Interesting, though I wonder how much consensus there is on this stuff. I've seen the term Anasazi in lots of materials online and in print, usually with the associated meaning "ancient ones" rather than "ancient enemies", and I almost certain my Navajo guide at Monument Valley used the term (which was just a couple years ago).
I've never understood the PC obsession with deciding that the current name/term for something is offensive and a new one must be created, only to repeat the same process again a decade or two later. Seems pretty silly to me.
I think it's silly too. I'm just catching up everyone on the current state of things. At the obvious risk of stereotyping, I'd say that among the larger tribes in these parts, the Navajo are the least concerned with PC terms. The people I know who are most offended by "Anasazi" come from the pueblos that feel particularly connected to the Chaco culture. I once met an Acoma man who was especially unhappy about it (Acoma origin legends are absolutely fascinating, and some archeologists believe there may indeed be something to their claim of having come from Chaco after it fell). I suppose the big picture here is that there were, and still are, a lot of different kinds of people living in the region. We shouldn't expect everyone here with a great degree of non-european blood to think or feel the same about everything.
A good example is the current newspeak for corn. Apparently, a lot of people have been led to believe that "maize" is or was a "Native American" word for corn, and that we should all therefore return to calling it that. It's pretty common to see statements in PC documents such as "The production of maize in the US fell by...blah...blah...blah." Well, I'm no expert in indian languages or their histories, but there are still hundreds of entirely distinct pre-columbian languages spoken inside the US alone, and countless others that died recently with their last speakers. Clearly, there was no such thing as a single word for corn among them all, just as there is no common word for rice in Asia today. "Maize" is popular enough among the Spanish-speaking people of the western hemisphere, but I don't see that as a valid reason to ditch the English word.
Anyway, to get back to things photographic, it's really difficult to shoot a lot of the ruins anywhere in the region now. Many of the more well-known sites can't be accessed during the hours when light is the most dramatic. Or, they're constantly crawling with hordes of tourists. Aztec is far enough off the "10 best" type lists that you can actually shoot it from time to time. Many of us question the quality of the "restoration" of that Kiva, but there isn't anything else quite like it that I'm aware of. I'm glad you got to shoot it. I used 35mm film last time I was there, maybe 15 years ago, and got some fairly dismal results. If you ever get the time, I could suggest a number of more remote sites that are awfully compelling. Not as easy to get to for sure, and most of them are in a terrible state of ruin, but they really give one a personal sense of experiencing the ancient ones directly. A few years ago, I came across a pottery shard that still clearly had impressions of the fingerprints of its maker. Very spooky.
