Anasazi Culture Essay -- Native American Indians

Long before the coming of the so-called "civilized" Europeans, North America was inhabited by traveling bands of ancient people. Nomadic tribes, these early ancestors of Southwest Native Americans traveled the land in search of food from the thriving herds of large animals. But possibly as early as A.D. 900, as the wandering herds began to diminish, these people began to settle down and developed societies and cultures around what is called the Four Corners area of the southwest, in southern Utah and Colorado, and northern Arizona and New Mexico. Referred to as "Hisatsinom" by their Hopi descendants, the people are probably better known as "Anasazi," the Navajo name said to mean "ancient enemies." Other, more traditional, Native Americans may simply refer to these ancient people as the "old ones." Whatever the name, it is evident that these people not only settled in, but were also a thriving population and cultural center for the southwest. The Anasazi, ancestors of present-day Pueblos, Zunis, and Hopis of New Mexico and Arizona, fished, hunted small game and birds, and gathered wild foods in their newly developing home. A desert culture, these ancient people learned to live off the land, and even to make the land work for their good. Eventually building elaborate structures in the cliff walls, the Anasazi moved from their early "subterranean pit houses, sunken homes with stonework walls," into elaborately carved mansions high atop cliff walls and stone structures. As they developed aboveground storage facilities, the Anasazis began to build grand houses into the stones, acquiring new living quarters and using their former underground dwellings as "spiritual centers" called "kivas." The kiva, used for religious tea... ...ur-corners regions of the Southwest. Skeletons, village archeological finds, and cliff and rock art are all that remain to tell us about the heritage and culture of the Southwest. Other evidences abound in the stories of the "old ones," still told around council fires and pow wows. The stories of these earlier people are still told by the elders of different tribes, to teach their young ones their rich cultural heritage. Whatever the reasons for the Anasazi civilization's decline, they were a proud and thriving people, filled with culture, arts, trading and civilization. It is a shame that their once proud homes are but ruins for those of us in this new century to view. Perhaps, one day in the not too distant future, some of our own most spectacular structures and civilizations may lie wasted in the dust, another ancient ruin for some future people to explore.