SUMMARY AND CONCLUDING REMARKS

The essence of the pilgrimage hypothesis is that substantial numbers of people walked from different outlying communities into Chaco Canyon in order to participate in organized periodic festivals. The primary evidence within the archaeological reco rd for the pilgrimage model of the Chaco regional system may be summarized as follows:

1. Chacoan Roads: Although the roads may have provided routes into the canyon for trade goods and construction materials, their width, straightness, complex geometry, and coupling with stairways suggests that their primary function involved movement of people into the Canyon for ritual purposes.

2. Vacant Great Houses: Only some 25% of the rooms of Pueblo Alto may have had permanent residents; the remainder were used for storage or, perhaps, short-term visitors. A similar, periodic occupation of the other great houses appears likely.

3. Consumption Events and Festivals: The midden of Pueblo Alto contains the remains of 150,000 pots probably broken by visitors during festivals. The recurrent surfacing of the plaza of Pueblo Alto also indicates frequent visitor use.

4. Road-related Units: Rooms added to pre-existing structures at Pueblo Alto, Chetro Ketl, the Talus Unit, and Pueblo Alto may have been built to provide a variety of services for pilgrims moving into the Canyon along the roads.

5. Regional system without centralized leadership: There is little evidence in the archaeological record or justification based on ethnographic analogy for the degree of centralized leadership that could compel public gathering and construction of mass ive public works in Chaco. Pilgrimage provides integration and public service without coercion. This voluntary aspect of pilgrimage may be the most compelling feature of the model. Compared with the other models involving forced tribute and redistributive exchange, pilgrimage is the one that is most in harmony with historic Puebloan society.

Although participation may not have been forced upon participants by a centralized leadership resident in Chaco Canyon, there must have been influential individuals who possessed considerable knowledge of ritual and the astronomical calendar (Malvi lle and Judge 1993). But, as we have noted in the Hindu example, pilgrims often arrive regardless of any invitation by a central administration. They are primarily drawn into pilgrimage centers by their own personal convictions not because of economic pre ssure or political coercion, although trade and socializing may be significant elements of the pilgrimage experience.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Many of these ideas for pilgrimage in Chaco developed from discussions with Jim Judge. Rana P.B. Singh and D. P. Dubey have been masterful guides and generous companions to pilgrimage sites of India. Kapila Vatsyayan and B. N. Saraswati have long g iven us much-welcomed support and guidance for our field work in India. Linda Cordell, Frank Eddy, Steve Lekson, and Tom Windes read early drafts of the paper and have provided useful advice.