The arc of history passes through Virgil Ortiz. He is
the vessel – and the pivot point – that stretches
back into the history of his ancestors and his people,
the people of Cochiti Pueblo in New Mexico whose
forebears are thought to be among the Anasazi
people who settled in the four corners region of the
United States from roughly 500 A.D. until their
dispersal around 1500 A.D., and forward into the
future until at least 2180 when the Recon Watchmen,
time-traveling warriors, will safeguard the past, present, and future of the New Mexico pueblos.
This arc of 1680 plus years is long and deep, and proud and tragic. Research has traced the Anasazi – sometimes referred to as the “Ancient Ones” – back to the peoples who wandered in a hunting and gathering lifestyle from about 6000 B.C. until some centralized around the distinctive cultures represented primarily by the eastern branch, which included the Mesa Verde Anasazi of southeastern Utah and southwestern Colorado and the Chaco Anasazi of northwestern New Mexico, and the western branch that included the Kayenta Anasazi of northeastern Arizona and the Virgin Anasazi of southwestern Utah and northwestern Arizona. Sometime around 750 A.D., “these farming and pottery-making people in their stable villages were on the threshold of the lifestyle that we think of as being typically Puebloan, and from this time on we call them Pueblos.”1
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Opposite:
Blind Archers 1680, Cochiti Canyon, New Mexico, 2013
Above:
Virgil, Self Portrait
Photos Courtesy of:
VIrgil Ortiz