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[ 1 9 5 ] There have been many people who have called Black Rock “home.” For Zunis, calling Black Rock home is relatively easy. The landscape, the histories , and the stories of the place are familiar and comforting. What about the others, however, the outsiders, the people who came and stayed for a while and then left for another place? How did they make Black Rock feel like home? What changes did they make to this place to feel more comfortable ? And how did these changes affect the Zuni people? Certainly, there were changes. The buildings at Black Rock are different from those at the Pueblo, different in both form and function. They represent a different way of living in the world. Change in this world is inevitable, and not always bad. But sometimes change is difficult for people to accept, especially when it is imposed from outside the community. What is it about place that makes people feel connected, that makes them feel rooted regardless of the changes to the landscape around them? The meaning of place and the people who give it meaning—it is a timeless question. The story of Black Rock is one of change. The landscape seen today—its red and white sandstone mesas, topped by thick stands of dark green juniper and piñon, and the black swath of lava cut in two by the Zuni River—is, in fact, just a momentary reality, geologically speaking. Most of us, however, have difficulty grasping this reality because of its imperceptibility in relation to our concept of time. We must instead rely on paleogeographers to interpret these geological events and use our own imagination to envision them. It is easier for us to see and understand the changes made to the landscape by other people, people with different ways of looking at the world and a particular environment. They are people who have stopped and left a mark upon the land, a symbol of their identity. In the words of Paul Groth, they have left behind an “unwitting autobiography”—a cultural landscape.1 Can there be any doubt that Black Rock is a “place” in the phenomenological sense of the word? Indeed, it has become the focus of awareness for many people over the centuries. And, in turn, it has become a Making Sense of Black Rock’s Cultural Landscape CHAPTER 8 [ 196 ] MAKING SENSE OF BLACK ROCK’S CULTURAL LANDSCAPE landscape of multiple meanings. It is, as Edward Relph would say, an “existential space”—overflowing with symbols of cultural identity, ethnicity , and cultural self-reflection. It is a place of history and hegemony, tradition and change. It is a place many people simply called home. But most of all it is a place of people—people who have come and gone, people who have stayed and survived. And all of these people have given meaning to this place now called Black Rock. They have experienced it, made sense of it, and embraced it as a place. The multiple meanings they have given this place have been derived from their individual experiences in other places, as well as from the influences of being a part of a cultural community that gives meaning to place. The people who have lived, worked, played, and learned here have given meaning to this place and have left behind cultural manifestations of this meaning. The manifestations seen in the cultural landscape—houses, shrines, warehouses, hospitals , and the reservoir—are a reflection of their identity and world view and, as such, can help us understand why such places are important to people and what happens to a community when they change. At Black Rock, key components in giving meaning to place—Keith Basso’s “place-making”—have been the concepts of “insideness” and “outsideness” expressed by Edward Relph. One’s position of knowledge or experience within a culture—one’s insideness—is critical to the degree in which one becomes engaged with a place and its landscapes. Using Basso’s concept of interanimation, or Scott Momaday’s idea of appropriation , a cultural insider can create meanings for places that are difficult, if not impossible, for the outsider to comprehend. These meanings are deeply rooted in culture and manifested in the traditions and knowledge (acquired through the process of shared behavior) that come about from being a part of a community. However, it is also important to note that Relph’s model of insideness and outsideness is a continuum, so that one is never...

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