Information is the Currency of the Past Too

I came upon those words at a museum exhibit in Santa Fe shortly after visiting the Taos Pueblo. If you read the history of the Pueblo people you realize that this is a truth that they have known for hundreds of years. Long before the "information age," the Pueblo people knew that their knowledge was the key to their survival against intruders. Later in the week we visited Mesa Verde, once home to Anasazi ("ancient ones"). Our guide was Pueblo, and he happily detailed all of the anthropological theories about who the Anasazi were, how they lived, and what they used the various rooms for. But ask him for his own theories, as someone who grew up in a home very much like this one, with the same construction, the same kivas, the same ancestors, and he would shake his head, tap his brow, and say only, "Think about it. These were people like you and me. What would you do?". Information is not something to be handed out freely; then or now.