The Preservation of Ourselves
Delilia R. Gonzales
San Ildefonso & Santa Clara Pueblo
The Preservation of Ourselves
Delilia R. Gonzales
San Ildefonso & Santa Clara Pueblo
"Sharing One's Skin: The Okanangan Community"
Armstrong, Jeanette. “Sharing One Skin: The Okanagan Community,” in Jerry Mander and Edward Goldsmith (eds), The Case Against the Global Economy. San Francisco, CA, Sierra Club Books, 1996. Pp 460-470.
Chapter four of Paradigm Wars was a chapter full of many things that referred back to the Okanagan ways of life, community, and nature. She identified herself as the rivers and mountains being a part of her. She then explained how when you are born you are associated and placed into a family or community and that we come last, the community and family come forward ahead of ourselves. In the Okanagan ways, they say that there are four components of an individual: the physical self (your outside self, your physical body), the emotional self (the emotions that you convey), the thinking self (your own personal thoughts), and the spiritual self (your authentic self, you with no patterns). All of these fall back to the Okanagan ways of life and belief that are very common with my own communities and self-beliefs.
"Native American Identity"
Horse, Perry G. “Native American Identity”. New Directions for Student Services,no. 109, © Wildey Periodicals, Inc,2005. Pp. 61-68
“Native American Identity” by Perry G. Horse wrote about various things that refer back to Native identity from mainly a political and social view. He wrote about how his Kiowa grandmother told him that we are basically going to “be like the white people'': he then went on to say how we are being assimilated into the white man ways by speaking English, education, adapted way of government, jobs and also how we are becoming consumers. Perry also refers back to how Native tribes, not individuals, are a sovereign status because the U.S Government has made treaties with tribes and Native Americans. Due to this tribal sovereignty, being Native American also comes with confirmation such as percentage, clans, kinships, descendent status, Indian name, and community-based norms. In his semi-titles of “What Are You Anyways”, goes on to mention Natives that have intertribal multicultural persons and made a statement “A key factor for multicultural people is whether they choose their racial identity themselves or whether they allow society or others to assign an identity to them”.
“Bandelier Preservation Feature”. Youtube, Bandelier National Monument, November 18, 2016. Bandelier Preservation Feature, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uFQitjxL3gc&t=3s
The Youtube video “Bandelier Preservation Feature” is mainly discussing how the workers of the park and park, in general, understand the importance of preservation. Graffiti on the caveats are discussed in the video along with how the park workers “stop it at its root before it can destroy a whole sight” (1:38-1:43). During the Great Depression, Roosevelt had established the CCC (Civilian Conservation Corps) which then made Bandelier able to become a park and an opportunity to build things for people to visit the park such as a road entrance, the visitor centers, and trails. With these buildings and roads being built in 1929, these are also parts of the preservation process. By still trying to retain its old historical features but in certain places adding new mortar, woodwork, and new stones are essential in preserving the features. Also includes how it’s important to teach others the importance of the work and how to do it so that they can be the future preservers of the monument.
National Park Service. “Bandelier National Park: Ancestral Pueblo People”. NPS, History eLibrary. NPS Brochure (2018). http://npshistory.com/publications/band/index.htm
The section “Ancestral Pueblo People” of the article “Bandelier National Park” gives an overview of the people who used to live at Bandelier along with their diet, trading, and traits. The diet of the ancestors who inhabited Bandelier would consist of “native plants and by hunting deer, rabbits, other mammals, and birds”. With the growing of plants by “farmers,” they also had corn, beans, and squash included in their diet. The ancestral people had also traded with others that ranged from Central Mexico and Baja California. Items that were found as evidence of this trading were mainly “shells, turquoise, and parrots”. The traits that were gained were weaving, turkey blanket making, knife making, axes, and mauls. Due to Spanish arrival, the ancestral people of Bandelier had spread out, forming new communities along the Rio Grande.
“The Pueblo Historian”
DOUGLAS W. DODD; Bandelier National Monument. National Park Service. Los Alamos, New Mexico. DARLENE KOONTZ, superintendent.. The Public Historian 1 November 2007; 29 (4): 124–128. doi: https://doi.org/10.1525/tph.2007.29.4.124
The journal article “The Pueblo Historian” gives a brief overview of the history of the Bandelier National Monument and a review of the buildings at the monument. Due to the Antiquities Act of 1906, President Willson was able to create Bandelier National Monument. Before entering the National Park Service in 1933, Bandelier was part of the Santa Fe National Forest. The ruin walls at Bandelier were from the Rio Grande Classic Period which of from 1300 CE to the sixteen century. The buildings such as the visitor center, museum, and bookstore were all built during the CCC (Civilian Conservation Corps) time period and get recognition for being “CCC District National Historic Landmark”
Gonzales, Delilia. Original Photo
Allen, Craig. “A Thousand Years of Landscape Change in the Bandelier Wilderness (Craig Allen)”. Youtube, NCPTT, 2017. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I7t3Xhik_dw
Through my research, I had found the video, “A Thousand Years of Landscape Change in the Bandelier Wilderness (Craig Allen)”. This video was a recorded Zoom meeting on Youtube. Craig Allen was giving a presentation about the changes of the Bandelier Wilderness in a span of 1,000 years. Allen had mainly talked about the Frijolito watershed and surrounding areas. The considered cause for the erosion is the 70’s feral burros that were been introduced to the land. the “PJ Woodlands” which are the pinon and juniper trees have also played a role in the erosion. In the ’80s a survey was conducted. In this survey, there was evidence of 90% of the archaeological sites in the woodlands being damaged by erosion.
Gonzales, Delilia. Original Photo
Haywood, Phaedra. “Study: Bandelier among sites at risk from climate change”. The New Mexican. May 20, 2014 .https://www.santafenewmexican.com/news/local_news/study-bandelier-among-sites-at-risk-from-climate-change/article_99637d26-69fe-54c9-8f4e-c8df6a797ec6.html
The newspaper article that I had found was called “Study: Bandelier among sites at risk from climate change”. This article was published in the New Mexican and talks about how and why the ancestral sites at Bandelier are at risk due to climate change. The increasing erosion, rising seas, and floods which are related to climate change play a role in becoming a major threat in destroying many historical landmarks in the United States. Bandelier National Monument is a part of these historical landmarks at risk due to the “long-term warming trend and as large wildfires and extreme flooding events”. The article gives examples of these large wildfires like the Los Conchas and Cerro Grande Fire. The Cerro Grande fire which happened in 2000 had “damaged 70 percent of the 470 archaeological sites within the boundaries of Los Alamos National Laboratory, including ancestral pueblo structures and wooden homestead buildings”. To help these ancestral sites, the research groups recommend that the U.S cut its carbon emissions which would slow the rate of climate change, and also give “archaeologists, historic preservationists, and land managers more time to protect threatened sites”.
Scholarly article #1- “Fire, Soil, and Preserving History at Bandelier”, National Park Service. December 08,2018. https://www.nps.gov/articles/bandfire.htm
The article “Fire, Soil, and Preserving History at Bandelier” is about the soil erosion, floods, and wildfires that have happened at Bandelier National Monument. In the 1800s, the monument had started to see the growth of pinon and juniper trees which are more flammable than the “native grassland vegetation and wide-spaced trees” that used to cover the land. Due to droughts, the grass that covers the land and gives food to wildlife has lowered. Due to floods, it causes the right “ripe conditions for erosion” and “may increase vegetation growth, which in turn fuels fire”. The droughts also affect the ancestral sites because they become more vulnerable to wildfires and soil erosion. The workers at the park have tried to reduce the effects of climate change by slowing down the process of soil erosion. They have been trying to do this by “reducing the density of trees and using the cut trees as a type of slash mulch to provide an "erosion blanket" on bare soils, producing a three-fold increase in understory grasses, shrubs, and forbs”.
The factors of climate change that are affecting Mesa Verde park and ruins are wildfires and droughts. Even though these factors are normal they have been more intense and harder for ecological recovery. The wildfires are becoming more intense due to the warming temperatures and this causes more of the land to burn to cause a harder recovery of the land. The burning also dominates the vegetation and changes it from “old-growth pinyon-juniper woodland to a grassland”. The droughts of the area of Mesa Verde are common but the droughts over the past decades have been more severe than years before. With the droughts being more severe it results in decreases in “water availability for rivers, springs, wildlife, forests and native plants. In an arid climate, water resources are extremely valuable”.
Air pollution, high temperatures, heavy rainfall, and flooding are the climate change factors that are affecting the stonework and pyramid of Khufu. High temperatures and humidity have been a factor in the cracks and damages to the facades, it was also the cause of color change to the archeological stone. Egyptologist Zahi Hawass had said that he believes in 100 years the countries archeology will be gone due to climate change. Another archaeologist Monica Hanna stated how the Egyptian ancient sites near the Mediterranean Sea will get damaged in the next 30 years due to the rising of seas. The limestone and sandstone blocks that make up the ancient buildings are being eroded due to the air pollution of the country. The flash from cameras, breathing of people, and touching of the ancestral sites have been causing problems in the destruction as well. The country has been trying to preserve these sights by getting money to prevent coastal erosion and placing “protect beaches from higher waves and stop coastal erosion”.
Youtube. (2022). Hadrian's Wall: Climate change threatens ancient Roman structure. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MBTbut8QlFE.
The Hadrian wall is located in Northern Great Britain. The wall was has been standing for 1,900 years. The wall was originally built by the Roman army in 122 AD and expands 118km from the East coast to the West coast of Northern England. However, the warming of temperatures has been making the preservation of the wall more of a challenge. The landscapes of the Hadrian wall are “preserved under peat bog and marsh”. With the warming of temperatures, it is causing the ground to warm up which forces “sensitive areas of soil to cake and collapse and crack, letting oxygen through”. The race between climate change and the preservation of the wall is critical in making sure the wall lasts.