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Over the years, the Duwanians continued to collect wood from the collapsed structures in the Village, sometimes having to hack through vegetation that entombed it to get the wood out. They would continue to collect wood and haul it back to Duwa in the garden carts they had collected from vacated homes over the years, until there was none to collect. The longer they could collect the wood this way the longer nature had to grow trees and shrubs that would eventually become their source of firewood. Jack’s Canyon already looked like a forest, being taken over by domestic varieties of trees and the ubiquitous juniper.
The juniper forest on the mesa had been thinned over the years, and used for firewood, making way for the Pinyon pines to take hold that Travis, Jason, and Tate had begun to cultivate when Duwa was first settled. They were now beginning to cover the mesa as they once had during the original Sinagua settlement period.
Wildfires, caused by lightning storms, were still a concern, so at least once a year the whole village turned out to clean the old firebreak by hand. The diesel to fuel the backhoe was too precious to use and was saved in the event a fire caused the backhoe to be put into use again.
The blackberries were now a formidable wall along the west side of Duwa Valley and a favorite hangout for the children when the fruit was in season. The wall stretched all the way from the parking lot to the cliff overlooking the orchard and spilled down the side of the valley until it reached the fence they had built many years earlier. They trimmed any shoots that crossed the fence line, knowing that not to do so would allow the blackberries to take over the cornfield and eventually the entire valley. There were more blackberries than they could possibly eat so, from time to time, the goats were allowed to help thin the hedge, and excess blackberries were made into jam. It was not a tradeable commodity because all the farms had vast blackberry hedges.
The bamboo planted at the head of the valley almost twenty years earlier was now also a formidable wall across the entire north end of the valley, except for a passageway and gate that had been cut through the bamboo to allow access to the agricultural fields. The cistern was regularly maintained and still provided a retention area for the irrigation water for the fields, both from rain and the water system.
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Most of their clothing was now made of leather, a skill that many of the men, women and children of Duwa were now proficient at. The patchwork shirts and jackets that had become their trademark were repaired constantly, using cloth they had meticulously cared for over the years or using cloth they wove themselves on the village looms and dyed with the juices of many plants and fruits.
They all wore low-cut moccasins in the warm months and high-top, rabbit fur-lined moccasins in the cold ones. In the warm months the men wore leather breechcloths and their patchwork shirts or none at all. The women wore leather skirts and the trademark shirts. The children wore breechcloths or aprons and no tops. People were no longer embarrassed by nudity and underwear was almost non-existent. In the colder months, all added leggings and leather shirts or jackets and the patchwork quilted jackets with the cotton batting. Everyone had acclimated to the seasons and were mostly comfortable in the clothing they now fashioned. Having the heaters and fireplace in the Meeting Hall to warm them in the coldest weather helped tremendously. The abundant supply of linens and blankets carefully preserved during the earliest days of Duwa were still serviceable, though at times getting threadbare. Because game was plentiful, they would be able to make necessary clothing from the hides and, as they built and repaired spinning wheels and looms, they would be able to continue making and increasing the production of cotton cloth.
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Deaths and births in Duwa had kept somewhat of a balance in population, as had marriages where one or the other newlyweds moved with their new spouse to one of the other farms.
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The Duwa library was a sacred place, often used by visitors from the other farms when they came to Duwa, and religiously protected by the Duwanians as their source of history and entertainment. Therefore, when they ran out of toilet paper the books in the library were not a solution. Instead, the ladies had made cotton cloths that were available in the restrooms for use and, after use, were rinsed and the residue flushed, and then placed in a plastic bucket of soapy water made from the root bulb of the Yucca and Agave plants that grew on the mesas and in the canyons around them. The cloths were rinsed and washed in boiling water regularly, as were diapers, to be used again.
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The Duwanians had learned to be self-sufficient, with the help of their allies on the other farms. They shared ideas and solutions among them, helped each other when assistance was needed, and grieved at each other’s losses. In Duwa, the children all learned to read and write, though writing was now being done mostly on clay tablets, and learned the rudiments of arithmetic and geometry. By the time they reached their teens, the children of Duwa were valued throughout the alliance for their education and knowledge. They were the cream of the crop when it came to marriages. The children learned the skills necessary to carry on the day-to-day workings of the village, becoming apprentices in the areas that most interested them—sometimes in multiple specialties. They were a happy people and they considered life in Duwa to be the simple life—because most of them knew no differently.
The air was clean; the water was clean and plentiful, as long as it was managed during dry periods; and, food was varied and plentiful.
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It’s safe to assume that small groups of people, around the world, banded together to survive the extreme living conditions they encounter in their own particular environment. Some of these groups will undoubtedly be like the Scorpions, content to take from others as they wished; while other groups will work together, use and share their collective skills and knowledge to allow their respective communities to grow and, in the new normal, prosper. The latter will be the most predominant but they will most certainly have to deal with the former and, in some cases, take whatever drastic measures are necessary for their own security and survival—as the Duwanians did.
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When the sun set in the evening and the shadows faded into the darkness that arrives just before the moon and the stars light the heavens, the Duwanians still gather and tell their stories, sing their songs, and remember those who had met the challenge of the CME and created a new life order. The last thing they heard each night was the song of the coyotes that echoed across the mesas and in the canyons and valleys—the song of Sinagua Rising.◘
Author’s Note
Sinagua Rising is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents portrayed in the story are the product of the author’s imagination or have been used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, events, or locales is entirely coincidental, or used only to further the storyline.
The Village of Oak Creek, Arizona does exist, as does Morningside Drive. The U.S. Forest Service does have a regional headquarters in the Village of Oak Creek and is the trailhead for Woods Canyon. Horse Mesa also exists and the ruins of a Sinagua Indian pueblo are located on the mesa overlooking Dry Beaver Creek, but not in the configuration and extent used in the story.
According to Hopi oral tradition, the pueblo ruins on Horse Mesa were built by the Sinagua, and the village was known as Tuwalanki, which means “Watchtower” or “Place of Refuge” in their language. There is no way to confirm this assertion but the name certainly embodies the location and characteristics of the site—and Hopi oral tradition has, in the past, been quite reliable. The Hopi claim to be the descendants of the Sinagua and Anasazi people who occupied the Four Corners region of Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, and Utah for hundreds, if not thousands, of years until they disappeared around 1300-1350 BCE. Dating of the pottery shards and remnants of burned timbers found in Tuwalanki bear out the dating of the use and
abandonment of this village.
The Sinagua, like their cousins, the Anasazi, were excellent pueblo builders and, though, for the most part, their villages were not as large and elaborate as the better known Anasazi developments of Mesa Verde (Colorado) and Chaco Canyon (New Mexico), they appear to have been equally skilled in archecture, structural engineering, and stone masonry as evidenced by the remains of their villages at Montezuma’s Castle (Camp Verde, AZ), Tuzigoot (Cottonwood, AZ), Homolovi (Winslow, AZ), to name just a few.
The information regarding CME’s is factual and summarized from the public record. Scientists are now investigating the scientific evidence found at Göbekli Tepe in Turkey to substantiate the claim that a CME of massive proportions incinerated the region, if not the entire earth, some 11,500 years ago, ending the last ice age.
Though Sinagua Rising is a work of fiction, the potential for a massive CME is very real, as is the devastation it could wreak worldwide. Certainly, there will be numerous stories of survival following such an event, maybe even more compelling than that of the Morningside Mavericks and the Duwanians.◘
Acknowledgements
I could not have written this book without the research and technical assistance provided by Lloyd Stearns, one of my golfing buddies who is actually “The Senior Geek;” the construction information provided by Bruce Brickner, my best friend and regrettably now deceased; and the locational information assistance in the Village of Oak Creek/Sedona provided by my friend and former next door neighbor, Terry Sidwell. All three are good friends and I am indebted to them for their cooperation and assistance.
A special thanks to my son, Jeff, for the information on aquaponics used in this book. He worked hard to help me understand the process. He and his wife, Naoe, designed, built, and operate an aquaponics farm in Saitama, Japan. Their company (ebf greentech co, ltd. aka Love Aquaponics) also provides aquaponics consulting and design/build services and are at the forefront of aquaponics technology in Japan. The process is more involved than described in this book, but is a viable method for growing year-round vegetables in the context used.
I also want to thank my wife, Kay, for her editing and encouragement throughout this four year writing odyssey. Anyone who writes knows the importance of these two ingredients; and no one more than I. She also provided the art that graces the cover. My thanks also to my golfing buddy and neighbor, Joe Crary, for his assistance laying out the cover text.
Editing is best performed by someone not familiar with the story or the locale, but who has the editing and literary skills to wade through the manuscript with a sharp pencil and a practiced eye. My sincere appreciation to Dick Anderson, former English teacher, and school principal—and my songwriting partner, for filling this role so superbly.
Numerous other people contributed helpful suggestions and technical information without which the story would not have been complete. To them my sincere thanks.
And, though I’ve already said my thanks, above, to my wife, Kay, I want to again express my sincere appreciation of her support, encouragement, and patience with me during this endeavor. She was there as I first considered the idea and, fortunately, is still here. At times she was a “writing widow” as I sequestered myself for hours on end working on the manuscript, not to mention the sleep disturbances she endured as I turned on the lamp to make notes during the night. I hope she finds the end result worth it.
As a work of fiction, it goes without saying that all names, people, places, public and private institutions, corporate and official entities and incidents are either fictitious or used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.◘
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
RG Andersen-Wyckoff is a former resident of the Village of Oak Creek, Arizona, and the founder and first editor of The Villager, formerly the Village Community News. As a member of the Arizona Archaeology Society’s Verde Valley Chapter, he extensively hiked the mesas and canyons of the red rock country locating and mapping heretofore unrecorded Sinagua Indian archaeological sites. He is trained and certified to participate in archaeological excavations.
He is a graduate of California State University, Fresno. During his 40 year management career he was notably Executive Director of the USO in Japan; the Mayor of Salem, Oregon; the General Manager of the Salem Area Mass Transit District, and the General Manager of Sun City West, AZ., a retirement community in the Phoenix area. In addition, he and his wife owned and operated several running and fitness related businesses in Oregon for 15 years. He retired in 2002 and moved to the Village of Oak Creek, AZ.
He is the author of five previous books: From the Attic of my Mind (poetry & profundities); Musings About Growing Up (anecdotal autobiography); Until Hippopotami Fly (children’s book and song); Tuwalanki: Fortress Village of the Sinagua (historical fiction); and, A Slice of Ham (humorous collection of his essays), all available on Amazon.
He and his songwriting partner, Richard L. Anderson, have written over 100 choral pieces in a variety of genres, some performances of which can be viewed on YouTube.
He and his wife, Kay, now reside in Sun City, in Georgetown, Texas, where he continues his writing; she pursues her artistic endeavors; and, they both play golf and support their local high school sports programs. They also volunteer at the Palace Theater and Palace Playhouse, Georgetown community theater venues.
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