Chambers of the Sun, continued

These were hunters and farmers sophisticated enough to have constructed a building where the light entered precisely at sunrise on the Solstice and illuminated a special chamber for about fifteen minutes during the Solstice only. 

In the Southwest of the North American continent the Anasazi People built a society at Chaco Canyon that continues to amaze researchers to this day.  These ancestors of the Pueblo Indians built a celestial calendar there at Chaco that today we call the Sundagger.  It does the same thing the lightbox at Newgrange does, provides an opening for the sun on the Winter Solstice to precisely mark the event on the cliff walls behind it (it's in the photo that accompanies these entries).  The Hopi and Zuñi peoples also celebrated the Winter Solstice; many of their houses having plates fixed to their walls that were lit by the rays of the sun passing through a small window only on this one day of the year. 

In the days between now and this year's solstice I will (really) talk about the traditions we still honor in midwinter and how they have descended from far older traditions, traditions linked to nature, the seasons, the cycles of the year.