For a time, I was in a relationship with a Cherokee woman, who taught me much about the Native American culture. We would attend monthly meetings of Native peoples in and around the Denver area, where we would discuss local happenings, work on projects, drum, and dance. We attended several local and national Pow-Wows, where Native tribes from all over the Northern Hemisphere and beyond came to celebrate, have rodeos, sell their crafts, jewelry, clothing, and drums of every size and tone. Each tribe would proudly represent their colors, designs, and specific drumming tones and sounds.

The Anasazi, or “Ancient Ones,” are the tribe of Native Americans who lived in the high, over-hanging cliffs in southwestern Colorado (Mesa Verde) and southeastern Utah (Hovenweep), along the Colorado Plateau. From approximately AD 100 to 1600, they were initially a nomadic tribe but as time progressed, adopting an agricultural system, they settled into the cliff-side homes. The Anasazi built their dwellings under overhanging cliffs to protect them from the elements as well as from marauding tribes, who couldn't negotiate the cliffs. There, they employed a wide variety of means to grow high-yield crops in areas of low rainfall. Eventually, the Anasazi left their cliff homes due to overpopulation and diminishing resources, and moved to new territories, perhaps along the Rio Grande and on the Hopi mesas. Today’s Pueblo Indians are thought to be descendants of the Anasazi.

Today, the area is rich with historical museums, where modern day peoples can explore Mesa Verde and Hovenweep, where the parks protect nearly 5,000 known archeological sites, including 600 cliff dwellings. These sites are some of the most notable and best preserved in the United States.


Sounds include:
Native flute music by two different floutists, one of which recorded during a thunder storm, and a brood of cicadas.
The voices here are “high-quality copies of original nitrate optical Hollywood sound effects from the 1930s & 40s, transferred to full-track tape in the early 1970s, then digitized for preservation” by craigsmith for Freesound.

Credits:
Thanks to Freesound uploaders chromelibrarian, tiredoldwhiteman, rtb45, and craigsmith.

All artwork © 2020 Samuel Bissell