コロラド 大砂丘国立公園 文化 Colorado Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve - Culture

　文化- Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve - Colorado

　グレイト・サンド・デューンズ - 大砂丘国立公園＆保護地域 - モスカ、コロラド USA

文化史

人との関係
それ自身全体の島となる人はいない；人はそれぞれ大陸の一片である。その主体の一部 .... 誰かの死が私を消していく。それは私が人類に含まれているから；そしてそれゆえに誰のためにベルが細工をするのか知ろうとすまい；それは汝のために鳴るのだから。

ジョン・ダン

人と砂丘：
（右写真：Mosca Pass Toll Stateion: Courtesy of Great Sand Dunes National Park & Preserve）
永久的なつながり人はその存在を知っていたし、訪問し、そして大砂丘の近くに長い間住んできました。知られている最古の人類の存在は11,000年ほど前になります。

生活を維持する：11,000年前の原始人類
サン･ルイス･バレーと大砂丘地域に足を踏み入れた最初の人々は遊牧狩猟民でした。付近に生息し集まっていたマンモスや有史以前のバイソンの群れを囲むように集まっていたと考えられます。彼らは石器時代人で、現在クロビス Clovis とフォルサム Folsom 先端と呼ばれている、大きな石投槍または投げ矢先を使って狩猟をしていました。ほとんど他の誰もと同じように400年ほど前になるまでは、人はサン・ルイス・バレーに歩いて入ってきました。狩猟や植物採取がよかった時にここで時を過ごし、干ばつや食糧難の時はこの地域を避けていたのは確かなようです。

現存のつながり： 現代アメリカインディアン

初期の人々がどのような名前の言語を使ってたのかは分りませんが、現代のアメリカインディアンの種族はスペイン人が約400年前にこの地に始めて足を踏み入れた時にこの地に慣れ親しんでいました。伝統的なユート族語で大砂丘を sowapophe-uvehe と言います。「前に後に動く土地」という意味です。ヒカリーア族アパッチは北部ニューメキシコに定住し大砂丘を ei-anyedi 「それは上下に動く」と呼びました。大砂丘のすぐ南に聳えるブランカ･ピーク (Blanca Peak 標高約4,303�b）はナバホ族が聖なる山と讃える４つの山の一つです。これらの人々の過去と現在のつながりとは何なのでしょう？

ヒカリーア族アパッチと南ユート族にとって、それは現実的な問題です。彼らはサン・ルイス・バレーで野宿し狩猟をしたのです。彼らが砂丘にいた時、食用そして薬用として使っていたポンデローサパイン Ponderosa pine の木々から内側の表皮層を集めていました。リオ・グランデに沿った地域に住んでいたテワ/ティワ Tewa/Tiwa 語を話すプエブロ族からきた人々にとっては、精霊とのリンクを持つものでした。彼らはこの砂丘近隣のサン・ルイス・バレーに位置する、彼らが現世に現われる時に通り抜けてた湖のあるといわれる、大きな重要性を持つ伝統的な遺跡を記憶しています。

「ここはユート族が以前よく集まっていた場所のひとつでした。... キャプルタ Capulta 一団はこの地域でキャンプをしいた連中でした。近所の家族たちはここに来て彼らと一緒にキャンプしたのかも？たぶん春の初めか秋が深まった頃だったでしょう。ユート族は医薬目的、そして食料源として、ポンデロサパインから表皮を使っていました。.... そこの分部を切って引き離していたのでしょう。そうやって収穫していました。ある年齢になるまでの、若い子どもたちが手伝いましたが、基本的に樹木からの収穫は女たちの仕事で彼女たちが木々を選んでいました。.... 」

アルデン・ナランゴ Alden Narango、南ユート族歴史家

スペイン人による探検：
Don Diego de Vargas, 1694
Juan Bautista de Anza, 1776

現在の北部ニューメキシコ州にあったスペイン植民地から牧夫や狩人が恐らく早ければ1598年頃にはこの地に入っていたでしょうが、1694年にドン・ディエゴ・デ・バルガス Don Diego de Vargas がサン・ルイス・バレーに入ったことで知られる最初のヨーロッパ人となりました。デ・バルガスと彼の部下たちはどうもバレー南部で、サンタ・フェに戻る前に、バイソンをみつけ群れの500頭を狩猟したようです。

1776年には、コマンチ族の一軍に報復攻撃をかけた後の帰り道に、ユアン・バウティスタ・デ・アンザととてつもなく多くの側近たちが家畜を伴って、恐らくこの砂丘の近くを通ったようです。この頃のサン・ルイス・バレーは、コマンチ族、ユート族、そしてスペイン兵たちにとって、高原地帯とサンタフェの間の旅行ルートでした。ですから、彼らの多くにとってトレールから見える砂丘が道しるべになっていたことでしょう。

西への拡張：
Zebulon Pike, 1807

ゼブロン・パイクの1807年の手記に書かれている砂丘に関する記述は恐らく知られている最初の書面でしょう。ルイス・アンド・クラーク探検隊は東に戻って行った頃に、パイク米国陸軍中尉は遠くはアーランサーやレッド･リバーに至るほどの遠西までの探検を命じられていました。1806年11月末までにパイクと彼の部下たちは今日のコロラド州プエブロが見えるところまで足を進めています。さらに南西に向かいつつ、しかしながらアーカンサー川の位置を把握できず混乱しながら、パイクは丁度大砂丘の上のあたりのサングレ･デ･クリスト山脈を越えてきました。彼の1807年1月28日の手記によると：

「数マイル行進をした後に、我々は発見した....白い山々の麓に（今日のサングレ・デ・クリスト山脈）そこを下って行くと、砂の丘がいくつも....キャンプをはり砂丘群の中の最も高いものに登ってみた。すると望遠鏡をもって大きな川（リオ・グランデ）を発見することができた。....砂の丘は上り下りして白い山脈群の麓に横たわっているのが見えた。それは１５マイルくらいそして幅は５マイルくらいに見えた。それらは色こそ違え、それらの上には植物の育つ様相もなく、丁度海で荒れる嵐の中の波のように見えた。」

John C. Fremont, 1848
John Gunnison, 1853

1848年に

1n 1848, John C. Freemont was hired to find a railroad route from St. Louis to California. He crossed the Sangre de Cristos in the San Luis Valley in winter, courting disaster but proving that a winter crossing of this range was possible. He was followed in 1853 by Captain John Gunnison of the U.S. Topographical Survey. Gunnison's party crossed the dunefield on horseback: "Touring the southern base of the sand-hills, over the lowest of which we rode for a short distance, our horses half burying their hoofs only on the windward slopes, but sinking to their knees on the opposite, we for some distance followed the bed of the stream from the pass, now sunk in the sand, and then struck off across the sandy plain…The sand was so heavy that we were six hours and a half making ten miles…"

Routes into the Valley

In the years that followed, the Rockies were gradually explored, treaties were signed and broken with resident tribes, and people with widely differing goals flooded into Colorado from the United States and Mexico. In 1852, Fort Massachusetts was built and then relocated to Fort Garland, about 20 miles southeast of the Great Sand Dunes, to safeguard travel or settlers following the explorers into the San Luis Valley.

Although many settlers arrived in the San Luis Valley via the trails from Santa Fe or La Veta Pass, several routes over the Sangre de Cristo Mountains into the San Luis Valley were well-known to American Indians and increasingly used by settlers in the 1800s. Medano Pass, also known as Sand Hill pass, and Mosca Pass, also called Robidoux's Pass, offered more direct routes form the growing front-range cities and dropped into the San Luis Valley just east of the Great Sand Dunes. Trails were improved into wagon routes and eventually into rough roads. The Mosca Pass Toll Road was developed in the 1870s, and stages and the mail route used it regularly through about 1911. That year, the western portion was badly damaged in a flash flood. Partially rebuilt at times in the 1930s through the 1950s, it has been repeatedly closed by flooding and is now a trail for hikers.

Making a Home: Homesteaders

Homesteader Ulysses Herard, who with his family established a ranch and homestead along Medano Creek in 1875, would have used the old Medano Pass Road to travel to and from his home. The modern road, open only to 4WD, high clearance vehicles, follows the old route, skirting the dunefield before rising to Medano Pass and continuing east into the Wet Mountain Valley. The Herards grazed and bred livestock in the mountain meadows, built a home, raised horses, cattle, and chickens, and established a trout hatchery in the stream.

Other families homesteaded near the Dunes as well, including the Teofilo Trujillo family, who raised sheep west of the Dunes. And Frank and Virginia Wellington, who built the cabin and hand-dug the irrigation ditch that parallels Wellington Ditch Trail, just south of today's campground. Their son, Charles, ran a sawmill on Sawmill Creek, just north of the campground.

As people established homes, they often petitioned the U.S. Postal Department for post offices to serve their tiny villages. Zapata (1879); Blanca or North Arrastre; Orean (1881); Mosco (1880); later called Montville (1887-1900); Herard (1905); Liberty (1900); Duncan (1892) and others helped connect isolated homesteaders with the larger world.

Seeking Wealth: The Gold Rush, 1853 and later

Gold and silver rushes occurred around the Rockies after 1853, bringing miners by the thousands into the state and stimulating mining businesses that operate to this day. Numerous small strikes occurred in the mountains around the San Luis Valley. People had frequently speculated that gold might be present in the Great Sand Dunes, and in the 1920s, local newspapers ran articles estimating its worth at anywhere from 17 cents/ton to $3/ton. Active placer mining operations sprang up along Medano Creek, and in 1932 the Volcanic Mining Company established a gold mill designed to recover gold from the sand. Although minute quantities of gold were recovered, the technique was too labor-intensive, the stream was too seasonal, and the payout was too small to support any business for long.

Preserving the Beauty: Establishing a National Park Service Site

The idea that the Dunes could be destroyed by gold mining or concrete-making alarmed residents of Alamosa and Monte Vista. By the 1920s, the Dunes had become a source of pride for local people and a potential source of tourist dollars for local businesses.

Members of the Ladies PEO sponsored a bill to Congress asking for national monument status for the Great Sand Dunes. Widely supported by local businesses and Chanbers of Commerce, the bill was signed into law in 1932 by President Herbert Hoover.

Living at the Dunes
Imagine: you are standing on the edge of a shallow lake, surrounded by cattails and birdsong. The dunes hover on the horizon to the north. You're carrying a small fiber pouch filled with sharp flakes of stone, and you're wearing very little-to what time do you belong? Or again, it's a summer day and you're bridling your horse at Montville, Colorado and listening to the flies buzz. You wear the blue and gold of a cavalryman. When and where are you? And once again: you're digging a shallow pit in the side of an old grass-covered dune. Carefully you photograph the layers of different colored sandy soils you observe before digging deeper. What are you doing-and why?

Students in the future may be able to identify all three of the characters sketched above as people who lived part of their lives at the Great Sand Dunes, thanks to a four-year research project that began summer 2000. "This is a pretty neat project," states Resource Specialist Fred Bunch. "It's really a chance to look at all kinds of different reasons that all kinds of different people visited the dunes over a long, long time." Bunch is coordinating this project, but it's an interdisciplinary group of researchers and volunteers who are making it happen, including scientists who specialize in archeology, anthropology, geology, ethnography, and the Great Sand Dunes staff.

Traditionally, Great Sand Dunes National Park has been known as a 'geology' park - one where the most obvious stories revolve around the landscape and its formation. Questions about the dunes and how they formed continue to be some of the most commonly asked. However, local history tells the human side of the story as well; there is plenty of oral and written evidence of people visiting, passing by, or living for a time near the dunes. The Great Sand Dunes Eolian System Archaeological and Ethnographic Project is an attempt to better understand how people have interacted with the land around the dunes over time.

Some of the basic questions this project addresses and the researchers involved include:

How have people through time used what appears, at first glance, to be a constantly changing landscape? Dr. Richard Madole is a geomorphologist, one who studies the formation and evolution of landforms. He is concentrating on the 'eolian system'-that is, the wind influenced sand deposits-with a focus on understanding how the dunes, sand sheet, and sabkha have changed over time, and when those changes occurred. With that data, he and his colleagues can then consider how those changes could have affected people in the area.

How has climate change affected how people lived near the dunes over the past 13,000 years? Drs. Pegi Jodry and Dennis Stanford, a wife and husband team of archaeologists from the Smithsonian Institution, have been working in the San Luis Valley for years. In summer 2000 and 2001, they surveyed or excavated several sites near springs on the Medano Ranch, just west of the main dunefield. "The Medano Ranch is really a wonderful opportunity," says Dr. Jodry. "We can gather data about human use there from Clovis times [about 12,000 years ago] to the present. It's amazing to think about, but the larger story of ancient humans in the San Luis Valley is really about how they adapted to the changing availability of water. As wetlands expanded or contracted over time, people used different options for making a living." For more on Pegi's and Dennis' work in the San Luis Valley and beyond, see the December 2000 issue of the National Geographic Magazine and Volume 2 (1) of American Archaeology Magazine.

How were pin-juniper forests of foothills used through time? Pin-juniper forests offer plentiful resources to hunters and gatherers-pin nuts, fuel, habitat for game animals-and so can give glimpses of how people in the past made their living near the dunes. Archaeologists Ted Hoefer and Marilyn Martorano and their teams began surveying known sites in the pin-juniper forest of the foothills east of the dunefield in summer 2000, after a wildfire had burned over many of the sites. In summer 2001, they continued their work and included Denton Springs and Montville, both sites that were occupied or used by ancient people as well as more modern ranchers, settlers, park visitors, and park staff.

What do American Indians living today have to say about the dunes and the San Luis Valley? Ethnographer David White began contacting tribes with ties to the San Luis Valley in 2000, initially focusing on the Jicarilla Apache, the Tewa Pueblo, and the Ute as groups known to have traditionally used or visited the area. In the next phase of his research, he hopes to contact the Tiwa and Towa Pueblos, the Navajo, the Comanche, Cheyenne, and Arapaho. For some of the people, the connection is not so much one of subsistence as spirituality-the Jicarilla Apache still collect sand from the dunes to create sand paintings used in healing ceremonies, and the Tewa regard the San Luis Lakes, just south of the dunes, as an important part of their creation story. Dr. White is quick to point out that the ethnographic story of the area is much larger than the current project, and could easily include the descendants of other tribes as well as of the European, Hispanic, and Asian people who settled in the San Luis Valley in the last few centuries.
Want to learn more about who was here, when, and why?

Pick up a copy of "The Hourglass" at the Visitor Center, for a summary of some of the findings from the archeology project described above.
Ask at the Visitor Center to see the video "Sacred Trees" which features members of the Ute tribe describing how ponderosa pine trees in the monument were used by their ancestors.
Consider purchasing "A Colorado Pre-History: A Cultural Context for the Rio Grande Basin", authored by several of the researchers mentioned here. Available at the Visitor Center bookstore, and may be found in your local library.

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