Swallows

In the Hopi creation myth a swallow was created out of clay by the medicine men as the first messenger or emissary sent from the third world to look above the sky for a better world to live in.

The third world, where they lived, had become corrupt because the powakas or sorcerers had corrupted the people with conflict and disruption. The crops began to wither, rivers flowed slower, and springs disappeared. Clouds would not release rain and sickness came across the world.

The people of the third world had heard footsteps and rumblings in the heavens and they reasoned there might be another world there that would be better. The swallow was asked to fly up above the sky and see if this was true and if so ask those living there if the people of the third world might join them.

Alas the swallow only discovered an opening like a kiva in the sky but it lacked the strength to investigate further.1

The swallow is a singular species in the West. They seem to be everywhere. Be it a tree swallow flying high over the arboreal realms, a violet-green swallow nesting and flitting about the houses and businesses in town, or the cliff swallow soaring over the precipices and heights of Western canyons.

In my travels this spring they seemed to be everywhere. Under a county highway bridge building mud nests and racing across the torpid current of the Teton river as they hunt the abundant spring hatch of insects. Returning with mouths bristling with lively food for their young. They were seen over the vertiginous heights of the dark inaccessible cliffs of the Black Canyon of the Gunnison. A canyon so steep with depths so ponderous as to induce vertigo with just a glance.

Nests welded to the sandstone cliffs of the San Miguel. Flights over the sandstone spires and declivities of the Colorado National Monument. They swoop and dive over the newly greened aspens below the cliffs of the San Juan mountains.

The swallow is everywhere and nowhere. You could spend weeks in the territory but unless you really look, you may not notice them. They are small and seem at times more like insects than birds, especially against the massive landscapes and airspaces they occupy. But occupy they do and in a sense they have conquered this space in a way few can claim. Sure the hawk or eagle or vulture may lay claim in some lazy drifting circles. But the swallow asserts its tiny self against not only the sky but the landscape and the empty spaces between as it intercepts its tiny prey with such swiftness and precision as to mystify us grounded mortals.

So next time you find yourself in our grand public lands pay some attention to the empty spaces above or below and around you, and give respect to these invisible denizens peacefully dominating space.

Below: Video of cliff swallows and nests under a bridge over the Teton River.