Ancient Dwelling Wonders of Walnut Canyon National Monument

Walnut Canyon National Monument is a twenty-mile long, 400-feet deep, and one fourth-mile wide canyon, sitting about twenty minutes outside of flagstaff, AZ. Beside the sheer size of the canyon, one other distinguishing factor makes this site fascinating. There are well-preserved ancient homes belonging to the ancestors of the Hopi, or better known as the Puebloans, that lie nestled into long horizontal cracks in the canyon walls. These dwellings are made accessible to visitors by a one and half mile long, concrete hiking trail that has been paved around and even through some of the homes.

One of the most significant markings of the Hopi and Puebloan people was their ability to live and farm in such a waterless region. One of the techniques

The cultural ecology of the Puebloans has been somewhat lost, especially in regards to what religion they may have followed or any ceremonial-type rituals that held significance to how they adapted to their particular circumstances. However, their close decedents, the Hopi, are still very much alive and have passed down chunks of this information for generations. One of the most obvious similarities, which occurs in many Native American tribes, is the act of planting corn, squash, and beans together. The Hopi’s entire culture, including ceremonies, rituals, and even language is centered on corn. The Hopi are deeply religious people and they use different forms of corn, either ground, whole, or partially ground, as offerings that they throw into the air and spread in the four cardinal directions before each ritual. They also include lexicon in their language that refers to things in terms of corn, and make dolls for children from corn husks, called “Kachinas,” that could be considered the Hopi equivalent of super heroes mixed with religious entities, as each one has a special symbolic significance and they serves as role models for the children. With the significance of the corn plant in the Hopi’s religious activities,

We know that the Hopi are a deeply religious group of Native Americans so it is safe to assume that their ancestors may have also been deeply religious. This would make sense in terms of cultural ecology as well, because it seems unlikely that any kind of human would be able to survive the harsh and arid desert environment without some form of adaptation to cope with the stresses of it, which is what the Hopi’s use their ceremonies for in some