Touching Stone​​​ Gallery
Santa Fe, New Mexico USA
Tonto National Monument Pastel on paper Akiko Hirano
Salado
Akiko Hirano & Tim Wong
Kuro-e felt so small next to the giant saguaro cacti towering over her. She was walking up a modern paved ramp towards the Tonto National Monument, an impressive complex of 800-year-old cliff dwellings northeast of Phoenix, Arizona. The brow of the large alcove was studded with saguaro stems like stubble on an unshaved chin. The path took her to a large area that looked like an open courtyard. It was actually the ground floor of the outer row of two-story rooms, their roofs and walls long gone. The remaining wall at the left corner still had wood beams that once supported the second floor. Loopholes on the wall watched over the original entrance at that corner. Anyone entering would have to climb up a ladder and end up in an antechamber guarded by a small interior room. The arrangement reminded her of the bansho - guard station in Japanese samurai castles. She imagined the room might be manned by a guard. The way out of the antechamber was through a second door that entered sideways into a corridor. Along that corridor, small doors opened into a series of bigger living quarters surrounding a large community room. In its original form, the whole complex was hidden behind the outer row of two-story rooms, invisible from the outside, offering security for the many resident families.
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The 13th century was a time of great upheaval in the American Southwest. Prolonged drought and conflicts forced Anasazi to abandon their homes all around the Four Corners. Waves of migrants moved southward in search of arable land. The lucky ones found receptive Mogollon or Hohokam populations along the Salt River and integrated into the local populations. From about 1250 to 1400 AD, the Tonto Basin became a cultural melting pot, creating a distinctive vibrant culture called Salado (Spanish for Salt).
Besh-Ba-Gowah Ruin entrance Photo Tim Wong
Salado culture reached its pinnacle towards the latter half of the 13th century, when more people moved farther south to hospitable lands along Salt River and its tributary Pinal Creek. Besh-Ba-Gowah and Gila Pueblo were two large Salado communities near the present town of Globe, Arizona. Each boasted an estimated size of two to four hundred rooms. Kuro-e visited the Besh-Ba-Gowah ruin, now an archaeological park. Walking through the entrance, she tried to imagine what it was like during its heydays, when that entrance was a long covered tunnel that extended deep into the pueblo’s central plaza. Whether for defense or for ceremonial purposes, entering this pueblo through that long dark tunnel must have been an awe-inspiring experience. The plaza was a busy place then, crowded with people trading, cooking over open fire pits, making tools and pottery. Salado polychrome pottery with elaborate red-and-black designs was inspired by both Anasazi and Mimbres traditions. Archaeologists found bone tools, cotton fabrics, sandals made from yacca fibers, Mexican copper bells, and shell ornaments from the Gulf of California, suggesting an extensive trading network.
Salado polychrome pottery Photo Tim Wong
For almost two centuries, both Besh-Ba-Gowah and Gila Pueblo flourished, attracting more and more migrants from the north. By the end of the 14th century, competition for resources led to escalating conflicts. When war finally broke out, Besh-Ba-Gowah residents attacked Gila Pueblo, slaughtering everyone and burning the pueblo to the ground. Salado culture collapsed. The people abandoned the whole area and migrated again, some to Zuni Pueblo, others to present day Mexico.​
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Fear of hostility might explain why some migrants chose to live in the remote rugged canyons below the Mogollon Rim, far from any established communities. Devil’s Chasm is a steep and narrow canyon draining into Cherry Creek, a tributary of Salt River. The sheer cliffs of dark jagged rocks give the canyon a mysterious foreboding feeling. Yet on a narrow ledge 2,000-ft above Cherry Creek, Salado people built a fortress-like complex of cliff dwellings sometime after 1280 AD, when Anasazi abandoned their Four Corners homeland en masse. This cliff dwelling is a marvel of ancient engineering, blending perfectly with the curvature of the cliff. The exterior walls sit on the very edge of the narrow shelf to fully use the tight space. Protected by sheer cliffs on all sides, there is no space to walk around the buildings outside the front walls. The five two-story rooms are arranged in a row with small interior doors connecting one room to the next like train cars. The tallest structure is a 2-story round tower with a curved outer wall that matches the bulge of the cliff. Wood beams supporting the upper floors are still in place, smoke-blackened by woodfires. Broken metates and corncobs lie in the corners. These were homes for several families. The last room has a door opening to a precarious dead-end ledge hundreds of feet above the canyon floor, offering an unobstructed view of the approach up the canyon.
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Kuro-e contemplated the efforts to haul all the timber and stones up that cliff to build the dwellings. Trekking up and down this canyon is a strenuous endeavor over steep rugged terrains choked with dagger-sharp cacti and catclaws, made even more difficult and treacherous by poison ivy and rattle snakes. The daily chores of getting food and water from there must be risky undertakings, not to mention raising a family with young children. What would have caused people to make such extraordinary efforts to build their homes to live in such an inaccessible and inhospitable place? It must be overwhelming fear. Devil’s Chasm looks like a refuge for desperate people running away from danger, a sanctuary for people who had lost all trust of people and did not want to be found. Who were these people? Where did they come from and where did they go? Tree-ring dating indicated the dwellings were built in a relatively short time. After all the efforts to build their home here, they lived here for just about a generation before they abandoned the canyon, leaving behind an enigma that may never be solved.
Devil's Chasm Ruin Pastel on paper Akiko Hirano