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Anasazi Hohokam Mogollon Indians of the Southwest
By O. Ned Eddin
Between 300 B.C. and 100 A.D., three distinct Indian cultures settled into the southwest: Anasazi, Mogollon, Hohokam. A fourth culture, the Fremont Indians, settled primarily in Utah in 400 A.D. The Fremont and Anasazi Cultures overlapped in Utah and Colorado.
Archaic Indians moved with changing seasons and environments, but Anasazi, Mogollon, and Hohokam Indians did not range over the vast distances covered by the big game hunters of the late Pleistocene period or the Archaic Indians. Between three hundred B.C. and one hundred A.D., the Southwest Indians turned toward agriculture to supplement their food source. During the late Archaic Period, corn and then beans and squash provided the means for a settled village lifestyle. Corn, beans, and squash become so important in most Indian Cultures that they were known as...The Three Sisters.
The Southwest Pueblo Indians of today are direct decedents of the Prehistoric Indian Cultures that raised corn, irrigated fields, and built massive stone structures in Chaco Canyon and Mesa Verde hundreds of years before the first recorded Europeans even saw North America.
American Indians have their own origin beliefs, just as do Christians, Jews, Moslems, Buddhists, and other religious groups. None of the religious origin beliefs stand up under the scrutiny of scientific and archeological evidence, but this does not mean the religious beliefs are wrong. This article on the "Ancient Ones" is based on archeological studies, and is not intended to reflect on the religious beliefs of anyone.
The names, Mogollon, Hohokam, Anasazi, and later Fremont, were given by archeologists to these Prehistoric Indians. The Southwest Indians had broad similarities in their cultures, but they had distinct languages and political unity. Except for dogs and turkeys, these Prehistoric tribes did not have domesticated animals, a system of writing, or the wheel. To varying degrees, the Anasazi, Hohokam, and Mogollon were influenced by the Indians of central Mexico. In trade with Mesoamerica, they exchanged turquoise for parrot feathers, copper bells, maize (corn), beans, squash, and cotton (Taylor).
Mogollon
The Mogollon (mo-ge-yōn) people occupied mountainous areas of Arizona and New Mexico in approximately 200 B.C. The Mogollon culture eventually expanded to the southern rim of the Colorado Plateau. The Mogollon Indians were initially hunter-gatherers, but as their civilization advanced, they acquired corn, squash, beans, tobacco, and cotton from Mesoamerica. The use of agricultural plants necessitated moving from pithouses to more permanent villages.
The mountainous region where the Mogollon lived between 900 and 1200 A.D. had good soil and abundant moisture for growing maize. Deer, antelope, and other wild game were plentiful in the Mogollon Mountains. Despite this, the Mogollon Indians had abandoned the mountains by 1200 A.D. and moved south to Mexico.
Hohokam
The Hohokam Indians settled in the Gila and Salt River valleys of southern Arizona around 300 B.C. They built rectangular pithouses and lived in small villages. Although the Hohokam relied a great deal on hunting and gathering, they were good farmers and water engineers. Between A.D. 300 and 500, the Hohokam constructed over a thousand miles of irrigation canals. Some of these canals were up to fifty feet wide and dug with massive organized labor using stone tools (Walker).
Hohokam settlements were spread from the Tucson Basin, into the Phoenix area, and as far north as present-day Flagstaff. Located between Phoenix and Tucson, the Casa Grande ruins were built by the Hohokam. Besides Mesoamerica, the Hohokam carried on a wide trade network between the Anasazi and the Mogollon. The largest Hohokam pueblo, Snaketown, had about a thousand residents living in adobe row houses, some of them two and three stories tall. Snaketown was located on the Gila River above where the Gila empties into the Salt River.
Between 1130 and 1190, a prolonged drought led to crop failure, starvation, and violent feuds. The Hohokam came to believe their leaders and priests had lost favor with the plant and the rain spirits. During the twelve hundreds, the Hohokam abandoned their towns and returned to a hunter and gather existence. Early Spanish explorers found the descendants of the Hohokam living in small villages. Spanish Conquistadors named them Pima and Papago.
Anasazi: The Ancestral Puebloans
In approximately 100 A. D., the Anasazi settled on a high plateau in an area much different than the rest of the Southwest. The plateau was the Colorado Plateau. This large mountainous region encompasses the Four Corners area, as well as, other parts of Utah, Arizona, Colorado, and New Mexico.
Archeologists recognize two major periods in the archeological record of the Anasazi, or Ancestral Puebloans: the Basketmaker and Pueblo.
Basketmaker Period 1-750 A. D.
The early Anasazi lived in shallow depressions in the ground covered by a canopy of brush and mud called pithouses. The Ancestral Puebloans made and used baskets as containers; some were woven tight enough to hold water. The Anasazi did not make pottery during this period, but they did raise Meso-American corn and squash with dry farming and some flood irrigation. The introduction of corn allowed the Anasazi to settle in one area. At first, the corn was planted in small plots, and while it was growing, the people resumed their hunter-gather pursuits. Over several hundred years, the agriculture of the Ancestral Puebloans advanced to the point that they could live and sustain themselves in permanent villages. During this time period, another Indian culture emerged to the north of the Anasazi...the Fremont Indians of Utah and the eastern Great Basin.
By 500 A.D., the Basketmakers had made several significant changes in their culture. Larger villages were being built with more storage bins, signifying increased yields of corn. In addition to improved farming methods, the Anasazi trading range expanded to the Pacific Coast, onto the Plains, and through the Mogollon and Hohokam, into Mesoamerica. Beans were being cultivated as a source of protein; however pinion nuts, yucca fruit, berries, and wild game were still a major part of the diet. Plants were used for baskets, clothing, and other tools, especially yucca fiber. The Anasazi still hunted and gathered to supplement the cultivated crops of corn, squash, and beans.
By 600 A.D., farming was the mainstay of the Ancestral Puebloan economy. Agriculture revolved around corn, beans, and squash. Enough corn was being raised to create a surplus; large storage rooms were prominent features of the Pueblo communities. By the late Basketmaker phase, the Anasazi had acquired more possessions, stored food, adopted the bow and arrow, domesticated turkeys, and made pottery. Plain gray pottery, and occasionally black on white pottery, was being used as storage containers for the excess food.
Excess food was stored in pottery jars or baskets inside small masonry structures in the village or in small granaries tucked under overhangs on narrow ledges. These storage granaries can still be occasionally spotted in canyonlands.
A good deal of archeological studies of the Ancestral Puebloans centers on pottery. Some pottery made in the plateau area carried bold black-on-white designs, while other kinds included plain and textured, or corrugated cooking vessels. Black-on-red pottery from northern Arizona was traded throughout the Four Corners, as was red-on-buff styles from Utah. Shapes included jars, bowls, pitchers, ladles, canteens, figurines and miniatures. The style and design of pottery changed through time and varied across regions. Pottery contains hidden clues about the people who made it. Temper (gritty binding material) in the clay may be traceable to the geologic area where the pottery was made. The surfaces of bowls may retain pollen from food plants, or scrapings from a meal.
Consequently, ceramic fragments (sherds) can indirectly show when a household or village was occupied. Archeologists use broken pieces of pottery to reveal information on social groups, and the trade networks that they used.
Pueblo Phase 750-1300 A.D.
The term Pueblo refers to an Indian culture that was unique to the Southwest, not to a particular tribe. Even though the Pueblo Indians shared many common elements, each Pueblo village had its own social order and religious practices. The early Pueblo period was a time of territorial expansion and cultural transition. Cotton cloth, aboveground houses, and improved pottery all came about during this period.
At the start of the Pueblo era, the Ancestral Puebloans built the traditional pithouses lodges and semi-subterranean kivas. In addition, above ground storage structures called Jackals were being built. Eventually, the Pueblo families moved out of the pithouses into the Jackals.
Around 750 A.D., an elite group of "Ancestral Puebloans" started to build in Chaco Canyon. This elite group was either from Mesoamerica or strongly influenced by the Toltec Culture. As evidenced by an extensive trade in turquoise, pipestone, shells, carved flutes, mosaic baskets, and fine pottery, as well as, copper bells and macaw feathers from Meso-America...five great Indian cultures thrived in the western hemisphere for centuries: the Incas of South America, and four from central and southern Mexico, Mayan, Olmec, Zapotec, and Teotihuacan. Indians from these Meso-American (Mexico City to Honduras) cultures moved into the southwestern United States. They brought with them their knowledge and technological advancements (Southwest Indian Council). Many archeologists agree on a wide trade network between the Southwest Indians and Mexico, especially with the Toltec, but discount the migration from Mexico. These archeologists believe the Southwest Indians emerged from the archaic period (Stone).
Over the next two centuries (800-1000 A.D.), the Ancestral Puebloans spread across every arable acre of the San Juan Basin. More than ten thousand separate sites have been identified. Archaeologists have discovered at least one hundred and fifty great house style structures outside of Chaco Canyon. These Pueblos are referred to as Outliers. An elaborate road and trail system connected the outlying villages with Chaco Canyon. Despite having over four hundred miles of a mapped out road system, there is no evidence that Chaco Indian used the wheel.
The area west and north of Chaco Canyon had two wet seasons, rain in the summer and rain or snow in the winter; to the south and southeast, there was a single rainy season in the middle to late summer (Walker). The people of Chaco Canyon were perfectly situated to carry on an extensive corn trade between the two regions.
About 1000 A.D., the seasonal rains arrived with more consistency. This rain pattern continued for the next one hundred and thirty years. Large surpluses of corn filled the Chaco storehouses. The Chacoans exploded in a building frenzy that turned Chaco Canyon into the greatest settlement in North America. This period is referred to as the Chaco Phenomenon.
Pueblo Bonito is the most celebrated of the Chaco Canyon great houses. Over time, workers shaped an estimated one million blocks of sandstone weighing some thirty thousand tons to construct Pueblo Bonito. Along its back perimeter, the rooms stood five stories high. At its peak, Pueblo Bonita had seven hundred or more rooms, thirty-seven family kivas, and two community kivas. Built in several stages, Pueblo Bonita covered over four- and one-half acres. It has been estimated that the construction took 250 years to complete.
A study by University of Arizona researchers showed the workers hauled spruce and fir timbers more than fifty miles to construct the floors and roofs. Despite the engineering ability of the Chacoans, there is no evidence that they used the wheel. The timbers were packed from the Chuska Mountains to the west and the San Mateo Mountains to the south (Sharp).
Pueblo Bonita in Chaco Canyon was the largest apartment house in the world for 600 years.
In contrast to the usual practice of adding rooms to existing structures as needed, many archeologists believe that the great houses in Chaco Canyon were planned from the start. Construction on some of these buildings spanned decades. These great houses were not traditional farming villages occupied by large populations. They may instead have been impressive examples of "public architecture" that were used periodically during times of ceremony, commerce, and trading when temporary populations came to the canyon for these events (Chaco Culture Brochure)...this is difficult to believe. If these great houses were built over decades--250 years for Pueblo Bonita--to pre-plan them would require some type of "blueprint" or written record for which there is no evidence. Even if these structures were built with slave labor, it is implausible that these massive houses were built to impress visitors...from where?
Percentage wise few people lived in Chaco Canyon itself, perhaps twenty-five hundred to three thousand. The Chaco elite gained control over the surplus corn trade, and Chaco priests convinced the farmers that they controlled the seasons and the rains. The Chacoans themselves made relatively little pottery, or grew much corn. They were the corn brokers, and by gaining power over the corn, they ultimately gained power over a vast region of the Southwest (Walker).
On Fajada Butte are petroglyphs of ancient calendar markings. Dr. Anna Sofaer discovered the Sun Dagger on Fajada Butte in 1977. A large circular spiral and a small spiral are pecked in the cliff behind three large stone slabs. At midday on the summer solstice, the sun shines between the stone slabs and creates a dagger of light that bisects the large spiral. On midday of the winter solstice, two daggers bracket the large spiral. During the spring and the fall equinoxes, a small dagger of light bisects the small spiral. The slabs also cast shadow on the large spiral that marks the moon’s eighteen point six years cycle of its orbit (Chaco Culture Brochure).
The unraveling of the Chaco society began with a drought in 1130 A.D. Lack of rain depleted the storehouses, and made the farmers question the power of the Chaco priests. The Chaco Phenomena was over. The Chaco population scattered in a series of migrations. One group built the Salmon Pueblo, which soon failed. On the banks of the Animas River, migrants from Salmon and Chaco built the last great Anasazi Pueblo. When white settlers first saw the ruins of this Pueblo, they called it, Aztec. The settlers could not believe that indigenous Indians had built such an elaborate village; it had to have been built by Aztecs from Mexico (Walker).
Between 300 B.C. and 100 A.D., three distinct Indian cultures settled into the southwest: Anasazi, Mogollon, Hohokam. A fourth culture, the Fremont Indians, settled primarily in Utah in 400 A.D. The Fremont and Anasazi Cultures overlapped in Utah and Colorado.
Archaic Indians moved with changing seasons and environments, but Anasazi, Mogollon, and Hohokam Indians did not range over the vast distances covered by the big game hunters of the late Pleistocene period or the Archaic Indians. Between three hundred B.C. and one hundred A.D., the Southwest Indians turned toward agriculture to supplement their food source. During the late Archaic Period, corn and then beans and squash provided the means for a settled village lifestyle. Corn, beans, and squash become so important in most Indian Cultures that they were known as...The Three Sisters.
The Southwest Pueblo Indians of today are direct decedents of the Prehistoric Indian Cultures that raised corn, irrigated fields, and built massive stone structures in Chaco Canyon and Mesa Verde hundreds of years before the first recorded Europeans even saw North America.
American Indians have their own origin beliefs, just as do Christians, Jews, Moslems, Buddhists, and other religious groups. None of the religious origin beliefs stand up under the scrutiny of scientific and archeological evidence, but this does not mean the religious beliefs are wrong. This article on the "Ancient Ones" is based on archeological studies, and is not intended to reflect on the religious beliefs of anyone.
The names, Mogollon, Hohokam, Anasazi, and later Fremont, were given by archeologists to these Prehistoric Indians. The Southwest Indians had broad similarities in their cultures, but they had distinct languages and political unity. Except for dogs and turkeys, these Prehistoric tribes did not have domesticated animals, a system of writing, or the wheel. To varying degrees, the Anasazi, Hohokam, and Mogollon were influenced by the Indians of central Mexico. In trade with Mesoamerica, they exchanged turquoise for parrot feathers, copper bells, maize (corn), beans, squash, and cotton (Taylor).
Mogollon
The Mogollon (mo-ge-yōn) people occupied mountainous areas of Arizona and New Mexico in approximately 200 B.C. The Mogollon culture eventually expanded to the southern rim of the Colorado Plateau. The Mogollon Indians were initially hunter-gatherers, but as their civilization advanced, they acquired corn, squash, beans, tobacco, and cotton from Mesoamerica. The use of agricultural plants necessitated moving from pithouses to more permanent villages.
The mountainous region where the Mogollon lived between 900 and 1200 A.D. had good soil and abundant moisture for growing maize. Deer, antelope, and other wild game were plentiful in the Mogollon Mountains. Despite this, the Mogollon Indians had abandoned the mountains by 1200 A.D. and moved south to Mexico.
Hohokam
The Hohokam Indians settled in the Gila and Salt River valleys of southern Arizona around 300 B.C. They built rectangular pithouses and lived in small villages. Although the Hohokam relied a great deal on hunting and gathering, they were good farmers and water engineers. Between A.D. 300 and 500, the Hohokam constructed over a thousand miles of irrigation canals. Some of these canals were up to fifty feet wide and dug with massive organized labor using stone tools (Walker).
Hohokam settlements were spread from the Tucson Basin, into the Phoenix area, and as far north as present-day Flagstaff. Located between Phoenix and Tucson, the Casa Grande ruins were built by the Hohokam. Besides Mesoamerica, the Hohokam carried on a wide trade network between the Anasazi and the Mogollon. The largest Hohokam pueblo, Snaketown, had about a thousand residents living in adobe row houses, some of them two and three stories tall. Snaketown was located on the Gila River above where the Gila empties into the Salt River.
Between 1130 and 1190, a prolonged drought led to crop failure, starvation, and violent feuds. The Hohokam came to believe their leaders and priests had lost favor with the plant and the rain spirits. During the twelve hundreds, the Hohokam abandoned their towns and returned to a hunter and gather existence. Early Spanish explorers found the descendants of the Hohokam living in small villages. Spanish Conquistadors named them Pima and Papago.
Anasazi: The Ancestral Puebloans
In approximately 100 A. D., the Anasazi settled on a high plateau in an area much different than the rest of the Southwest. The plateau was the Colorado Plateau. This large mountainous region encompasses the Four Corners area, as well as, other parts of Utah, Arizona, Colorado, and New Mexico.
Archeologists recognize two major periods in the archeological record of the Anasazi, or Ancestral Puebloans: the Basketmaker and Pueblo.
Basketmaker Period 1-750 A. D.
The early Anasazi lived in shallow depressions in the ground covered by a canopy of brush and mud called pithouses. The Ancestral Puebloans made and used baskets as containers; some were woven tight enough to hold water. The Anasazi did not make pottery during this period, but they did raise Meso-American corn and squash with dry farming and some flood irrigation. The introduction of corn allowed the Anasazi to settle in one area. At first, the corn was planted in small plots, and while it was growing, the people resumed their hunter-gather pursuits. Over several hundred years, the agriculture of the Ancestral Puebloans advanced to the point that they could live and sustain themselves in permanent villages. During this time period, another Indian culture emerged to the north of the Anasazi...the Fremont Indians of Utah and the eastern Great Basin.
By 500 A.D., the Basketmakers had made several significant changes in their culture. Larger villages were being built with more storage bins, signifying increased yields of corn. In addition to improved farming methods, the Anasazi trading range expanded to the Pacific Coast, onto the Plains, and through the Mogollon and Hohokam, into Mesoamerica. Beans were being cultivated as a source of protein; however pinion nuts, yucca fruit, berries, and wild game were still a major part of the diet. Plants were used for baskets, clothing, and other tools, especially yucca fiber. The Anasazi still hunted and gathered to supplement the cultivated crops of corn, squash, and beans.
By 600 A.D., farming was the mainstay of the Ancestral Puebloan economy. Agriculture revolved around corn, beans, and squash. Enough corn was being raised to create a surplus; large storage rooms were prominent features of the Pueblo communities. By the late Basketmaker phase, the Anasazi had acquired more possessions, stored food, adopted the bow and arrow, domesticated turkeys, and made pottery. Plain gray pottery, and occasionally black on white pottery, was being used as storage containers for the excess food.
Excess food was stored in pottery jars or baskets inside small masonry structures in the village or in small granaries tucked under overhangs on narrow ledges. These storage granaries can still be occasionally spotted in canyonlands.
A good deal of archeological studies of the Ancestral Puebloans centers on pottery. Some pottery made in the plateau area carried bold black-on-white designs, while other kinds included plain and textured, or corrugated cooking vessels. Black-on-red pottery from northern Arizona was traded throughout the Four Corners, as was red-on-buff styles from Utah. Shapes included jars, bowls, pitchers, ladles, canteens, figurines and miniatures. The style and design of pottery changed through time and varied across regions. Pottery contains hidden clues about the people who made it. Temper (gritty binding material) in the clay may be traceable to the geologic area where the pottery was made. The surfaces of bowls may retain pollen from food plants, or scrapings from a meal.
Consequently, ceramic fragments (sherds) can indirectly show when a household or village was occupied. Archeologists use broken pieces of pottery to reveal information on social groups, and the trade networks that they used.
Pueblo Phase 750-1300 A.D.
The term Pueblo refers to an Indian culture that was unique to the Southwest, not to a particular tribe. Even though the Pueblo Indians shared many common elements, each Pueblo village had its own social order and religious practices. The early Pueblo period was a time of territorial expansion and cultural transition. Cotton cloth, aboveground houses, and improved pottery all came about during this period.
At the start of the Pueblo era, the Ancestral Puebloans built the traditional pithouses lodges and semi-subterranean kivas. In addition, above ground storage structures called Jackals were being built. Eventually, the Pueblo families moved out of the pithouses into the Jackals.
Around 750 A.D., an elite group of "Ancestral Puebloans" started to build in Chaco Canyon. This elite group was either from Mesoamerica or strongly influenced by the Toltec Culture. As evidenced by an extensive trade in turquoise, pipestone, shells, carved flutes, mosaic baskets, and fine pottery, as well as, copper bells and macaw feathers from Meso-America...five great Indian cultures thrived in the western hemisphere for centuries: the Incas of South America, and four from central and southern Mexico, Mayan, Olmec, Zapotec, and Teotihuacan. Indians from these Meso-American (Mexico City to Honduras) cultures moved into the southwestern United States. They brought with them their knowledge and technological advancements (Southwest Indian Council). Many archeologists agree on a wide trade network between the Southwest Indians and Mexico, especially with the Toltec, but discount the migration from Mexico. These archeologists believe the Southwest Indians emerged from the archaic period (Stone).
Over the next two centuries (800-1000 A.D.), the Ancestral Puebloans spread across every arable acre of the San Juan Basin. More than ten thousand separate sites have been identified. Archaeologists have discovered at least one hundred and fifty great house style structures outside of Chaco Canyon. These Pueblos are referred to as Outliers. An elaborate road and trail system connected the outlying villages with Chaco Canyon. Despite having over four hundred miles of a mapped out road system, there is no evidence that Chaco Indian used the wheel.
The area west and north of Chaco Canyon had two wet seasons, rain in the summer and rain or snow in the winter; to the south and southeast, there was a single rainy season in the middle to late summer (Walker). The people of Chaco Canyon were perfectly situated to carry on an extensive corn trade between the two regions.
Pueblo Bonita (2003)
About 1000 A.D., the seasonal rains arrived with more consistency. This rain pattern continued for the next one hundred and thirty years. Large surpluses of corn filled the Chaco storehouses. The Chacoans exploded in a building frenzy that turned Chaco Canyon into the greatest settlement in North America. This period is referred to as the Chaco Phenomenon.
Pueblo Bonito is the most celebrated of the Chaco Canyon great houses. Over time, workers shaped an estimated one million blocks of sandstone weighing some thirty thousand tons to construct Pueblo Bonito. Along its back perimeter, the rooms stood five stories high. At its peak, Pueblo Bonita had seven hundred or more rooms, thirty-seven family kivas, and two community kivas. Built in several stages, Pueblo Bonita covered over four- and one-half acres. It has been estimated that the construction took 250 years to complete.
A study by University of Arizona researchers showed the workers hauled spruce and fir timbers more than fifty miles to construct the floors and roofs. Despite the engineering ability of the Chacoans, there is no evidence that they used the wheel. The timbers were packed from the Chuska Mountains to the west and the San Mateo Mountains to the south (Sharp).
Pueblo Bonita in Chaco Canyon was the largest apartment house in the world for 600 years.
In contrast to the usual practice of adding rooms to existing structures as needed, many archeologists believe that the great houses in Chaco Canyon were planned from the start. Construction on some of these buildings spanned decades. These great houses were not traditional farming villages occupied by large populations. They may instead have been impressive examples of "public architecture" that were used periodically during times of ceremony, commerce, and trading when temporary populations came to the canyon for these events (Chaco Culture Brochure)...this is difficult to believe. If these great houses were built over decades--250 years for Pueblo Bonita--to pre-plan them would require some type of "blueprint" or written record for which there is no evidence. Even if these structures were built with slave labor, it is implausible that these massive houses were built to impress visitors...from where?
Percentage wise few people lived in Chaco Canyon itself, perhaps twenty-five hundred to three thousand. The Chaco elite gained control over the surplus corn trade, and Chaco priests convinced the farmers that they controlled the seasons and the rains. The Chacoans themselves made relatively little pottery, or grew much corn. They were the corn brokers, and by gaining power over the corn, they ultimately gained power over a vast region of the Southwest (Walker).
On Fajada Butte are petroglyphs of ancient calendar markings. Dr. Anna Sofaer discovered the Sun Dagger on Fajada Butte in 1977. A large circular spiral and a small spiral are pecked in the cliff behind three large stone slabs. At midday on the summer solstice, the sun shines between the stone slabs and creates a dagger of light that bisects the large spiral. On midday of the winter solstice, two daggers bracket the large spiral. During the spring and the fall equinoxes, a small dagger of light bisects the small spiral. The slabs also cast shadow on the large spiral that marks the moon’s eighteen point six years cycle of its orbit (Chaco Culture Brochure).
The unraveling of the Chaco society began with a drought in 1130 A.D. Lack of rain depleted the storehouses, and made the farmers question the power of the Chaco priests. The Chaco Phenomena was over. The Chaco population scattered in a series of migrations. One group built the Salmon Pueblo, which soon failed. On the banks of the Animas River, migrants from Salmon and Chaco built the last great Anasazi Pueblo. When white settlers first saw the ruins of this Pueblo, they called it, Aztec. The settlers could not believe that indigenous Indians had built such an elaborate village; it had to have been built by Aztecs from Mexico (Walker).
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Kokopelli: A Humpbacked Flute Player
Kokopelli is a fertility deity, who is worshipped by many Native American Indian tribes in the Southwest. And like most fertility deities, Kokopelli presides over both childbirth and agriculture. He is also thought to be a trickster god, traveling trader, insect, musician, warrior and hunting magician.
Kokopelli likeness varies almost as much as his legends. He is usually illustrated as a humpbacked flute player often with a huge phallus and antenna-like protrusions on his head. The first identified images of him appear on Hohokam pottery dated to sometime between 750 A.D and 850 A.D.
According to the Hopi myth, Kokopelli carries unborn children on his back and distributes them to women. He often takes part in rituals relating to marriage, and Kokopelli himself is sometimes depicted with a consort, a woman called Kokopelli-mana by the Hohokam and Hopi. At San Idelfonso, a Pueblo Village, Kokopelli is thought to be a wandering minstrel with a sack of songs on his back who trades old songs for new. An according to Navajo legend, Kokopelli is a God of harvest and plenty. It is thought that his sack was made of clouds full of rainbows or seeds.
Kokopelli may have originally been a representation of ancient Aztec traders, known as pochtecas, who traveled to the Southwest from northern Mesoamerica. These traders brought their goods in sacks slung across their backs and this sack may have evolved into Kokopelli's familiar hump. These traders also used their flutes to announce themselves as friendly as they approached a settlement. This origin is still in doubt, however, since the first known images of Kokopelli predate the major era of Aztec-Anasazi trade by several hundred years.
Another theory is that Kokopelli is actually an anthropomorphic insect. Many of the earliest depictions of Kokopelli make him very insect-like in appearance. The name "Kokopelli" may be a combination of "Koko", another Hopi and Zuni deity, and "pelli", the Hopi and Zuni word for the desert robber fly, an insect with a prominent proboscis and a rounded back, which is also noted for its zealous sexual proclivities. A more recent etymology is that Kokopelli means literally "kachina hump". Because the Hopi were the tribe from whom the Spanish explorers first learned of the god, their name is the one most commonly used.
A similar humpbacked figure is found in artifacts of the Mississippian culture of the U.S. southeast. Approximately 1200 to 1400 AD, water vessels were crafted in the shape of a humpbacked woman. These forms may represent a cultural heroine or founding ancestor, and may also reflect concepts related to the life-giving blessings of water and fertility.
Kokopelli is one of the most widely recognized images today. His images can be found on anything such as T-shirts, ball caps, key chains and so many more things. A bicycle trail between Grand Junction, Colorado and Moab, Utah, is now known as the Kokopelli Trail.
Read more: http://www.articlesbase.com/history-articles/kokopelli-a-humpbacked...
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Patchwork Merchant Mercenaries had its humble beginnings as an idea of a few artisans and craftsmen who enjoy performing with live steel fighting. As well as a patchwork quilt tent canvas. Most had prior military experience hence the name.
Patchwork Merchant Mercenaries.
Vendertainers that brought many things to a show and are know for helping out where ever they can.
As well as being a place where the older hand made items could be found made by them and enjoyed by all.
We expanded over the years to become well known at what we do. Now we represent over 100 artisans and craftsman that are well known in their venues and some just starting out. Some of their works have been premiered in TV, stage and movies on a regular basis.
Specializing in Medieval, Goth , Stage Film, BDFSM and Practitioner.
Patchwork Merchant Mercenaries a Dept of, Ask For IT was started by artists and former military veterans, and sword fighters, representing over 100 artisans, one who made his living traveling from fair to festival vending medieval wares. The majority of his customers are re-enactors, SCAdians and the like, looking to build their kit with period clothing, feast gear, adornments, etc.
Likewise, it is typical for these history-lovers to peruse the tent (aka mobile store front) and, upon finding something that pleases the eye, ask "Is this period?"
A deceitful query!! This is not a yes or no question. One must have a damn good understanding of European history (at least) from the fall of Rome to the mid-1600's to properly answer. Taking into account, also, the culture in which the querent is dressed is vitally important. You see, though it may be well within medieval period, it would be strange to see a Viking wearing a Caftan...or is it?
After a festival's time of answering weighty questions such as these, I'd sleep like a log! Only a mad man could possibly remember the place and time for each piece of kitchen ware, weaponry, cloth, and chain within a span of 1,000 years!! Surely there must be an easier way, a place where he could post all this knowledge...
Traveling Within The World is meant to be such a place. A place for all of these artists to keep in touch and directly interact with their fellow geeks and re-enactment hobbyists, their clientele.
© 2024 Created by Rev. Allen M. Drago ~ Traveler.
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