Amerind and Whitewater Draw

Gopher snake at museum

Snake by our car

Sunday we decided to head out to visit a museum called Amerind located in Dragoon about 20 miles east of here.  But first, when we were getting into the car, Dave said - we have a visitor - a snake.  What????  Okay, we are in the desert and I have not been paying attention to where I walk - I sure do now!  We didn't know when we got to the museum is that they were celebrating 75 year anniversary - that day.   Great.  Lots of people, lots.  They had a wildlife - snake - exhibit there and we questioned one of the handlers about the snake we saw by the RV and they said more than likely it was a baby gopher.  We really didn't spend time in the museum, which is one man's interest in American Indian artifacts and then the development of the museum to share with the world, due to the amount of people there - had to wait in line to look at a display.  We will come back another day to spend time and look at the many displays.  This museum is nestled in the Dragoon mountains, can't see it at all from the road, looks very Spanish in design, and was very impressive inside.  It kept going and going and going.

Hopi Dancers 

The museum had invited various Native Indian dancers/performers and artists to spend the day, we saw the Hopi while Navajo and Tohono O'odham were scheduled for later in the day.  We happened to get there in time to see Hopi Indians sing songs and perform dances.  Listening to some other folks around us, they were wondering if they could take pictures since many Indian functions and pow-wows they had attended in the past did not allow picture taking.  The elder who presided over this session said of course - take as many pictures as you like, and there will be a question and answer period after that hopefully will answer anything you see or hear.  It was a family affair - grandfather was the moderator/drummer/singer, 3 girls were sisters - his granddaughters, the male dancer was his son, and the young man singing with him was his grandson.  The woman in black by the elder helped with everything was the girls' mother, the elder's daughter. The program started with a 10 year old girl singing a song about harvest time.  Took alot of courage to stand in front of about 400 people and sing in your native tongue.  Then the dancers came out with the grandfather singing and playing the drum with his grandson chanting with him and keeping time with a rattle.  I was most impressed with the stamina of these people, they danced continually for 25 minutes, stopping for about 2 minutes between each song.  The costumes were hand made by the grandfather's son, the head pieces again were handmade by the mother of the girls.

Sandhill Cranes - big birds!

After this performance we moved to the museum and art gallery but it was too crowded.  We opted to get some fry bread, if you get a chance to eat one of these, do it.  Very yummy.  We got our fry bread with honey and powder sugar.  I think the best we ever had was in Taos Pueblo in New Mexico.

I see you!

We left by 1pm to head over to Whitewater Draw, an area that is the resting place for the sandhill cranes as they migrate further south for the winter, they come from as far north as Siberia.  We had been to Whitewater last December and there were over 30,000 cranes here, close,  just awesome.  We are about 6 weeks ahead of the full thrust of the birds, saw maybe 5,000 but much further out feeding.  We will come back here late December to see them again.  You can hear them way before seeing them.  Stay tuned - we will visit this again and I'll report then. And our last sighting on our way out of the Draw was this pretty hawk - keeping us in his sight.  I see you!