WALKING ACROSS THE LANDSCAPE: THE NEPAL EXAMPLE

We turn to the Middle Hills of Nepal for a contemporary example of extensive trade and commerce moved on the human back and foot (Malville 1998). There one finds only narrow, winding, and opportunistic trails that follow the natural contours of the irregular landscape. Nepali porters may carry loads of more than 100 kg, including their own daily portions of rice, on journeys of 10 days or more. Some of their large, awkward, and unwieldy loads include house beams, furniture, metal roofing, and caged fo wls. There are no examples in the mountainous terrain of Nepal of Chacoan-like straight, wide, bermed roads. Even when loads consist of large house beams requiring several persons, narrow and winding paths have sufficed for generations of Nepali porters.

Depending upon the weight they are carrying, loaded, commercial Nepali porters travel between 8 km and 14 km per day over considerably more irregular terrain than the Chaco basin. Groups of pilgrims coming into the Canyon may have carried food, bed ding, and trade items including beans, corn, and dried meat. Based upon the Nepal experience, healthy men and women using tumplines could easily have carried 80-100% of their body weight (Malville 1998). There is good evidence that the ancestral Pueblos (Ana sazi) used tumplines to support their loads in the same manner as the Nepalis of the Middle Hills do today (Mason 1896). Family groups consisting of children, elderly relatives, and loaded adults could have traveled at least 10 km per day, thus requiring a week or less for the 75-80 km journey from the San Juan River to Chaco Canyon.

In the Middle Hills of Nepal it has been the tradition for travelers, carrying their own food, to request use of fire, cooking pots, and space on the floor for the night at private homes (Fisher 1990). Along heavily traveled routes there are many s mall lodges where, for small payments, porters can borrow cooking pots, cook their food, and spend the night. In good weather porters and family groups may cook in the open and may sleep under overhanging ledges.