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To Dr. Jacquelyn Kegley
Those lessons on philosophy and literature were not wasted, Jackie. Thanks so much.
Authors’ Nonfiction Foreword
In the serene morning air, our voices echo from the red cliffs that rise over one thousand feet above us. All along the rim curiously shaped rock formations seem to lean over, as though watching us, or perhaps listening to our conversation. It’s strangely quiet today. The only sounds are the river tumbling over rocks and the whispers of the breeze. This ancient and stunningly beautiful landscape is Fremont country—and the Fremont cultural complex is one of the most enigmatic of all North American prehistoric cultures.
The first sites were discovered in the 1920s along the Fremont River in southcentral Utah, hence the name “Fremont.” But from approximately AD 100 to 1600, Fremont groups lived in the eastern Great Basin and across the western Colorado Plateau. Sometimes they were nomadic, routinely moving their camps, living out in the open or in rock-shelters or caves, while they hunted game and collected wild plants. At other times they were settled farmers with pithouse villages. Pithouses are partially subterranean structures, roofed with logs and thatch and covered with dirt. The typical pithouse was conical or like a flat-topped pyramid, and stood about six feet tall and twelve feet across. A hole in the roof allowed the inhabitants to climb in and out via a ladder, and also allowed the smoke from fires inside the house to escape. Fremont farmers grew corn, beans, squash, and other domesticates, along any trickle of water that would support their fields. It appears that during periods of environmental stress Fremont farmers abandoned their villages and crops and became hunter-gatherers. They probably spoke a variety of languages and encompassed, and intermarried with, many different ethnic groups. That’s part of what makes it so difficult for archaeologists to define who and what they were. One thing is certain: The Fremont were masters of adaptation.
As we walk along the deer trail at the base of the canyon wall, we see a large leaf-shaped stone artifact. It’s a finely knapped blade that was likely hafted to a wooden handle and used as a knife to cut up the ancestors of the very deer whose trail we tread upon this morning. Or maybe the Fremont used the knife to skin a bighorn sheep. To our right, rock carvings of bighorn sheep leap across the red sandstone cliff, followed by hunters with bows and arrows. Above them stand huge human-like figures wearing headdresses. The carved figure on the far left of the petroglyph panel has a foot missing, lost in a crack … as though she just stepped out of the stone, or perhaps just emerged from the dark underworlds. Truly, the rock art of the Fremont, their petroglyphs and pictographs—rock carvings and paintings—are breathtaking.
As we continue along the trail, we see a quartz tool the size of a chicken egg. In the Coso Range in California, archaeologists have found bits of quartz ground into the petroglyphs, as though the artists used such objects as carving tools. Is that what this is? The quartz tool is silent, its true purpose a mystery.
But we do know from modern ethnographic studies that similar artifacts in the hands of the magically endowed, a shaman, for example, could reputedly bring life to cold stone images such as these.
Rounding a bend in the trail, we encounter more figures. Sometimes their headdresses appear to be bison horns, other times they resemble feathers or insect antennae. All the figures here have trapezoidal bodies with wide shoulders and wear necklaces, breastplates, and ear ornaments. They are not static. The positions of their arms and legs (when they have legs) convey motion. Stand and look up at them long enough, and they appear to move, dancing upon the rock with changes of sunlight or drifting cloud shadows. Gusts of wind give them soft voices, whispering across time.
Archaeologists identify the Fremont from the unique styles of their hock moccasins constructed from the lower leg of a deer, bison, or bighorn sheep, gray-coil pottery, distinctive clay figurines, one-rod-and-bundle basketry, and their amazing artwork. Over a period of 1,500 years, the Fremont moved across a vast territory that included Idaho, Wyoming, Colorado, Nevada, Arizona, and Utah.
What happened to them? It probably wasn’t one thing, but many: repeated and extended droughts, population pressures, invasion, warfare. Some of the most spectacular Fremont rock art panels, like those at McConkie Ranch, west of Vernal, Utah, show figures wielding weapons and shields, carrying severed heads. Tears run down the faces. Bloodred pigment streaks from neck arteries. Some archaeologists suggest that these are not scenes of actual violence. The severed heads could be sacred masks and the weapons and shields some sort of ritual paraphernalia. The images might simply represent mythological stories. Maybe. In any case, the art is exquisitely detailed. And bone-chilling.
Archaeologists will likely never fully understand who the Fremont were or how they thought, but surely they were as susceptible to anger and despair as we are. They must also have felt love and desperation, especially when feeding their children became difficult as the climate changed.
Finding the human beings beneath the ancient detritus of their lives is the most difficult task of an archaeologist.
People of the Canyons is our attempt. We hope you enjoy it.
Sincerely,
Kathleen O’Neal Gear and W. Michael Gear
One
Maicoh
When the gods close their eyes, the instant is unmistakable.
My heart suddenly thunders.
I cross my arms over my chest and sag against the towering canyon wall, struggling to stay upright.
The night sky is blacker than black, scattered with the blazing footprints of the dead.
Magnificent red sandstone cliffs border this valley. Two thousand hand-lengths tall, they loom high above me. In my blurring vision, the gigantic rock pillars on the rim appear to sway back and forth, moving like a parade of monstrously deformed animals and people left from the Beginning Time.
I can’t stop it. The cascade in my souls begins …
The firelit village suddenly breathes, exhaling scents of food and sweating bodies, carrying the shrill music of drums and bone whistles that drifts from the crowded village plaza this autumn evening.
I force myself to focus on the chocolate-brown curve of the river that slithers snakelike through the scraggly cornfields and around the thirty pithouses that comprise OwlClaw Village. Partially subterranean and covered with a thick layer of earth, the pithouses are low humps, like giant anthills, scattered across the river terrace. Tonight, people lean against the sloping roofs to talk while they watch the festivities of the harvest ceremony. Ladders protrude from the centers of the roofs, allow
ing people to enter or exit the dwellings and smoke from the fires inside to escape.
Dogs run by.
Each moment is urgent now. I’m falling …
A woman laughs, and I see her step off a ladder onto a pithouse roof. Wreathed in firelight, she stands for a moment and looks around the village. She wears a gorgeous red cape made from the finest scarlet macaw feathers and carries a sprig of evergreen. Evergreens do not die in the winter, and every shaman predicts this will be a hard one. As she walks away, she holds one hand on her belly, and I think maybe she’s pregnant. Hard to tell with her cape. The wavering light of torches, carried by the dancers, flashes through her black hair. I stare for just an instant. Even less. But it’s too long.
The canyon wall tilts. The path heaves. The gods shove my souls into thin air.
Gasping, my body eats air as if it can’t get enough. So, in the beginning, there’s no fear. Just the lightheaded sensation of tumbling through a vast abyss inside my own body.
My mind tries to make sense of it. One thought keeps repeating: My heart. What’s wrong with my heart?
All my life, my heartbeat has been the one friend that’s never left me. It’s always there, reminding me that I’m alive and can keep going through the masquerade of my daily routine. But now it has stopped. While I’m waiting to hit bottom, I’m not alive. Blood no longer pulses in my veins, which means the night is getting really cold, and the rigidity seeping through my flesh seems to be accelerated. As the moments fly by, my stringy old muscles gradually turn to stone. When the paralysis is complete, even my eyes will be fixed in their sockets.
I stare at the children standing around the edges of the plaza. Their mouths hang open. The Deer Chief—beautifully dressed in white buckskin, with branching antlers mounted on his head—dances his way past them, as he retreats back to the underworld from which he came. His sacred gyrations have lent strength to Father Sun, so he may survive his long journey through the cold winter to come. Behind the Deer Chief, the six Horn priests dance, stamping their feet to shake the rattles on their legs. They move in single file, forming a stunning, magical procession of phantasmal figures pounding their way along the cosmic path that leads into the deepest past of our People.
Such a dark, dark night. The feeble gleam cast by the slowly dying ritual fires can’t hold it back.
Why am I still here? Curiosity fills me. When I look down I can see my tall emaciated body—worn down to the bones by the ravages of time and truth—that resembles a painter’s sketch drawn on my buckskin clothing, shades of gray, a little hazy around the edges, arms locked across the chest. One of my legs is straight, the other bent slightly at the knee. The Falling hasn’t erased me yet. But it will. Makes no difference that my body stubbornly insists it’s still here in this world. I feel it seeping outside through the cracks in the light, trailing along the laughter and whistles of panpipes, sailing away on a red cape.
It always takes so long. The moments stretch. Be still. Let it happen.
When the bottom rises up, there will be a jolt, a bizarre aftershock, and my heartbeat will start again. But for now, my lungs are struggling. As though I’m underwater, my vision goes opaque. I must inhabit my death or this will never be over.
What surprises me is the power of my disbelief. I died the first time when I was twelve, but part of my brain still refuses to accept the truth. Not again, it says. I’m stronger than this. But as the protection of my body grows increasingly unreliable, my hold on humanity becomes as tenuous as a ghost’s.
Then it appears.
There, at the corner of my eye, the blaze flickers to life, and I faintly hear her deep voice. It’s tiny now, barely a whisper of flames. She is on a holy crusade. A fight to the death against horrific evil.
Don’t reach for it.
For the past week, her voice has been growing louder, so I’ve felt this coming, but arrival is always a luminous moment of revelation. I tuck my fists into my armpits and hug myself hard, trying not to listen to the faint words slipping from the blazing soul pot I carry in the sacred bundle tied to my belt.
With one hand against the canyon wall, I stagger down the dirt path that parallels the rugged sandstone cliff. I’m riding the lightning bolt now, zigzagging my way into the heart of the big explosion on the mountaintop. Much depends on what I see in the next few moments, or days. There is no telling how long this will take. Maybe I’ll be all right, and no one will die. At any point, the hunt could be sabotaged. Perhaps a man steps out of a pithouse at the wrong time or a child suddenly looks up at me, and I must walk by.
Except for her ghostly whisper and the erratic shuffles of my footsteps on the dirt, there is no sound. This is how it goes: She calls my name. My feet walk, and the world outside perishes in the onslaught of transformation. Dark shapes flash by in utter silence. I see them, but they do not seem to see me. Perhaps I’ve become invisible. I’ve often wondered.
As the instants pass, I force myself to go through the motions of the awakening that will come. Feel for a hold on the wall, clutch a crevice, and hang on tight. Maybe tonight I will simply walk away. But the flame of her voice … As it grows brighter, the world turns teeth-chatteringly cold. Finally, I can’t stop myself. I must reach out for her faint words. When I find them, they are shouts, and light explodes inside me, streaming up to shatter against the roof of my skull, then trickle down inside my head in brilliant rivulets, bathing my thoughts in frosty inhuman splendor.
My body slides down the canyon wall to sit on the ground, and I topple to my side, jerking like a clubbed rabbit.
A strange tranquility comes over me, smoothing out the edges, softening the horror. Is that what I really want? Just to die? To have this over with once and for all? No more struggling to decide if what she tells me is right or wrong. Besides … I deserve to die. My inadequacies, my crimes, are legion. The gods should not have let me live this long.
My body jolts, and my heart slams against my ribs. The hazy village goes quiet and still. People freeze in midstride, arms akimbo, heads tilted slightly to the left or right, mouths open. Their firelit faces seem carved of pale amber ice.
I try to stand up, to flee, but my legs are too weak to hold me up. I’m afraid. Always terribly afraid. Settle into the cradle and let it rock you until you fly apart. Don’t want to. I’m still quivering as the yawning blackness rushes toward me, and the dark night of the soul descends.
I hear quick steps approach. His cotton kirtle rustles. The long pole he holds before him is an elegant artifact, the legacy of his most ancient ancestors. It’s been polished with sunflower oil and shines like a sliver of firelight. A ceremonial fox skin and a bunch of hummingbird feathers dangle from the top of the pole: the crest of a dead war god who long ago marched upon villages far to the south.
Shaken, I manage to say, “I—I saw BoneDust. D-Did you?”
At this point, he is a dispassionate presence, unobtrusive and totally uninterested in the outcome of this struggle. I’m fighting for my life, and he stands by as a silent witness, fulfilling an ancient duty to gods I no longer believe in.
“Yes, I saw her. She’s finally alone, walking down the river trail. Slide your arm across my shoulders. We have to go find her now. Hurry!”
Two
Blue Dove
The next evening …
As the sun sinks below the horizon, dusk settles across the canyon like a mantle of blue smoke, casting the thirty pithouses of OwlClaw Village into shadow. Halos of yellow firelight have just begun to seep up around the entry ladders. But it’s the stunning canyon that mesmerizes me. The towering red cliffs bend inward, hanging over this puny village as though yearning to tumble down and crush it to dust. When I tilt my head back far enough to see the rim, a heady mixture of awe and fear expands my chest. The growing darkness is progressively draining the life from the canyon, turning the sheer walls the deep crimson shade of old blood. It’s eerie. The cliffs whisper and whistle in the night breeze, discussing the world in a l
anguage unintelligible to humans. Perhaps they’re speaking to the last crickets singing in sheltered places down along the river?
People run across the plaza, heading for the trash heap where someone found a dead body. A woman in a red-feathered cape.
The stupid fool.
One moon ago, she conspired against the king of the Straight Path nation, the Blessed Sun. Surely, she suspected that he’d sent her on this mission to get her out of Flowing Waters Town, so he could have her killed quietly? If he’d done it in town, there would have been questions. People would have been upset and desperate to find the murderer. Taking care of the problem out here, in the hinterlands of the Canyon People, neatly avoided all that.
Near the trash heap, a woman sobs.
I take a moment to arrange the turquoise hair combs that pin my black hair into a bun atop my head. At the age of twenty-six summers, I’m quite a beauty and use it to my advantage at every opportunity. Tonight, my cheeks are painted with parallel lines of white triangles. Blue circles ring my eyes. My small nose is entirely painted black. The magnificent beaded dress I wear beneath my rabbit-fur shawl marks me as a high-status woman from the Straight Path nation to the south, a nation currently embroiled in a brutal religious war: The old gods against the wicked half-human thlatsinas. For this critical night, I’ve taken great pains to look like a Sky Spirit come to earth.
A man shouts, “It’s BoneDust! Dear gods.”
Around the corpse, people gather to mutter and shriek. I keep walking with my head down.
These primitive people will assume it was revenge against the Blessed Sun, or maybe a simple clan vendetta. Maybe even a gambling debt gone wrong.
After all, ritual celebrations draw all manner of men, and crowds are perfect hunting grounds for the soul-sick. For the past few days, hundreds of unknown people have camped around the village enjoying the harvest festivities. They wander through the plaza and between the pithouses at all times of the day and night. Sometimes old scores get settled.
People of the Canyons Page 1