Part three – Planting

(This is the third column in a series)

My second discovery of a burial came this year. Excavating the east half of a room revealed a story in the sediments. The contours of ash pits, dug in the center of the room, clearly broke the horizontal layers of cultural, wind and water borne sediments. I cleared the dirt and straightened up the bisecting wall. A pear shaped pit held a clear profile in the cross section of the wall. Both the pit and the wall dug easily.

And there it was. The typical sound and feel of a trowel in the soft dirt was interrupted. Not by rock or a corncob or a piece of wood or pottery. The sound and feel of my trowel against a dried gourd was unmistakable.

There it was, a gourd with sutures. I slowly exposed the skull with a small brush – about one fourth, the upper right half. That was all that came past our cross sections of the room. The site and the area was experiencing one of the worst droughts in 75 years. The air was dry and the exposed area of the skull would also be very dry and weakened without the little bit of moisture retained in the soil a meter below the surface.

From our inability to excavate the year before, I knew some questions would have to be addressed if any digging were to proceed. I covered the skull with freshly sifted dirt and a layer of stones for protection from accidents and the environment until Adler was free to examine the discovery.

Adler climbed down into the rectangular hole, set aside the stones and gently brushed the sandy soil aside, again exposing the upper right part of a skull. As he removed the soil, one of the whirlwinds sprang up. It threw sand and dust around the hole and found its way to the black tarp.

In an instant the wind seized the free end of the tarp, pulling it, billowing, looming as some great demon over the bones, over Adler alone in the excavation. Just as quickly the twister moved on leaving the tarp laying in a crumple, lifeless.

The skull was exposed. Politics now required excavation and documentation upon the discovery of a human burial. Adler called the chiefs of the local pueblos and the necessary government folks and no one made claim.

The crew gathered to discuss options and express opinions and feelings about the excavation. The consensus favored excavation. Any argument came from the degree of intrusion and what would be removed and re-interned. This makes some difference in what or how much information can be had.

Again, I preferred a name to an impersonal title. I figured, from quick and unqualified observation, the small skull was to be that of a young, possibly teenage, girl. I called her Joan, after Joan of Arc.

The bone specialists could simply look at the bones and see that Joan had compressed vertebrae, premature suture closure and some other indicators of poor diet and stress. Had we kept a tooth for analysis, we might have extracted more about her habitat, diet and possibly some DNA for comparison. It was decided, however, that all of the burial would be replanted.

Replanting is the pueblo term for burial and I suggested we use it instead of “burial.” The image of planting is greatly different than that of burying.

I spent the entire next day excavating Joan one bone at a time. Measuring northing, easting and elevation coordinates on both ends of all bones. Measuring, drawing, photographing and brushing dirt away, measuring, drawing and photographing. Late afternoon, I removed the last of the dirt from the bell shaped hole as it was so many years ago as they prepared to plant a dead or dying child.

As I withdrew from the hole another whirlwind formed over the room. It threw dust and sand into my eyes and tugged at the drawings on the clipboard. The winds spiraled into the hole, spinning sand in tightening circles at the bottom of the hole and then stopped. As the dust settled I noticed a clump of something spinning at the center of the bottom of the hole. The wind left a clump of baby bird feathers.

Rituals are for the living and thus I laid a small stone over the feathers. I didn’t want to touch them – they had gotten there on their own and I thought they should be replanted with Joan.

Joan was taken to the lab at the bottom of the hill. Her bones were laid out in proper order. They were spread over two square meters of bright white paper, copiously noted, photographed and drawn.

Joan was probably a boy somewhere between 5 and 10 years old. Again she was replanted, every bit, with the same dirt and stones that first covered her. I burnt sage for us.

Now if you think that by performing some ritual process you can reduce your risks, you might imagine that I was safe, at least for a moment. Safe from dust and rain storms. Still no rain, no frogs. No sandstorms. No whirlwinds. It was hot and dry and calm.

The ritual was over and I was all but alone. Placing the last of the stones over the masonry cocoon. A few stones to go. Usually I kick or flip rocks over before picking them up, checking for scorpions. I was lost in the process and picked up the last stones without even looking.

The scorpion might have found me, but I probably found him. I wanted a rock that had already been chosen.