In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

“A Monument to Native Civilization”: Byron Cummings’ Still-Unfolding Vision for Kinishba Ruins JOHN R. WELCH The massive, sprawling ruins of a six hundred-room Ancestral Pueblo village known since the 1930s as Kinishba sits perched above a nowdesiccated spring in a scenic, pine-fringed alluvial valley near the seat of government for the White Mountain Apache Tribe (figure 1). The site has been variously designated as the Fort Apache Ruin; LA 1895 (N.M. Laboratory of Anthropology); Arizona C:4:5 (Gila Pueblo–Arizona); Hough No. 134; AZ V:4:1(ASM), and 46004 (FAIRsite). Kinishba is derived from the Apache term ki ̨dałbaa, meaning “brown house.” For the last seventy-five years the ruin has served as a proving ground for efforts in what we refer to today as applied archaeology and heritage tourism. By twenty-first-century archaeological standards we know little about the site or its ancient occupants. In contrast, various archives and federal agency offices have preserved a rich documentary record of why and how archaeologists have made use of the site for training, public outreach, and economic and community development.1 This review of successive attempts to integrate research, education, preservation, and enterprise incorporates the results of archival studies as well as my experience from two decades partially spent in creating preservation and stewardship partnerships focused on the site.2 The discussion reveals a long and ongoing struggle to find a place in modern society for the ancient ruin, thus providing glimpses into the history and future of archaeology and tourism in Arizona’s Apache country and of the institutional and governmental dynamics that have so profoundly influenced where, how, why, and by whom research and preservation are carried out. The review concludes with cautionary tales and constructive clues offered as the basis for ongoing management of Kinishba, as guidance JOHN R. WELCH is a member of the archaeology and resource and environmental management faculty of Simon Fraser University and serves as an advisor to the White Mountain Apache Tribe Heritage Program. Journal of the Southwest 49, 1 (Spring 2007) : 1–94 2 ✜ JOURNAL OF THE SOUTHWEST for comparable initiatives, and as an endorsement for redefining applied archaeology as a central element of cultural heritage stewardship. THE RUINS OF A VILLAGE FARMING COMMUNITY OF THE GREAT PUEBLO PERIOD This article portrays key episodes in Kinishba’s post-1930 history as sequential reflections of important individuals and social trends; nonetheless , because these people and issues all relate to the site’s clear regional 1. Arizona and White Mountain Apache tribe lands, showing the location of Kinishba. (Base map by Catherine Gilman; courtesy of the Center for Desert Archaeology) “A Monument to Native Civilization” ✜ 3 significance in the 1200s and 1300s, an archaeological summary provides an appropriate point of departure. Kinishba is located at about 5,000 feet above sea level, south of the Mogollon Rim and north of the Salt River, at the eastern foot of Tsé Sizin (Rock Standing Up, a.k.a. Sawtooth Mountain), on White Mountain Apache Tribe trust lands (i.e., the Fort Apache Indian Reservation). The site is the most publicly accessible of the twenty or so large (150 or more rooms), Ancestral (Mogollon) Pueblo village ruins that were built and occupied as part of the colonization of the Mogollon Rim region in the AD 1200s and 1300s (Reid and Whittlesey 1997; Welch 1996; Mills, Herr, and Van Keuren 1999; Riggs 2001, 2005). Grasshopper and Point of Pines are the other well-known modern names for these ancient population centers, and much of what we suspect about the lives and works of Kinishba’s occupants is based on analogies with knowledge resulting from systematic investigations at these sites from the 1950s through the early 1990s. The largest thirteenthand fourteenth-century ruins along the Mogollon Rim share a suite of architectural elements, ceramic assemblage attributes, and locational characteristics—especially proximity to expanses of land suitable for dry maize farming and ready access to domestic water, tabular sandstone or limestone, and ponderosa pine—indicative of shared origins and lifeways, as well as sustained interactions. All of these large villages were built up from apartment-style room blocks laid out to define...

pdf

Share