November Glyphs 62(5)
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GLYPHS The Monthly Newsletter of the Arizona Archaeological and Historical Society An Affiliate of the Arizona State Museum, University of Arizona Founded in 1916 Vol. 62, No. 5 Tucson, Arizona November 2011 HIGHLIGHTS OF THIS ISSUE President’s Message .................................................................................................... 2 Relic Hunters: Encounters with Antiquity in Nineteenth Century America, James E. Snead ........................................................................................... 4 The Cornerstone ........................................................................................................... 8 Visit to Mesa Verde, 1889. Next General Meeting: November 21, 2011 7:30 p.m., Duval Auditorium, University Medical Center www.az-arch-and-hist.org Page 2 Glyphs: The Monthly Newsletter of . The Arizona Archaeological and Historical Society Page 3 PRESIDENT’S MESSAGE the torch sense is more likely, consid- friend, and she noted that the ocotillo ering the usual sense of ocote in Span- has many ethnographically docu- ish, and of ocotl in Nahuatl. Also, mented uses, including as a medicine y first experience with tury, referred to a torch as much as it another English name for the ocotillo (its roots) and as building material archaeological referred to a kind of tree. M is candlewood (although I have never (its stalks), but apparently not as a fieldwork took place many Like many other Nahuatl-derived heard it used), which was apparently torch (or as firewood, except as a last years ago in rural Honduras, Spanish words (coyote being an- given to the plant because of the waxy resort). Karen did suggest that I just where electricity was gener- other), ocote found its way from cen- coating on its stalks. All of which light a piece of ocotillo and see what ally unavailable and the local people tral Mexico to other parts of the Span- made me wonder if the ocotillo was happens. I haven’t done so yet, but I usually found their way around at ish colony, including the American ever used, historically or prehistori- will soon, and maybe I’ll have an an- night with a torch made from a long Southwest, where its diminutive, oco- cally, as a torch. I checked with Dr. swer. splinter of wood. tillo, later became a part of the local Karen Adams, an archaeobotanist —Scott O’Mack, President The splinter of wood was called English vocabulary as the name of a an ocote, which was also the name for distinctive plant, a plant entirely un- the variety of pine tree it came from. related to pine trees. Ocote wood has a high resin content When I first moved to Tucson from and lights easily with a match, burn- the Midwest about 14 years ago, I AAHS LECTURE SERIES ing steadily and with little smoke, was struck (as most newcomers to All meetings are held at the University Medical Center, Duval Auditorium which makes it a handy, low-budget the Sonoran Desert are) by how dif- Third Monday of the month, 7:30–9:00 p.m. flashlight (it is also great kindling). ferent the vegetation was from just The pleasant aroma of an ocote torch about any other place I had been. The Nov. 21, 2011: James Snead, Relic Hunters: Encounters with Antiquity in 19th will always be connected in my mind ocotillo was one plant that I found Century America with other pleasant memories of early especially interesting, both for its Dec. 19, 2011: Joshua Reuther and Ben Potter, Upward Sun River Site: evenings in the Honduran country- unusual appearance and for that Climate Change, Geoarchaeology, and Human Land Use in Ice side: beans and tortillas cooking over unusual name, which I recognized Age Alaska a fire, a radio tuned to salsa music, as a diminutive of the Spanish ocote. Jan. 16, 2012: David Yetman, The Ópatas: Who They Were and What Became chickens climbing a tree to roost for I have often wondered how the of Them the night. ocotillo got that name. The -illo suffix Later, I began working in central in Spanish is diminutive, changing Feb. 20, 2012: Evelyn Billo, Robert Mark, and Donald E. Weaver, Jr., Sears Mexico and learned that ocote was the the meaning of a noun in the same Point Rock Art and Beyond, Synopsis of the 2008–2012 Spanish version of the Nahuatl word, way that the English adjective “little” Recording Project ocotl, which can refer to a pine tree of does, but it is also pejorative, at least just about any kind, although it is mildly. So, the gist of the Spanish oco- used especially for the kind that tillo seems to be “sorry little excuse makes a good torch. In fact, if you for an ocote.” But which sense of ocote consult a sixteenth-century Nahuatl- was meant by the Spanish speakers SOUTHWEST SYMPOSIUM Spanish dictionary, you’ll find that who dubbed the plant with this ocotl is defined as tea, raja, o astilla de name? Was it seen as a sorry little he 13th biennial Southwest Symposium will be held at the University of pino, “torch, splinter, or chip of pine,” pine tree or a sorry little torch? TNew Mexico, January 14–15, 2012. Four sessions will focus around the and the actual word for pine tree is The pine tree sense for ocotillo is conference theme, “Causation and Explanation: Demography, Movement, His- ocoquauitl, literally “ocotl tree.” In plausible, given the plant’s many torical Ecology.” The conference is hosted by the University of New Mexico other words, the Nahuatl word ocotl, spines, which might have been seen and the Bureau of Land Management. For more information and to register, by itself, at least in the sixteenth cen- as similar to pine needles. But I think please visit www.unm.edu/~swsympos/. Page 4 Glyphs: The Monthly Newsletter of . The Arizona Archaeological and Historical Society Page 5 Speaker James E. Snead is an archaeologist and historian with research interests focusing AAHS HAPPENINGS on the American Southwest. Raised in Santa Fe, he has worked in northern New Mexico TOPIC OF THE NOVEMBER 21 GENERAL MEETING since the late 1980s, conducting archaeological surveys in the Galisteo Basin and adjacent regions. That work was recently published as Ancestral Landscapes of the Pueblo World (University of Arizona Press, 2008). His historical publications include Ruins and Rivals: The Making of Southwest Archaeology (University of Arizona Press, 2001). His cur- Relic Hunters: Encounters with Antiquity in rent research on relic hunting and the public experience with American antiquities in the Nineteenth Century America nineteenth century is funded by the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Re- search. Snead is currently a faculty member in the Department of Anthropology at California by James E. Snead State University, Northridge, and the Acquisitions Editor of Kiva. hen settlers crossed the Appa- or historians, who have been largely Wlachians and moved through concerned with the intellectual de- the Midwest and southern United bates rather than the popular expe- States in the early nineteenth century, rience. Yet the archives of the United UPCOMING AAHS FIELD TRIPS they encountered the ruins and arti- States contain a remarkable body of AAHS membership is required to participate in field trips. Prospective facts left by previous inhabitants at evidence concerning this engage- members may attend one AAHS field trip prior to joining. every turn. Thus, they experienced ment, particularly correspondence Perry Mesa and Deer Valley [with Melissa Kruse-Peeples] their new surroundings as complex from doctors, farmers, merchants, November 5–6, 2011 landscapes already imbued with schoolteachers, and many others re- Perry Mesa is located 50 miles north of Phoenix along the Agua Fria River, “history.” garding their own discoveries of “rel- and was intensely occupied from A.D. 1275 to 1450. Melissa Kruse-Peeples This engagement was almost en- ics” and their interpretations of such will share recent research from the on-going Arizona State University re- tirely distinct from more formal, in- finds. search projects, “Legacies on the Landscape” and “Alliance and Landscape: tellectual approaches to the Native The talk will draw from this vast Perry Mesa in the 14th Century.” The tour will visit Richinbar Ruin, one of American past pursued by eastern sa- body of material to explore the ways the large villages in the region, and the surrounding landscape. vants, a discussion in which mate- in which local people encountered rial evidence often played a periph- the indigenous past in nineteenth This Richinbar area exhibits many of the features that characterize the Perry eral role. As scholars in Philadelphia century America, and how that en- Mesa Tradition, including a large masonry pueblo situated overlooking a framed indigenous origins in terms gagement helped to shape the na- deep canyon, a “racetrack,” agricultural modifications including terrace of historical linguistics and other as- tional experience. alignments and rock piles used for agave production, imported ceramics, sociations, farmers in Ohio were petroglyph panels, and numerous small fieldhouses and farmsteads. plowing up arrowheads and build- We will start the tour on Saturday at 3:00 p.m. at the Deer Valley Rock Art ing their houses a top burial Center for a special viewing of the exhibit, Landscape Legacies: The Art and mounds. Inevitably, this led to dis- Suggested Reading: Archaeology of Perry Mesa, presenting research results, artifacts from Perry tinctive perspectives on the indig- Martinko, Whitney A. Mesa, and photographs by Pat Gorraiz featuring rock art and architecture of enous past, which had important 2009 So Majestic a Monument of Antiq- the region. We will also tour the rock art at Deer Valley. There is a $6.50 cost ramifications for cultural identity and uity: Landscape, Knowledge, and for this portion of the trip. Tucson participants should plan to spend the the American consciousness. Authority in the Early National evening in north Phoenix. The public engagement with this West.