H. Houghten: I'm very pleased to have been invited to be here, being a tribal representative.
I would've liked to have seen a few more here because with cultural landscapes, it's very
important to think about the prehistoric and even the current use that Tribes have of the
different areas.
I wanted to start just a little to give you guys just a little background on the Mescalero
Apache Tribe real quick, just since some of you may not be familiar.
So anyway, we're located in South Central, New Mexico.
The reservation was established in 1873.
Currently we have almost 5,000 tribal members.
But one thing to note is, the tribe is made up of three different bands of Apaches, the
Chiricahua, Mescalero and Lipan.
We are the only federally recognized Lipan Tribe.
There are a couple of groups here in Texas that claim to be state recognized as Lipan
but if you're consulting on Lipan issues, we're the Tribe that you should be consulting
with.
And just a real quick note, this is our office logo and it has the three different bands,
moccasin styles.
So this is the Chiricahua, Lipan and Mescalero.
So it's just to note the difference.
My reservation ranges from very high areas up, we have a ski area and then down to the
lower portion, which is mostly kind of desert scrub, woodland area.
We have a lot of natural resources.
We have a fish hatchery, timber and a lot of different things.
The Apaches were mobile hunters and gatherers, so we did actually cover a very large territory
in being made up of the three different bands that I'd mentioned.
Our traditional homelands cover most of New Mexico, Arizona and Texas and spreads a little
bit into Colorado and down into Mexico as well.
So, when they were put on the reservation, that kind of changed and altered the whole
Apache lifestyle.
Whereas, the mobility was not allowed to occur anymore and also restricted the hunting, gathering
and were forced to try to farm.
Also, it affected the culture in many ways, but the culture continued to persist and maintain
strong and still is today.
So, one thing I kind of want to talk about a little bit is with consulting with Tribes
in dealing with them, we aren't only interested archeological sites.
You know, luckily consultation started out really in the later '90s, and most of the
time, all we were sent were reports of archeological sites or surveys and what was documented.
But Tribes look at the whole landscape of a project and also the areas around it.
So that's one thing we'd like to have you keep in mind.
We're not interested in just protecting those archeological sites, to us, the culture expands
out into the landscapes, the water, rocks, minerals, terrain, vegetation and that, among
other things.
When I first started working with the tribe, as they said, we would mostly just get archeological
report, or if we would go to a meeting with the agency, it's the same thing.
"Well, these are the types of sites we have that are possibly affiliated to your tribe."
But we'd be, "Well, what kind of animals do you have here within your public land?
What sort of plants are growing here?
And then springs, those are all things that are equally important that we'd like to know
about."
So here today, we're mostly here to talk about cultural landscapes.
And if you were to ask, I would say, most Native Americans, what do you consider a cultural
landscape?
It would be about everything out there, you could make the whole world a cultural landscape.
But it is something that tribes are very happy to hear about because again, it's not just
looking at those archeological sites.
As I said, that's not what we're only interested in, it's all the other resources out there.
So the definition of a cultural landscape fills a lot of, as I said, the overall tribal
view of the world.
It's the interaction of the cultural and the natural together.
The two types, most common types that tribes would define, would be either historic or
the ethnographic landscape, but that isn't something that I want to see you limiting
your consultation with tribes concerning landscapes because maybe it is an urban development,
a certain hotel within a community or something, but a tribe that was within that area at that
time may have some sort of cultural association with it, as well.
Perhaps it was a place where they could go and sell some of their artwork and different
things like that or to get outside work to help that community to start to get employment.
There are a lot of different aspects of the tribal culture that may have been impacted
by urban development, so you should also consider that.
Same with a mining district.
Again, it could have been, it had an effect and it is a part of the change in the cultural
landscape for tribe because perhaps then they were cut off from actually going into that
area because the mine was developed there.
Or again, trade may have been then able to occur because there were a lot of people that
were brought in and that they could start to trade things or they could sell things
to as well.
So, one thing that I like to stress a lot is, to work together with the tribe and a
lot of the different land agencies.
In the time that I've worked with Mescalero, I feel we have progressed very well on that.
I'm working with the military, as we're surrounded by, our reservation, by several military bases
and also the Forest Service and there's several national parks that aren't too far that were
very commonly used areas, pre-reservation times.
Oh, took too long to load.
So anyway, when you are starting to work with tribes, one thing that I suggest is again,
as they said, it's not just the archeology or the finalized report that we like to see.
We like to see that you start to work with tribes from the beginning of when you get
into a position or you're working on a project and not just to come in when you need them
to concur with something or to see if they have a disagreement.
Also, that most of the histories are oral and they're not written.
So again, you need to talk to the people and it may take several meetings or to meet with
different types of people to get all that information and you aren't going to find it
all in a book.
Maps are good and also meetings but being out to the actual site in the area where the
things are happening or occurring is much more important because then the tribes can
understand and interact a lot better with it.
And I guess I need to hurry up, huh?
So anyway, as I said, just to integrate.
Then as I was saying before previously, that the view, to most Native Americans, the whole
world is a cultural landscape because everything is combined and interact with each other.
So these are just some of the things, as I said, they're important other than just the
cultural sites.
But view scapes; one quick reference I can give to this is, there was a nice a habitation
site where there were a lot of old features, mainly rock alignments, down in a big valley
and stuff and so pretty much that was documented as the archeological site.
But then when we did some expanded survey, when the tribes went back out in that area,
way up on a ridge top that was adjacent to that site, there was just a small rock reign,
but it pretty much was a lookout and that's where the people would have to look for either
groups coming in if you're waiting for somebody, but also for ones that you don't want to have
come in and raid or people could go raid or perhaps to fight off to keep them out of the
area.
Land forms and formations, mountains, rock alignments, caves and rock shelters, minerals,
plants, animals, springs and water resources, rock art.
So, as I said, one more thing that is important I think is to, not just as I'd mentioned,
to come to tribes when you need them to concur, to give their concerns, but to meet and greet
them ahead of time and get to establish a relationship with them.
There are a lot of things that are noncompliance type projects, interpretation is one that
tribes are very interested in doing with the agencies and also to document those resources,
such as cultural landscapes.
So we'll kind of skip over these, because I need to hurry up.
So, these are just some other pictures of actually, doing noncompliance type things
with different public agencies, participating in testing or excavation, taking some of the
youth out there to learn about those things.
Harvesting traditional use plants and also that's one thing.
Again, it's a good to try to develop a few other projects that are beneficial to the
different agencies but also to the tribe.
This is from a traditional use plant book that White Sands Missile Range actually provided
the funding to do because one, they wanted those plants identified to them, so they'll
know what to look out for.
And then it also helped us to educate our younger tribal members on the different plants
and to continue that knowledge.
So I just kind of combined the plant book and then also the actual harvesting.
So the use of the agave is something the Apache, the Mescalero, do every year still in great
amounts because it is an important food source to us.
And so if you look at these different things, they can be combined to help to develop a
cultural landscape type thing.
Just the different projects that were worked on can evolve into that, as well.
This is a Mescal roast actually at Guadalupe National Park where we did form a pit down
there, then to roast those we harvested.
Unfortunately, the soils weren't conducive to maintain the heat long enough to roast
it.
So we didn't do that too many times.
But then also then the archeological sites, these are a bunch of different types of roasting
features, pretty much within the Guadalupe area and a little bit of Texas.
So, these three different things can be used to combine together to help define a cultural
landscape per se.
Where the plants are harvested and roasted, and then to have the ethnographic knowledge
that was incorporated into the plant book.
And I'll just leave you guys here with an Apache blessing and that's the end of my topic.