MEMENTOS

Pilgrims may carry mementos, souvenirs, and relics home with them, some of which may be found in the archaeological record (Morinis 1992). The most common memento in India is probably water from the Ganga river brought home in a variety of glass an d metal containers. Dust from the roadways is taken home by the Pandharpur pilgrims to place in their fields. Shalagrams (ammonite fossils) are carried home by pilgrims from the shrine of Muktinath in Nepal. Although the fossils are for sale in the area, pilgrims prefer to find their own along the trail. Muktinath pilgrims also carry water back with them. Every major pilgrimage center contains shops where a variety of religious mementos and religious texts can be purchased.

Worked turquoise (Judge 1989), having economic, aesthetic, and ritual value, may have been a popular item for pilgrims to bring back with them from a visit to Chaco Canyon. Turquoise was obtained primarily from mines in the Cerrillos area. Guadalup e Pueblo, another Chaco outlier, may have facilitated the acquisition of crude turquoise to be fashioned in the workshops of the Canyon. Other items that have been identified as exotic trade goods are also possible candidates for pilgrimage mementos such as turquoise pendants and turquoise-shell mosaics, macaw feathers (even macaws themselves), and copper bells.

At Chimney Rock pieces of Chacoan pottery containing trachyte, originally from the Chuskas, were ground and reused as temper in Mancos Black-on-white pots with hatched designs (Parker 1994). These pots may have been ritually significant because the y contained mementos of pilgrimage to Chaco Canyon. Feather holders, which were apparently made in Chimney Rock, were carried to Pueblo Bonito and may have been examples of mementos of pilgrimage to Chimney Rock (Sullivan and Malville 1993).