Mesa Verde Voices Season 3 // Episode 5: The Trade of Color Part II: Feathers Episode Transcript

Lyle Balenquah: in order to understand meaning to a group of people, you have to know something about where they're at today.

We’re agriculturalists. We’re corn farmers by tradition, and we're dry farmers, meaning that for the most part, we don't irrigate.

So moisture is a huge part of our necessity.

Much like the seashell, you know, parrot and Macaw feathers, again, where do those originate from? They’re metaphors.

They represent moisture coming from some great body of water out there coming to replenish our land.

And it's like a silent prayer advocating that moisture come to this dry area.

Kayla Woodward: This is Mesa Verde Voices. A podcast connecting modern people to the people who lived around Mesa Verde hundreds of years ago.

I'm your host, Kayla Woodward.

In this season, we're talking all about trade. This episode is the second in a series we're calling The Trade of Color. We're talking about 3 different items all associated with something very precious in the desert: water. Those items are seashells, feathers, and turquoise.

Today, we're focusing on feathers.

Jonathan Till: Cords are we talking about? One, two, three, four, five, six, seven,

Kayla Woodward: And it was a particular artifact made of feathers that brought me to the Edge of the Cedars Museum in Utah.

Jonathan Till: there might've been 12 chords. So we're looking at the, uh, the apron, the Macaw feather apron, and, you can clearly see that we've got cords of feathers.

Kayla Woodward: Again, this is Jonathan Till -

Jonathan Till: I'm the Curator of Collections at the Edge of the Cedar State Park Museum. I'm also an archeologist.

Kayla Woodward: When I think about the desert of the southwest, a tropical bird is definitely not the first thing that comes to mind. Jonathan Till: It was, uh, found well to the North of here, North of the Abajo Mountains, so butting up, into, Canyonlands country.

Kayla Woodward: So the story goes that in the 1950s, there was an outfitter by the name of

Jonathan Till: Kent Frost, uh, one of the early Outfitters, out here,

Kayla Woodward: he was leading some clients through the Canyonlands region. And they stopped in an alcove

Jonathan Till: and they went to sweep a spot to sit down and they saw a flash of color and kept sweeping.

Kayla Woodward: And this flash of color ended up being an incredible find! It is referred to today as the macaw feather apron -

Jonathan Till: It's a multi color, uh, object, with lots of flashy orange and red. And then some spectacular blues there in contrast to the orange. These feathers are from Scarlet macaws. It is about, oh, about eight inches wide, and Oh, gosh, foot and a half long or so,

Kayla Woodward: It's made up of 11 of these thick cords with macaw feathers wrapped around each one - although it seems that there used to be 12.

Jonathan Till: and, they are so patterned so that most of it is a red or orange. And then there is a, Oh, just a very simple emblem of that, flashy blue, in the middle of it all.

Kayla Woodward: And then on each end, it has a tie made of squirrel hide

Jonathan Till: My bet is that that those were actually the tie that would have helped, suspend, the, uh, apron from somebody's, hips, pelvis.

Kayla Woodward: - So back to the story -

Jonathan Till: The, uh, apron went with the client back to California is what I'm told.

Kayla Woodward: but fortunately

Jonathan Till: Mr. Frost thought about that and, wrote the client, said, hey, could we get that item back here. It belongs here. And, uh, that forward thinking person agreed and she sent it back.

Kayla Woodward: From there, the apron spent some time on exhibit, and some time in a safety deposit box until

Jonathan Till: Mr. Frost, uh, donated it to the Edge of the Cedar State Park Museum. So all that to say is that, it was a good news story in that this really precious and very remarkable artifact came back at least close to, where, it had had a home for probably at least 800 years.

Kayla Woodward: So where did these feathers come from? And the many other macaw feathers found throughout the Mesa Verde region? Louie Garcia: My name is Louis Garcia. I am Tiwa and Piro Pueblo. I'm an educator and traditional Pueblo Weaver.

Kayla Woodward: You may remember Louie's voice from the episode about cacao.

Louie was born and raised in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and his wife

Louie Garcia: She's Nahuatl from the state of Morelos in Mexico.

Kayla Woodward: The Nahuatl people are descendants from the ancient Aztecs.

Louie Garcia: so the Nahuatl language, that's N-A-H-U-A-T-L, is also known as the Aztec language. Today it's the largest indigenous language group of Mesoamerica, of Mexico.

Kayla Woodward: Quick trivia fact: you've probably used some Nahuatl words already today; the Spanish borrowed many Nahuatl words that were later absorbed into English - things like avocado, chocolate, coyote, and guacamole.

And the ancestors of the Nahuatl people are one group who would have been trading with the folks in the Mesa Verde region.

Louie Garcia: The pochtecas, which were Mesoamerican traders, were coming into the Southwest to bring trade items and technologies.

And so, there was most likely a trade language, or a pidgin, that allowed these early traders to communicate with members of other language groups to create an effective trade system.

Kayla Woodward: Just like how we use some of those Nahuatl words in English today, Ancestral Pueblo communities and these Mesoamerican communities were sharing words to be able to trade all these items we've been talking about.

Turns out, Louie is something of a modern-day pochteca - participating in the trade of cacao, shells, and feathers.

Louie Garcia: The feather trade today is, is still a very important part of the culture and history of both Mesoamerica and the Pueblo Southwest, and having a foot in each of those worlds kind of gives me an advantage because I'm able to travel back and forth.

Kayla Woodward: Now just a quick note here: The Migratory Bird Treaty Act makes it illegal to trade or sell any migratory bird, its feathers, nests, or eggs without a proper federal permit. And for tribal community members, such as Louie, there is an exemption.

Today, Louie has 2 birds - a Scarlet macaw and a small Amazon parrot.

Louie Garcia: I always wanted to have a macaw because of their importance in our Pueblo culture, as well as the Mesoamerican culture.

Kayla Woodward: Louie's cultural knowledge of the Pueblo world and Nahuatl world paired with his first-hand technical knowledge in raising a Scarlet macaw and using its feathers, made him the perfect person to help answer some of these questions about how the Ancestral Pueblo people may have been getting the feathers for things such as the macaw feather apron at Edge of the Cedars Museum.

Louie Garcia: So what I think is that most likely the traders, or the pochtecas, were bringing these birds up as chicks. When they're hand raised, they become very docile as opposed to a bird that has been wild caught as an adult, those are the birds that'll take off a finger and they're very mean and almost impossible to handle.

And, I think that our ancestors or some of you know, the early, people, especially in the Northern Mexico region understood that.

Lyle Balenquah: Whether or not these birds were traded as eggs or as chicks or as live birds or as fully mature birds, you know, there's some debate or discussion on, on that whole issue.

Kayla Woodward: Again, that's Hopi archaeologist, Lyle Balenquah.

Lyle Balenquah: We do know that there were areas in the Southwest, particularly in Northern Mexico that were more probably breeding these birds.

There's evidence that they had established pens that they were raising parrots and macaws in.

So it may have been, you know, one or two or a small group of individuals who were solely dedicated to raising these birds.

Louie Garcia: The Casa Grandes region would probably have been the first stop of those Mesoamerican traders coming up into the Southwest, and it's kinda like the entryway into the Southwest.

Kayla Woodward: Casas Grandes is about 180 miles southwest of present day El Paso, Texas.

Lyle Balenquah: We see on some pottery, particularly from, from Southern New Mexico, they had very elaborate designs and almost like daily life scenes painted on their ceramics. And in some of those ceramics we see individuals transporting birds in, in what are probably cages.

You know, there's that kind of real life evidence in terms of, you know, being visually portrayed of an individual, moving birds around. And so, you know, we definitely know that this was a specialized skill, you know, that somebody had, and it probably just wasn't your everyday person.

Kayla Woodward: And from there, these traders would likely have done one of two things:

One - perhaps they kept the bird at these breeding centers to continue breeding, or

Two - they would have wanted to trade them before the time that the birds reached maturity. This is because macaws tend to imprint on humans. Louie Garcia: Because in the wild these birds mate for life, and so it's usually from the time of sexual maturity and adulthood that they will have solidified that bond. Between five and 10 years old is when something like as big as a macaw would reach sexual maturity. And so that's the reason why they imprint is because they do have a lifetime mating bond.

Kayla Woodward: So we find evidence that places in northern Mexico were centers for keeping adult macaws - but that's still pretty far from somewhere like the Four Corners.

Jonathan Till: You know, it's quite possible that Chaco as a center place, would have had more access to things macaw, for example, or down at a Wupatki outside of Flagstaff. Wupatki is probably the greatest source of macaws in the Northern Southwest.

We don't have that many examples of them, a hundred to 150 of them, but I'd say probably, you know, half to a quarter of, of all macaws are found at Wupatki.

Kayla Woodward: Once the chicks have been traded to their final home, have reached maturity, and are able to grow these bright desirable feathers, how did folks go about acquiring the feathers from the bird? Were they plucking them?

Louie Garcia: It's hard to say. I mean there's definitely a way to tell if the feather was allowed to mature on the bird or whether it was plucked prematurely.

But what I can say as a bird owner, myself and just from experience is that the birds are very noble and very social, and they get angry. So they have very strong beaks. And if you ever have handled a parrot and have been bit by a parrot, you know what that is. I mean they break walnuts open like sunflower seeds. That’s not a bird that I want them pluck a feather out you know?

Kayla Woodward: So luckily for the birds, it seems that likely the easiest method is just waiting for the feathers to fall out naturally.

Louie Garcia: Twice annually, the birds will molt their feathers. So, anytime they drop feathers, then I'll just pick 'em up as I'm feeding them or cleaning up after them.

So it would just make more sense, to just wait for the feathers to fall out naturally, and if they're kept in an adequate space with enough room then those feathers will not get damaged.

Kayla Woodward: It seems most likely that these small groups or individuals that would have specialized in raising these birds would then, just like Louie does today, gather feathers as they naturally fall out, and then make scheduled visits to other communities to trade them.

Louie Garcia: And so I'll be collecting them and save them up. And then, whenever we go to a Feast Day or if we go out to Hopi, then, we'll go visit our, our friends and individuals that we know may need feathers, either for their art, or for ceremonial use.

And I think that it was very much like that prehistorically as well. And I think very likely they were on a schedule. So they kind of knew when certain ceremonies or things were going to be happening. So that trade was so very important on many different levels, from the most basic on a survival level all the way up to, you know, an aesthetic level and ceremonial level.

So, you know, I'm definitely living the life of a Pueblo man and continuing with the tradition of our ancestors today. So that's something that's very special that I am very proud of and being able to participate in and continue on in that tradition.

Kayla Woodward: Louie shared his experience as a modern day trader, and the trade and use of those items still takes place at Hopi, today.

Lyle Balenquah: It's not relegated to prehistory. I think probably every Hopi family has their own collection of parrot feathers, seashell ornaments, things that we use in the ceremony.

And I think a lot of them are, are mostly, you know, relegated to ceremonial, religious needs. They’re not necessarily worn; at least feathers aren't worn every day. So they still have that same use as our ancestors used them.

There’s that silent metaphor of moisture associated with it, but also the bright colors. We talk about the landscape that these feathers that these birds originate from, they're full of colors, bright colors, the landscape itself. And so that's, you know, the metaphor for vibrant landscapes.

Louie Garcia: I mean the feathers themselves are so beautiful and very sought after in a, dry desert environment. So they were able to acquire these very bright colors and feathers that were very beautiful to be used in ceremony. So it just added another layer of the power that the men were able to create in the kiva to bring the rain.

Kayla Woodward: Mesa Verde Voices is a production of KSJD Community Radio in Cortez, Colorado. It is created in collaboration with Mesa Verde National Park and funded by the Mesa Verde Museum Association and a matching grant from the National Park Service. Special thanks to Robert Dobry, Cindy Cooperider, and Baley Springmeyer for your help in research for this episode, and a huge thanks to Lyle Balenquah, Jonathan Till, and Louie Garcia for sharing your stories with us.

Our show is produced and edited by me, Kayla Woodward, with engineering help from Robert Woodward.

Our music is by David Merulla.

For photos of the macaw feather apron, check us out on Instagram or Facebook, or visit our website - mesaverdevoices.org. Also be sure to check out Edge of the Cedars State Park Museum on Facebook - they are always sharing great photos of their collections.

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Thank you for listening.