I bet you’re expecting me to write about the amazing hiking there is in Mesa Verde National Park. Or the ruins that delight in wonder. Or even the cool petroglyphs etched into the rocks here.
Nope.
Let’s talk about humans. Modern and ancient.
The Ancient Climber at Mesa Verde and His Message to Me
Greeting visitors at the main visitors center in Mesa Verde NP in Colorado is a striking statue.
It depicts a young man climbing a rock wall with a basket on his back. This young man represents the life of the ancient Puebloan people that inhabited what we now call the Four Corners Region – where Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado and Utah meet.
Why is it striking to me? The statue, by Edward J. Fraughton, reminds me that we aren’t different from any other peoples of this earth – past, present, and future.
Sure, he lived 800 years ago and had a different culture and lifestyle than I do today but he still needed community, food and shelter – all things every human needs.
Why do we as humans focus on what is different between us than what is similar? We all laugh, love, eat, and sleep. It’s been a shame that we behave in this manner for millennia now.
This statue touched me deeply. Literally at first I thought “why is Mesa Verde showing a rock climber at their main visitor center?” At closer inspection it is still a rock climber but of an ancient person. That’s how similar we are. Though this man did it out of necessity and our modern rock climbers don’t – both cultures still have that skill in common. We’ve probably been doing it for 10,000s of years. A skill transcending time!
We are not that different from others today around the world or from those through time.
Respecting Everyone’s Heritage
Mesa Verde and the lands of the North, Central and South America that were once inhabited by Indigenous Peoples, or First Nations, are considered sacred and/or they have a strong bond with that land. Please be sure to respect their heritage and the lands.
I try to relate how they feel with analogies many of us can relate to.
Would you want someone stomping through the cemetery your grandma is buried tossing trash and walking on her headstone? Would you want people disrespecting your temple, church, mosque, or place of worship blaspheming what you believe to be true? How about when someone steals something from your home, that feels horrible and you get angry.
Please respect the fact that people thrived in the “new world” for thousands of years before it was new to Europeans. They have a much longer history here with deeper roots that should be respected and honored.
I Grab a Book at Every National Park
I like to buy a book at every national park I visit. I’m hoping to learn more about the history, ecology, archaeology and animals of the area with every book I read.
Every park has it’s own unique features and I get a book that reflects that. In Yellowstone I bought the book The Rise of Wolf 8 by Rick McIntyre because I remember when wolves were reintroduced in the area in 1995, and I love wolves.
Mesa Verde is more known for it’s ancient history so I wanted a book that reflected that.
I decided to purchase Native American Testimony by Peter Nabokov.
The book contains testimonies directly through the eyes of those that lived here when Europeans first arrived up to modern times. I read a few entries previous to purchasing the book at the Mesa Verde visitor center and, frankly, I got chills and wept a bit for the tragedy that existed and still does today. It’s going to be a hard, emotional read but it’s my history, it’s American history but most importantly, it’s Indigenous People’s history that we all should know.
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