The traveler's notebook: stories about people & Places
The summer I visited Montezuma Castle came from an impulsive curiosity to learn more about the world history of agriculture and how we get our food. Regardless of why I'm traveling, I always carve out opportunities to explore - both past and present. These experiences transformed into a personal series travel stories and mixed media, called The Traveler's Notebook.
Located in Camp Verde, Arizona, these ancient cliff dwellings were once an integral part of life and basic survival for the Southern Sinagua, a pre-Columbian culture. The structure is estimated to have built between AD 1100 and AD 1350 by the Sinagua women.
The name Sinaqua translates to “without water"
The main dwelling, is a five-story stone structure with twenty rooms. Housing about 35 to 50 people - this would become part of a larger settlement that developed between AD 600 to AD 1100. Around AD 650 agriculture and pottery were are on the rise.
Sitting about 90 feet up a limestone cliff and adjacent to Beaver Creek, this alcove protected the building from exposure to harsh environmental elements. Built of limestone, roofed with sycamore logs and grass mixed with mud, it still holds 600 years after abandonment.
All by design, it gave the Sinaqua resources for WIld food, medicine, shelter and farming
They were a hunter-gatherer society
Life was sustained by hunting wild animals attracted to the creek and practicing subsistence agriculture. These subsistence strategies included techniques to help them collect water in dry times and plant crops in difficult terrain. This created an abundant harvest of wild plants for edible and medicinal uses.
Velvet Mesquite - Pea family: The seeds and pods became ground meal and protein. Tree sap was used for resin, candy and glue. Medicinally it could be used treat eye and skin ailments.
Oneseed Juniper - Cypress family : This was the power plant- it could provided fuel, light, shelter and healing. It's wood was sturdy enough for roof beams or fences. Boiled branches gave relief from stomach ailments. The berries were used to treat pneumonia or using many berries-a laxative.
Western Soapberry -Soapberry family : The translucent yellow fruit was prepared as soap for bathing and laundry. The fruit can be harmful if ingested and may irritate skin if not prepared properly. The leaves and stems were used as infusions to treat coughs, fever and arthritis pain.
Netleaf Hackberry -Elm family : In the fall this plant produces high-calcium berries that would be eaten raw or as in jelly. The leaves were used for indigestion, the bark would have been woven into sandals. Leaves and bark made a dark dye.
Food was not a commodity
Instead, through a complex barter system, the Sinagua, traded woven baskets, clay pottery, and cotton woven cloth in return for macaws, copper, marine shells, salts, and rare pigments. Eventually they began using the Verde River as a travel corridor to the north and south. They connected with the Anasazi and the Hohokam respectively, creating a network of large communities, until shortly after AD 1300 , when the area had reached its maximum capacity for the indigenous populations. Trading created a thriving economy and community, but less than a century later, the Sinagua mysteriously vanished.
The mystery became known as The Great Abandonment
The decline of prehistoric cultures had begun. While the fate of the Sinagua people is unknown, evidence points to the Sinagua migrating to join the Hopi Mesas. Others believe they stayed and although they sometimes clashed with the Yavapai-Apache nearby, may have intermarried - returning to their hunter/gatherer roots.
All images and art (except where noted) by Backpack Films. Shot on Google Pixel XL and Olympus TG4. Created with Adobe Spark.
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Credits:
Faelan Lee Maley/Backpack FIlms 2021.