Day 3 & 4 New Mexico: Gathering of Nations and Petroglyphs

Gathering of Nations was Friday and Saturday! It’s the largest Powwow of North America and there were so many amazing dancers. It was so healing to watch. One of my favorite drum groups performed there as well- Northern Cree! It was so amazing to see them live! There were a ton of talented vendors, performers outside, delicious food, and healing energy in the powwow. It was truly an amazing experience that I am so thankful we got to be apart of.

On Saturday before Grand Entry at the powwow, we went to the Petroglyph National Monument which is 17 miles along Albuquerque's West Mesa, a volcanic basalt escarpment. We hiked all three trails they have, which were all pretty short and easy. We got there at about 8am and there were not many people there at all which was so nice!

The ancient Puebloans made their petroglyphs here based on their cultural and spiritual beliefs. Native Americans believe that volcanic landscapes are sacred places. Other reasons could have been marking trade routes or communicating with others using images. Ancient Puebloans did not have written language so they used petroglyphs as way of communication. It is usually not appropriate to reveal meanings of some images according to modern Pueblo people. There are over 23,000 petroglyphs carved along the 17 mile escarpment. This style of images are known as the Rio Grande Style, which were developed around A.D. 1300. They also incorporated the three dimensional features of the boulder (basalt) to create 3-D petroglyphs. In the 1600s when the Spanish settlers came in they also had a style of Petroglyphs they used. We did all the hikes in about 3 hours and saw pretty much everything we could. I highly recommend!