Table of Contents
The film Mystic Lands presents the Anasazi as the Ancient Ones of the Four Corners. Their stone towns were left more than seven centuries ago. In December 1888 rancher Richard Wetherill and Charlie Mason, hunting cattle above Mesa Verde, found Cliff Palace in a blizzard. Navajo speech uses Anasazi for that culture, glossed as the ancient ones, while Pueblo communities had long called themselves descendants. On screen the culture runs about a thousand years, from about 100 to 1300, then many towns empty within a century. One estimate reaches 30,000 people between Hovenweep and Mesa Verde. Chaco Canyon appears as a possible ceremonial center, with long roads and few graves. Tree rings are cited for a drought from 1276 to 1299 and a move toward the Rio Grande. Pueblo speakers, including Joe Sando, tell of emerging from an underworld through a sipapu, and of spirits still in the ruins. Navajo herder Marjorie Thomas says pots must be left where they lie. The film gives that account of the Ancient Ones. It does not rewrite any people living now.
Key points
- The film stages Cliff Palace as a discovery by Richard Wetherill and Charlie Mason during a December 1888 blizzard.
- It says Navajo speech names these builders the Anasazi, the ancient ones, and that Pueblo communities have long claimed descent.
- The dates it offers run from about the year 100 to about 1300, with many towns emptied inside a century.
- A late thirteenth century drought, a search for a sacred center, and roads into Chaco Canyon are all set out as ways to think about the leaving.
- Pueblo and Navajo speakers in the film treat the ruins as spirit places, not as abandoned goods.
Short quotes
their Discovery became known as The Cliff Palace ruins
Georgine Clarke, Mystic Lands on the Anasazi the Ancient Ones
The film names the snowbound stone city found by the two ranchers in 1888. Watch at 3:16
most scholars believe the civilization lasted for more than a millennium from roughly 100 AD to 1300 ad
Georgine Clarke, Mystic Lands on the Anasazi the Ancient Ones
That is the long span the narration gives before the towns were left. Watch at 6:44
you don't pick up the broken pottery because it's not made for you
Marjorie Thomas, Mystic Lands on the Anasazi the Ancient Ones
A Navajo herder in the film says the sherds still belong to the people of the ruins. Watch at 16:06
the smell of campfires and the laughter of children have been gone from the ruins of the Anasazi for nearly 8 centuries
Georgine Clarke, Mystic Lands on the Anasazi the Ancient Ones
The narration puts the everyday life of those towns almost eight centuries in the past. Watch at 23:03
Video by Georgine Clarke. Watch on YouTube.