa, Albuquerque,
New Mexico. These are birds we think of as jungle creatures from a wetter and
more verdant area, one thousand miles away from where the petroglyphs are found.
Two macaws, West Mesa, Albuquerque,
New Mexico. Photograph: Paul
and Joy Foster.
Stephen Lekson (2015) discussed the presence of macaws in
this area in terms of logistics (importing/breeding/trading). He relegated to
them a function of display and ceremony, almost conspicuous consumption, among
upper class rulers at Chaco Canyon, New Mexico, in the twelfth century, and
Aztec, New Mexico, in the thirteenth century.
Scarlet macaw. Archaeology,
Vol. 68, No. 5, September/October
2015 p. 16.
"Chaco was a
conspicuous eleventh century consumer of macaws. Paquime was a
fourteenth-century producer. Aztec . . . well, Aztec had three macaws - two
actual macaws (Lori Pendelton, personal communication, 1997) and one macaw
feather (Morris 1919:64). Aztec Ruins and its region have not produced many
foreign curios.
But, of course, Aztec
West is only one of the half dozen large buildings at Aztec. What a different
picture we would have of Chaco had only Chetro Ketl and not Pueblo Bonito been
excavated! With the current data, however, it appears that long-range exchange
- spectacularly evident at Chaco in the twelfth century and Paquime in the
fourteenth century - was greatly reduced at Aztec during the thirteenth
century." (Lekson 2015:91)
"Macaws were
important to Chaco; thirty-four were found at the canyon, and a few were found
at Aztec. Paquime had hundreds and bred the birds, probably supplying feathers
- needed for developing kachina ceremonialism - to all the Pueblos (Hargrave
1970). "The people wished to go south, and raise parrots," according
to the Acoma and Zuni stories; and that's exactly what they did."
(Lekson 2015:147)
Now, according to an article in Archaeology magazine (Vol.
68, No. 5, September/October 2015, p.16) by Eric A. Powell, we have a hard date
for the presence of those birds in the area.
Macaw skull, Chaco Canyon, New
Mexico. Archaeology, Vol. 68, No. 5,
September/October 2015, p. 16.
"In the
prehistoric American Southwest, trade with distant Mesoamerica was a source of
power and prestige that could make or break a ruler. Within the massive
multistory buildings at New Mexico's Chaco Canyon, for instance, archaeologists
have discovered exotic goods from Mexico, such as cacao and the remains of 33
scarlet macaws, whose natural habitat is 1,000 miles away on the Gulf of
Mexico. Scholars had assumed that long-distance trade became important only during
the period when Chaco's power was greatest, from A.D. 1040 to 1110. But now a
team has dated the macaw bones and found that some were imported as early as A.
D. 900. "I was very much surprised," says American Museum of Natural
History archaeologist Adam Watson, who helped organize the dating. "I,
along with everyone else, assumed the trade networks with Mexico didn't become
important until Chaco expanded. Now we have evidence that control over trade
and political power were being consolidated long before then." (Powell
2015:16)
It turns out that the presence of macaws/parrots in the
American Southwest dates from almost a century earlier than previously assumed. This carries strong implications on the scale of trade between the American Southwest and Mesoamerica, as well as Chacoan societal development. I imagine the impact that a creature like a scarlet macaw would have had on the
people of Chacoan society, their presence would seem almost magical. It is this
mental and emotional picture that gives these petroglyphs their impact on
modern viewers.
REFERENCES:
Lekson, Stephen H.
2015 The Chaco Meridian: One Thousand Years Of
Political And Religious Power In The Ancient Southwest, Rowman & Littlefield, Lanham, Maryland.
Powell, Eric A.
2015 Early Parrots
in the Southwest, page 16, Archaeology,
Vol. 68, No. 5, September/October 2015.
,+also+known+as+Chasing+Planet+Kachina..bmp)
by Oscan T. Branson, 1992,
Polly Schaafsma described the loss of much of the Kachina cult at Hopi. First through the efforts of the Spanish after their conquest of the southwest to eradicate native religions and supplant them with Christianity. This was conducted by the destruction of religious items and shrines, even religious leaders on occasion. Among Pueblo peoples this was manifested by burning kachina masks, costumes, and dolls, and outlawing the dances and ceremonies. Then in the nineteenth century Hopi was swept by smallpox epidemics which killed many of the elders who possessed the ceremonial knowledge necessary for the rites.
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