Hualapai and Navajo Cultural Exhibits
Grand Canyon Skywalk - Mon, 14 Sep 2020, 12:30pm
At the Grand Canyon Skywalk after we toured the skywalk itself- which really didn't take that long; frankly I felt a bit underwhelmed after all the buildup and money and time spent getting here- we toured the cultural exhibits at the park. Those at least, unlike photographs on the skywalk, didn't cost extra.
The skybridge is on Hualapai land, so it's fitting that the first exhibit of traditional housing is a Hualapai wikiup. Natives in the midwestern plains built teepees covered with stretched fabrics. Those are often mistaken as customary of all Indians. Out here in the southwest native people used the same conical structure (it's architecturally sound) but built it mostly out of logs. They then covered it with boughs as shown in the next exhibit:
Curiously the exhibit here features Navajo construction as well. The Navajo traditions are similar, yet different. Here's a Navajo sweat lodge:
Notice the mudding used around the wooden beams of the conical structure. The natural dirt is a great insulator to hold in the heat of a fire to create a sweat lodge for cleansing. These were built large, so that many people could occupy them simultaneously.
Navajo houses are called hogans. I've heard Navajo speakers pronounce it /hoo'' gan/ (long emphasis on the oo sound). A traditional hogan has a simple construction that doesn't require a huge amount of tools or sophistications. Sawn trunks are lined up vertically at the same height, then beams are layed along them. Layers of beams are layed in a chord pattern, creating the start of a dome-like shape for the roof. Then, beams are layed straight across for the flat top of the roof, and the whole thing is covered with dirt/mud for insulation. While the mudding works well for keeping heat in when there's a fire inside, as with the sweat lodges, it also works well for keeping the heat out during hot summer days. It was over 90F (32° C) outside in the sun when we visited but pleasantly cool inside this hogan.
Another exhibit talked about the 4 aspects of Hualapai life, each of which is represented by an animal. The eagle represents spirituality and medicine. We didn't see an actual eagle in the area, though we did spot at least one red-tailed hawk:
The quadrant of spirituality and medicine represented by the eagle is also represented by the color black. Eagles aren't black; they're medium brown (at least golden eagles are, and they're the type of eagle native to this area) but these birds are black:
This common raven let us get a lot closer to it than the red-tailed hawk did. That's likely because ravens are omnivores that will pick at just about anything, including scraps and trash left behind by humans. The birds hang out close by people hoping for a freebie. Meanwhile, that hawk doesn't want anything we're likely to drop (it wants fresh, raw meat) so it's not going to come begging from us unless it has been habituated to do that. Ravens, as members of the Corvid genus, are also very intelligent. Corvids display problem-solving capability and tool use.
At the Grand Canyon Skywalk after we toured the skywalk itself- which really didn't take that long; frankly I felt a bit underwhelmed after all the buildup and money and time spent getting here- we toured the cultural exhibits at the park. Those at least, unlike photographs on the skywalk, didn't cost extra.
The skybridge is on Hualapai land, so it's fitting that the first exhibit of traditional housing is a Hualapai wikiup. Natives in the midwestern plains built teepees covered with stretched fabrics. Those are often mistaken as customary of all Indians. Out here in the southwest native people used the same conical structure (it's architecturally sound) but built it mostly out of logs. They then covered it with boughs as shown in the next exhibit:
Curiously the exhibit here features Navajo construction as well. The Navajo traditions are similar, yet different. Here's a Navajo sweat lodge:
Notice the mudding used around the wooden beams of the conical structure. The natural dirt is a great insulator to hold in the heat of a fire to create a sweat lodge for cleansing. These were built large, so that many people could occupy them simultaneously.
Navajo houses are called hogans. I've heard Navajo speakers pronounce it /hoo'' gan/ (long emphasis on the oo sound). A traditional hogan has a simple construction that doesn't require a huge amount of tools or sophistications. Sawn trunks are lined up vertically at the same height, then beams are layed along them. Layers of beams are layed in a chord pattern, creating the start of a dome-like shape for the roof. Then, beams are layed straight across for the flat top of the roof, and the whole thing is covered with dirt/mud for insulation. While the mudding works well for keeping heat in when there's a fire inside, as with the sweat lodges, it also works well for keeping the heat out during hot summer days. It was over 90F (32° C) outside in the sun when we visited but pleasantly cool inside this hogan.
Another exhibit talked about the 4 aspects of Hualapai life, each of which is represented by an animal. The eagle represents spirituality and medicine. We didn't see an actual eagle in the area, though we did spot at least one red-tailed hawk:
The quadrant of spirituality and medicine represented by the eagle is also represented by the color black. Eagles aren't black; they're medium brown (at least golden eagles are, and they're the type of eagle native to this area) but these birds are black:
This common raven let us get a lot closer to it than the red-tailed hawk did. That's likely because ravens are omnivores that will pick at just about anything, including scraps and trash left behind by humans. The birds hang out close by people hoping for a freebie. Meanwhile, that hawk doesn't want anything we're likely to drop (it wants fresh, raw meat) so it's not going to come begging from us unless it has been habituated to do that. Ravens, as members of the Corvid genus, are also very intelligent. Corvids display problem-solving capability and tool use.