FIELD NOTES from walking Chaco with Anna’s colleagues, the self-deprecating wizard-cowboy-archaeologists Richard Friedman and Rob Weiner.
Is this as sacred as Stonehenge, the pyramids?
Rich: Easily as sacred, yes.
We come from the Western tradition where the notions of sacred and profane are separate, but there’s this idea of power in the landscape, power in the sun and the moon, power in the waters, power in the astronomy, power in certain people, power in songs, power to make things happen. In some places on the earth, this is more accessible, denser.
Certain people have the ability to work with that power, to wire it up. That stuff is inherently in the earth and constructions can augment pre-existing power. It’s palpable to anyone who comes here. Anna and I were talking on the way, saying that most sober-minded, scientific, button-down types come to Chaco and say there is something going on here. These are not spiritual, new age, woo-woo people. Everybody feels it.
Rob picks up a pea-sized red stone.
Rich: This was a stone called pasteur. They made arrowheads out of this. This was a piece of these mountains, an incredibly sensorial colored stone. Touch freely, but don’t take it. Don’t take anything you find here. There have been consequences for those that do.
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Photo Andy Johnson
