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OTERO MESA CONSERVATION
WEDNESDAY, NOV. 23, 2011
RUIDOSO NEWS • PAGE 7B
Ancestral Apache use of Otero Mesa
COURTESY RICH BEER
Mescalero Apache Twyla Rayne, recent Ruidoso High School
graduate, visits Otero Mesa for spiritual renewal.
T
he ancestral Apache
and contemporaneous mobile peoples
used Otero Mesa and the surrounding basins and mountain
ranges throughout the late prehistoric and historic periods.
Because of its remote
location the mesa represents a special part of the
Apachean landscape. Otero
Mesa possesses some of the
most unique feature types
known for these groups
because of its geographic
placement. The sites and
features identified here
have been instrumental in
understanding the early
presence of Apache in the
Southern Southwest, in
identifying new uniquely
Apache feature types, and
isolating changes in rock art
through time. The landscape is fragile, its features
rare, its remoteness astonishing.
As seventeenth-century
Spanish settlers looked
north from their riverside
settlements they saw flickers of light in the surrounding mountains. Though no
brighter than the stars in
the clear desert sky, they
were far more ominous
because these settlers knew
what they represented: fires
in the encampments of the
enemy — the Apache and
their allies.
Beyond these mountains
lay Otero Mesa, situated in
the heart of Apache territory. This mesa and the adjacent mountains remained
beyond the normal view of
the Europeans, seen only
rarely, perhaps during one
of the rare Spanish-led military campaigns aimed at
dispatching these enemies.
Apache history
The mesa was used as a
trail between the Rio
Grande and Hueco
Mountains to the south, and
the Sacramento Mountains
on the north. Remnants of
these trails are seen in the
trail markers that chart the
way north, visible only to
the attuned eye.
This is the heartland
where the Apache gathered
causing the Spanish and
Americans to wonder what
to do about the renegades.
The Apache and their
allies also sat in council
attempting to summon their
powers to offset the magic of
the enemy intruders. Large
settlements representing
situational gathering places
for many bands are known
in the ranges, including the
Cerro Rojo Site where over
200 houses have been documented. On a daily basis,
however, these mobile people resided in much smaller
settlements, the vestiges of
which have been identified
along the mesa.
COURTESY DR. DENI SEYMOUR
Dr. Deni Seymour below the magnificent Apache Wind Spirits Petroglyh on Otero Mesa.
Shelters, storage
The escarpment of Otero
Mesa represents a rough
edge to the flat terrain,
exposing ragged limestone
strata as it falls off into the
Tularosa Basin on the west.
Voids in the limestone
layers served as rock shelters used by many different
people over the millennia,
from the earliest of
PaleoIndian times to the
recent historic past. For the
Apache these rock shelters
were put to special use.
Some protected burials,
while others shielded the
weary traveler and their
fires on cold windy nights.
Still other crevices were
used for storage. Sources
tell us that the Apache
stored their ceremonial
paraphernalia as well as
food and supplies in rock
shelters. Being mobile, they
would return at a later time
to retrieve the stored goods,
perhaps in a time of shortage or after their encampment was attacked and all
possessions and food
destroyed.
Yet until archaeological
work was conducted on
Otero Mesa over the last
decade we did not know
that they constructed
unique storage platforms.
These special types of storage platforms were first
identified and dated here on
Otero Mesa where they
were preserved owing to
their remoteness from mod-
COURTESY NIRMAL KHADAN
One of hundreds of Apache Petroglyphs found on Otero Mesa.
ern populations. The isolation of the area allowed for
these types of features
because the Apache could
return to these locations,
assured that their caches
remained untouched by outsiders.
Since then, more of these
storage platforms that were
used by the Mescalero and
Chiricahua Apache have
been identified across the
Southwest.
Chronometric dates place
them as early as the late
AD 1200s or early 1300s.
Direct associations of these
storage platforms with
Apachean rock art (mountain spirit images) and plain
Apache pottery provide further substantiation of their
cultural affiliation and providing the needed evidence
for understanding the earliest presence of the Apache
in this region. These features, first identified on
Otero Mesa, have been
instrumental in tracing the
early presence of the ancestral Apache in the southern
Southwest. Who knows
what other secrets this
landscape holds?
Petroglyphs
Portions of Otero Mesa
are dotted with mountains.
The Cornudas Mountains
including Alamo Mountain
possess evidence of intensive and repeated use by a
variety of groups, including
the Apache, as dense as
any in the region.
Temporary houses, barely discernable as outlines
on the mountain slope or
adjacent to boulders and
rock shelters, provide evidence of their stay. Apache
pottery and tools distinguish specific hut outlines
from those used by earlier
Jornada populations.
Nearby, and scattered
across the slopes, are characteristically Apache petroglyphs.
Pecked images of wind
gods and horned god representations are among the
depictions that identify
these with the Apache.
These images indicate this
was a special place for the
Apache.
The Apache rock art
found across Otero Mesa
has been important for
understanding changes
through time in the symbolic representations depicted
on rock faces. The numerous panels provide
respectable sample sizes for
comparing geographic differences in styles and symbolism.
These wind gods and
horned god representations
COURTESY EDWARD S. CURTIS
An Apache girl in her Coming of Age ceremonial buckskin.
are uniquely Apache but we
are learning that they seem
only characteristic of the
Apache of the east—those
on the plains and mesas,
where, as settlers through
the ages have known, the
winds were the force to be
reckoned with. Apaches to
the west, who inhabited the
mountains, pecked mountain spirits into rocks.
Rock art depictions that
may be indicative of the
non-Apache mobile groups,
the Manso and Jumano,
are in evidence as well, representing the first known
depictions made by these
groups.
This should be no surprise, however, because
everyone in the prehistoric
and historic past came to
these remote mountains.
Whether it was to rest temporarily at the base of
Alamo Mountain to change
out the horses that pulled
the Butterfield Stage along
the dusty and treacherous
trail or to hide in safety
from pursuing Spanish cavalry, the mountains provided respite.
Today they do the same,
providing refuge for the
weary soul, the remoteness
providing solace in a way
few other circumstances
can.
Dr Deni Seymour is a
life-long resident of the wild
West, an archaeologist,
author, award-winning
photographer, and successful business person. As an
archaeologist she has studied the Apache and contemporaneous groups throughout the Southwest for more
than a quarter century. She
has worked with the oil and
gas and mining industries,
governmental and environmental agencies, and
founded and directed a
successful cultural resource
firm for a decade. Now she
is an independent
researcher, working fulltime on the challenging
issues surrounding the
identification and understanding of protohistoric
and historic Native
American groups. She is
also an author of a couple
dozen articles in referred
journals and three books,
including one on Apache
migration to the Southwest
which will be out next year.
For more information on
Otero Mesa or if you would
like to become an active in
protecting it, visit
www.oteromesa.org.