Naturalist and NPR commentator Childs (Soul of Nowhere, 2002, etc.)
chronicles his research trips following in the footsteps of a
native population that flourished, then mysteriously disappeared,
in pre-Columbian America.His subject: the Anasazi, ancestors of
today's Hopi. These Southwestern hunters and farmers lived in some
of North America's most unforgiving terrain, blisteringly hot and
dauntingly arid, yet they developed a rich culture that survived
hundreds of years and multiple migrations. The author travels along
those migratory routes, pursuing the Anasazi over a period of years
with many different companions, including his wife, infant son and
stepfather, as well as various archaeologists and a few modern-day
desert-rats. He battles fire, infernal summer temperatures, brutal
winter cold and wind. Water tends to be either absent or
overabundant; at one point, he allows a flash flood to transport
him, sans clothes, downstream to his destination. He begins at
Chaco Canyon in northwest New Mexico and meanders through Colorado,
Utah, Arizona and northwest Mexico, where his quest ends in a
recently plowed field choked with potsherds hundreds of years old.
The author has interviewed (and frequently traveled with) numerous
authorities on the pottery, geology, architecture and agriculture
of these enigmatic people. His text is rich in geographical and
archaeological detail about raising corn, breeding macaws,
beheading turkeys and more. Childs considers conventional thinking,
then weighs in with his own theories, earned the old-fashioned way,
by walking tough terrain to sites untouched for centuries. Evoking
these places where people ground corn, procreated, celebrated and
slaughtered one another, he displays surpassing curiosity and
profound reverence.An original, eloquent account of an intellectual
and archaeological odyssey. (Kirkus Reviews)
The greatest "unsolved mystery" of the American Southwest relates
to the Anasazi, the native peoples who in the 11th century
converged on Chaco Canyon (now New Mexico) and built a flourishing
cultural center that attracted pilgrims from far and wide, a vital
crossroads of the prehistoric world. The Anasazis'
accomplishments--in agriculture, in art, in commerce, in
architecture and engineering--were astounding, rivaling those of
the Mayans in distant Central America. By the 13th century,
however, the Anasazi were gone from Chaco. Vanished. What was
it--drought? pestilence? war? forced migration? mass murder or
suicide? Craig Childs draws on scholarly research and a lifetime of
adventure and exploration in the American Southwest, to pursue the
mystery of their disappearance. Considering many
possibilities--drought, suicide--he points the way to a new
understanding of how a vibrant civilization collapsed.HOUSE OF RAIN
is a landmark work in the literature of ancient Native American
culture, a key to a fascinating and mysterious lost civilization.
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