Today we got up at 6:30 am, packed up, grabbed breakfast and headed to Mersa Verde National Park to make our 9:00 am guided tour of the Cliff Palace village, which was a Pueblo Indian village over 1000 years ago. It was amazing! All the buildings were constructed from stones with mason-airy work holding them clinging to the edge of a cliff. Our Park Ranger Guide was very knowledgeable and shared several touching stories about how meaningful this place remains for the present day Pueblo people. He told us about how several older Pueblo women arrived with Wal-Mart bags filled with dried corn that they asked if they could grind their corn in the traditional way for a ritual service, they were having. He told us that a class of Pueblo graduating high school seniors came to give gifts in thanks to their ancestors (birds feathers, flowers, grains, etc.), which they hid throughout the village. A newly wed Pueblo couple came to hold a small ritual together, to ask for shelter, before the husband left on a round of duty in Iraq. He played a small flute while his wife responded in song. He said it let him and his whole tour group in silence.
No comments:
Post a Comment