10/24/2022
Best tour ever 👍🏽🫶🏼🙏
One hundred and forty-two years ago today (October 23, 1880), Adolf F. A. Bandelier stood at the rim of Frijoles Canyon and looked down at the remains of the Ancestral Pueblo Village of Tyuonyi and the cliff dwellings of Long House. Later Bandelier wrote in his journal, “About 4 P.M. the border of the almost precipitous descent into the Cañon de los Frijoles was reached, and it took one-half hour to descend—on foot, of course. The grandest thing I ever saw.” Bandelier did not make the journey alone but was guided here by a man from Cochiti Pueblo, Juan José Montoya. He and Montoya had spent time exploring the Pajarito Plateau together.
The site of Tyuonyi and the setting of Frijoles Canyon made such an impression on Bandelier that he used them for the location of a novel begun three years later that he titled "The Delight Makers". Based on what Bandelier learned in his time at Cochiti Pueblo, the book is a work of fiction, but one he intended to be based on scientific facts and to convey to readers information on the archaeology, geology, and ethnography of the region. He also hoped it would dispel the romantic image of Indians in contemporary literature such as James Fenimore Cooper’s "The Last of the Mohicans". "The Delight Makers" is still in print to this day.
On February 11 1916, the long-fought efforts of Edgar Lee Hewett to protect the critical archeological resources of the Pajarito Plateau finally bore fruit with the establishment of a National Monument. Bandelier, who had died in 1914, was an inspiration to Hewett. He was honored by the new park being named after him.
