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This is a provocative documentary about the Chacoan people, the ancestors of the Pueblo Indians. The film suggests that the Chacoans possessed advanced astronomical knowledge which they expressed in the design of their buildings and road systems in northwestern New Mexico. Leaving no written record, no one knows how they possessed such instinctive understanding of the universe. The film disputes the traditional view that Chaco Canyon was purely a trade center. Instead, it theorizes that Chaco Canyon was a manifestation of the Chacoans affinity with the cosmos and desire to reflect it on earth.
Some of the indigenous peoples of the Americas reflected the cycles of the sun, the moon and other celestial bodies in the precise geometric design of their buildings. One of the best examples of this is the Chacoans. Scientists speculate that many ancient rock carvings are pictorial depictions of events in the night sky which perplexed inhabitants of the Americas hundreds of years ago. Some astronomers theorize that these carvings correspond to specific astronomical events, such as the 1054 Supernova and Haley’s Comet. One of the most famous of these petrographs is the star, moon and hand, below which are three circles with trailing red flames. Regardless of their supposed lack of sophistication, Native Americans possessed an uncanny knowledge of astronomy that scientists today cannot explain. Click the link http://www.astronomy.pomona.edu/archeo/outside/chaco/nebula.html for a close-up image and discussion of the star, moon and hand petrograph.
Anthropology Professor, Jack Weatherford, Macalister College, St. Paul, MN.
Sums it up this way:
“Not until humanity encounters
another form of intelligent life
somewhere in space
will there be anything comparable
in its effect to the discovery
of the American Indian “New World”
by the European “Old World”.”
I agree with this quotation except for the word “discovery” in the fifth line. I prefer the word “encounter.” Each group encountered the other. The effect on the indigenous peoples was no less dramatic than the effect on the Europeans when this encounter occurred. As each group pre-existed, one group could not discover the other. The choice of the word “discovery” to define this encounter is egocentric from the white European perspective.
We tend to think European because the dominant culture in this country is European. Regardless of the ethnicity of our ancestors, we are indelibly influenced by this pervasive culture, established hundreds of years ago by European immigrants, explorers and others. Our European roots run deep, including the tendency of a “conquering” people to regard themselves as superior to the people they have subdued. “The victors write the history” is a common saying. The implications of this are far-reaching, most notably in the prejudice and stereotyping found in school textbooks, the manner in which indigenous peoples are portrayed in all forms of the media, including movies, books and plays, and the repeated breaking of treaties by the U.S. government. The indigenous peoples are the true first explorers and inhabitants of this land, and deserve to be respected as such. So much of their diverse and complex history and culture has already been lost, never to be recaptured. The “conquering” people can just as easily become the conquered. Civilizations come into existence, prosper, and ultimately disappear, sometimes through the intrusion of outside forces. We are no less vulnerable than the people we overran hundreds of years ago.
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