A Barren Waste of Rock. While the Grand Canyon, its vast system of tributaries, and its plateau were being uplifted from the primeval ocean, it consisted of nothing but a wild, barren waste of rock. Not a tree, not a shrub, not a flower, not a blade of grass relieved the monotony of the wilderness of rocks which emerged from the great Eocene sea. Not a lizard, horned t centipede, tarantula, chuckwalla, campamouche,* frog, tree-t turtle or snake was to be found on the long stretching areas of its lifeless shores. Not a chipmunk, prairie-dog, coyote, rat, mouse, porcupine, fox, bear, mountain-lion, badger, deer, antelope or other four-footed creature ran over its new-born surfaces. The sun shone unhindered; the rain beat with pitiless fury; the winds swept unhampered; the snows piled up undeterred over the whole plateau and canyon country. It was plateau and canyon, canyon and plateau; red rock, gray rock, creamy rock, yellow, pink, blue, chocolate, carmine, crimson rock, soft rock, hard rock; sunshine, shadow, wind and quietude; winter, summer, autumn, spring-and that was all! A lifeless world, as yet unprepared for insect, reptile, beast, man, flower or tree. Perhaps a solitary sea-bird with strong pinion flew over it, and gazed into its lifeless depths with wonder, or a dove flew from some earlier and habitable land over this wonderful mass of rock, and returned to its nest and its mate. But no olive or other leaf was in its bill.
*An insect that looks like a tiny dried wisp of hay, well-known in Arizona.
And so the land was born, and rested; while silence, sunshine and solitude brooded over it.
Creation of Soil and Verdure. But in the course of ages, soil was created by the disintegration of the rocks by the weather and the atmosphere, seeds were blown in from regions where flowers and plants bloomed, or were carried in by birds, and later distributed by the four-footed creatures. Then verdure sprang into life; the gentle grasses and flowers began to cover the slopes and level places where soil had gathered, and the trees came to sway and swing in the breezes, and sing their songs of coming life to the hitherto barren rocks.
Fossils of Sea Creatures. Yet they had not been altogether lifeless. Many of the rocks had known life, but it was not insect, reptile, bird, beast or man life; neither did they known anything of grass, flower, shrub or tree life. In the far-away ages, when they were being deposited deep under the surface of the Eocene sea, they saw vast monsters floating in the salty deep, and later, fishes of all sizes, and even great beds of waving sea-moss and ferns floated back and forth, as the tides ebbed and flowed. And fishes and ferns, monsters and moss were occasionally caught in the flowing deposits of lime and sand and silt and clay, and were embedded in their mass. Thus imprisoned, their otherwise forgotten life and history is told to the ages of man that were as yet unborn.
Coming of Man. But now the new life is coming! With verdure and animal life in existence, these hitherto uninhabitable regions became capable of sustaining human life. And the restless spirit of the human race, wherever and howsoever it originated, drove bands of men and women into this region.
Who were they? What were they like? Whence did they come? How long did they stay? Whither did they go? are questions one naturally asks in regard to these first discoverers and inhabitants. If I were to say "I do not know," I would be saying what every other thinking man is compelled to say. Yet there is pleasure in conjecture.
Traces of Ruins. Before looking at these conjectures, however, it is appropriate that we look first at what facts there are to justify them. Suppositions without any facts are mere fictions of the imagination, and this we are not indulging in. When in our day men began to explore the Grand Canyon and its numberless tributaries, a great number of indications of man's presence were found on the rim, on the fault lines or breaks in the sheer precipitous walls, on the plateaus and in the Canyon beneath, in the shape of crude house ruins, lookout houses or forts, indifferent trails, cliff-dwellings, hewn-out water cisterns, mescal pits, with countless pieces of broken pottery, arrowheads, stone axes, hammers, mortars, pestles and even cemeteries. or places of cremation.
Evidences of Superior Civilization. Major J. W. Powell, in his journal of explorations, writes that when he and his party reached the mouth of the Uinta River, they went up to the agency of the Indians of the same name. While visiting the Indians, and noting their fertile, irrigated farms, he found many evidences that "this beautiful valley has been the home of a people of a higher grade of cultivation than the present Utes. On our way here yesterday, we discovered, in many places along the trail, fragments of pottery, and wandering about the little farms to-day I find the foundations of ancient houses and mealing stones that were not used by nomadic people, as they are too heavy to be transported by such tribes, and are deeply worn. The Indians, seeing that I am interested in these matters, take pains to show me several other places where these evidences remain, and tell me. that they know nothing about the people who formerly dwelt here. They further tell me that up in the Canyon the rocks are covered with pictures."
Ancient Dwellings. When Powell and his party reached the junction of the San Juan with the Colorado, they might have found a large number of ancient dwellings in the cliffs not far away from where Bluff City now stands.
Further on, when the Bright Angel was discovered (the beautiful stream and canyon on the north side of the Canyon directly opposite El Tovar), the story of which is told in a separate chapter, Major Powell went up a little gulch, just above Bright Angel Creek, about two hundred yards from their camp on the Colorado, and there he discovered the ruins of two or three old houses, which were originally of stone, laid in mortar. Only the foundations were left, but irregular blocks, of which the houses were constructed, were found lying scattered about. In one room he found an old mealing stone, deeply worn, as if it had been much used. A great deal of pottery was strewn around, and old trails, which in some places were deeply worn into the rocks, were seen.
Ruins of a Village. Between the foot of what is now the Bright Angel Trail and Bass's Cable Crossing, Major Powell discovered another group of ruins. "There was evidently quite a village on this rock. Again we find the mealing stones, and much broken pottery, and up in a little natural shelf in the rock, back of the ruins, we find a globular basket, that would hold perhaps a third of a bushel. It is badly broken, and, as I attempt to take it up, it falls to pieces. There are many beautiful flint chips, as if this had been the home of an old arrow-maker."
Old Gardens. Later, when white men began to go down the trail now known as the Bright Angel Trail (the one near to El Tovar), the remnants of gardens, with irrigating ditches, in which small pieces of Indian pottery were scattered about, were discovered. The place is known today as Indian Garden, and is seen from the upper porch of the hotel.
Stone Huts. In his account of Powell's second expedition, Dellenbaugh tells of ancient ruins found below Labyrinth Canyon. "Small huts for storage were found there in the cliffs, and on a promontory, about thirty feet above the water, were the ruins of stone buildings, one of which, twelve by twenty feet in dimensions, had walls still standing about six feet high. The Canyon here was some six hundred feet high, though the top of the plateau through which the Canyon is carved is at least fifteen hundred feet above the river. We discovered the trail by which the old Puebloans had made their way in and out. Where necessity called for it, poles and tree-trunks had been placed against the rocks to aid the climbers. Some of our party trusted themselves to these ancient ladders, and with the aid of a rope also, reached the summit." These Indians had tilled a small piece of arable land in an alcove near by.
An Old Indian Fortress. Hance found a number of cliff ruins and the remnants of old houses on and near his trail, and on the Red Canyon Trail. It was the discovery of an old Indian lookout fortress, located on the very edge of the Canyon where Bass Camp now is, that led Bass to hunt for the trail into the Canyon. This fortress is about fifteen feet square, outside measurement, and consists of one room, twelve feet square, with a lookout in the eastern wall, which is still to be seen. Remnants of the walls still stand, and at one corner are fully ten feet high. About a mile below this fortress, were discovered two large native water-storage tanks or reservoirs, which, when cleaned out, were capable of holding many hundreds of gallons of water. Further down, on the plateaus beneath, several large pits for the cooking of mescal were discovered.
Cooking of Mescal. This mescal is the succulent and sweet inner leaf of the agave deserti, which is found in large quantities in this region. The Indians still prepare it in the same manner as did their forefathers. The larger thick leaves are taken from the plants when they are full of sap. Great pits are dug and lined with rocks. Into these pits dry wood, roots, pine cones, etc., are thrown and set on fire, until the whole oven is thoroughly heated. On the hot rocks are then laid the pulpy stalks of the agave; over these is placed a layer of wet grass; then more agave or mescal leaves, more grass, and so on, until the pit is full. Then the oven and its contents are banked over with earth, and allowed to steam and cook for three or four days. The woman in charge is an expert in determining when her "bread is baked." She thrusts stalks of the agave into the heart of the pit before it is finally closed up, and when she deems "time up," she pulls forth one of these stalks. If it is not done to her liking, she allows the process to continue; otherwise the banked up earth is removed, and the contents of the pit withdrawn and placed upon adjacent rocks to dry. It now looks like large cakes of brownish fibres, thoroughly saturated in molasses. In taste it is sweet and fairly palatable, though the fibres render it a food that requires a large amount of mastication. It has great staying qualities, contains much nutrition, and will keep for months, even years. I have eaten pieces of it that were sweet and good over three years after it was made.
Unlimited Fragments of Pottery. In my own wanderings of nearly twenty years in the Grand and Havasu Canyons and their smaller tributary gorges, I have discovered scores of these cliff-dwellings. Ruins uncounted are to be found scattered along the rim, within five to ten miles of the Canyon, and thousands of pieces of pottery of old design have been picked up by the visitors of the past fifteen years.
On the Shinumo, opposite the Bass Trail, are several cliff-dwellings, and as late as the summer of 1908 a young couple camped there for a month on their wedding trip, excavated and discovered a fine stone axe, numbers of pieces of pottery of three different kinds, several pieces with holes bored with the primitive drill of flint or obsidian, a fine spearhead of flint, and a number of arrow points.
Similarity of Cliff Ruins. The whole region of Arizona, New Mexico, Southern Utah, and Southern Colorado abounds in these cliff ruins. The likeness of their appearance, and the fact that everything excavated is of a similar kind, seems to indicate a relationship, both in time of occupancy and in the peoples who built and tenanted them.
The questions now naturally arise: Who were these people? What was their life? Whence did they come? Whither have they gone?
The Race of the Cliff Dwellers. In the earlier days of America's serious researches into her own archaeology, those who led our thought on the subject, though personally they had not seen the cliff-dwellings, declared them to be the homes of the Aztecs, one of the Mexican races found by Cortes below the City of Mexico. Hence today we find people talking about the Aztecs and their ruined homes in Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado and Utah. We used to read of the wonder of the discoverers of these dwellings, at finding them so small. The doorways were small, the rooms themselves less than six feet in width and length, and the ceilings so low that a five-foot man could not stand upright in them. It was reasonable therefore to infer, said these discoverers, that the builders and inhabitants of the cliff-dwellings were an exceedingly small people, dwarfs, as in no other way could the rooms be occupied. And thousands of people who have read about these ruins still hold to the idea that they were inhabited by dwarfs. But who the dwarfs were, or where they have gone to, no one seems to have the remotest idea. But by and by, such men as Bandelier, the Mendeleffs, Stevenson, Cushing, Fewkes, Hough, Hodge and Hewett, began to investigate. They took the field, and carefully explored hundreds of ruins. Then, some of them with a profound knowledge of the Spanish tongue, went through all the records and diaries of the old conquistadores and the padres who accompanied them. They found out all that the early Spaniards had discovered and conjectured. In the meantime, they began to study the languages of the Indians of the regions nearest to the ruins, and question them as to their myths, legends, and traditions bearing upon the ruins, and their researches speedily bore fruit.
Storage Houses. First of all they classified their discoveries. Though scores of skeletons were found, there was not a single dwarf specimen among them. This seemed to be a death blow to the dwarf theory. Stone slabs were used as doors. Necessarily these were comparatively small, since even though large slabs might have been found, they could not have been moved by the cliff-dwellers, on account of their weight. This, in itself, accounted for the size of the doorways. It had long been noticed that these small dwellings were scattered profusely where there were larger dwellings, and finally it became known that the small dwellings were not used for habitations at all. They were merely storage houses for corn and other edibles, farmed by the inhabitants of the larger dwellings. On one occasion, some years ago, I was exploring one of the side gorges of the Havasu. We had seen scores of the cliff dwellings, perched high in the walls of the canyons, until at length one particularly well-built, though exceedingly small structure attracted my attention. My guide was the most intelligent and communicative of the Havasupai Indians, and he immediately responded to my query by crying out: "Meala-hawa! Meala-hawa!" (Corn house). Further inquiry revealed the fact that all the small dwellings were but storage houses for corn and other foods.
Textiles. Excavation brought forth delicate textiles in cotton and yucca fibre, well-woven, and in a remarkable state of preservation--silent testimony to the dry climate, and the fact that the dwellings were so constructed that rain and snow were practically excluded. Basketry and pottery in large quantities were found, all showing ability in manufacture, also artistic skill, anti-aesthetic conception in the form of the articles and the designs portrayed upon them.
Excavated Relics. Stone hammers and axes, obsidian, flint and other arrow-heads, spear-heads, and knives, mortars and pestles, metates or meal grinders, obsidian and flint drills for making holes through stone or shell, bows and arrows,--the bows of tough wood often brought from afar, and the arrows pointed with chipped flint or obsidian, deftly and securely tied to the shaft with tough and durable strings of sinews; shell beads, pipes, bone awls, punches, needles, etc.; stone fetiches in semblance of animals, the like of which were never seen on land or sea; ornaments of shell, turquoise and onyx, and even a kind of jade; sandals and mats of yucca fibre, and exquisitely delicate feather robes,--these are some of the things that the excavators have found. Corn-cobs, melon rinds and grass seeds may be added to the list.
Old Cemeteries. Then--most interesting of finds--a number of cemeteries were located, and these were raked and scraped over until every visible secret hidden in their depths was brought into the light of the sun.
Tracing the Indian Races. Now here were numbers of facts to work upon. Then the myths, legends and traditions of the Indians living near by were carefully collected and studied, and light began to dawn in the minds of our archaeologists. The Hopis in Northern Arizona, the Zunis in New Mexico, the Acomas who live on the massive cliff twenty miles south of the Santa Fe Railway at Laguna Station, the score of pueblos on the banks of the Rio Grande, even to far-away Taos,--all contributed their share to the elucidation of the mystery. Even the semi-nomadic Navaho had something to say which helped. Cushing found among the Zuni stories galore of their struggles with the fierce and warlike wandering tribes, who constantly harassed the home-loving people who built their rude villages. Fewkes not only unearthed whole cities of the past, but, gained from the nearby Hopis their traditions, which told in reasonable and intelligible form what was most probably their history. He listened while their old men and women recited the stories and legends of their migration from the south northwards, and how certain families or clans came from this or that direction, building and inhabiting certain now ruined dwellings in ages long past. Others heard similar stories, which they investigated as far as possible, compared with the ruins named, and then recorded, with such discovered facts as helped in the elucidation of the problems involved.
Ancestors of the Pueblo People. All these investigations pointed to one great fact, and that was that the cliff and cave dwellers of the Grand Canyon region and all the contiguous country were none other than the ancestors of the present pueblo people,--those who live in the Hopi villages, the Zuni villages, Acoma, Laguna, Santo Domingo, Isleta, Teseque, Jemez, Taos, San Ildefonso, Zia and the rest.
With this luminous fact before them, a greater study began of these pueblo people, and it was then found that, to this day, they use the same utensils, make the same implements, wear the same ornaments, follow the same burial customs, and generally live the same life that these ancient cliff-dwellers did. The conclusions, therefore, are obvious and inevitable. The cliff-dwellers were none other than the ancestors of the pueblo people, a little less advanced, doubtless, in the march of civilization, yet already far progressed from the rude civilization of the nomad. They were driven to occupy the inaccessible cliffs by the constant attacks of the warlike nomads.
Sedentary and Home-loving Indians. Thus the cliff dwellings become interesting memorials of the great fight for existence, where one race has striven to the very death with other races, and the weaker have either given way or been swept out of existence. The picture is easy to draw. The country was peopled with these sedentary and home-loving Indians. They had come largely from the south, had settled down, had built their humble villages, tilled their fields and cultivated their crops. The women made baskets and pottery, and the men hunted game, while the women prepared it for food, and gathered seeds, nuts and roots to eke out their not overextensive dietary. Young men and women grew up, felt the dawnings of love and the final awakenings of the great passion, and then married, settled down in a house the community helped them to build, and began to work a piece of land selected for them, or at least approved, by the town council. For, even in those early days, there is every evidence that these people had a definite and distinct form of democratic government, to the elected officials of which they yielded an almost perfect reverence and obedience. In due time, happy and healthy children were born to them.
Peaceful and Religious. They were a religious people, were these early dwellers in the land. They built kivas and estufas,--under and above ground ceremonial chambers,--where they regularly and decorously met to worship by dance, recitation of ancient songs, telling of divine leadings and interpositions on their behalf, smoking, singing, prayer, and the observance of other ritual. Thus happy, contented and basking in the favor of Those Above, they dwelt, until suddenly a new and unfavorable element was injected into their hitherto peaceful life. The buffetings of nature they had become accustomed to, and they had kept their bodies healthy so as to resist these assaults, but now human storms were about to burst upon them. Apaches in the south, Comanches and Navahos in the east, Utes and Navahos in the north, Mohaves and Yumas in the west began to encroach upon them. Envious eyes gazed upon their houses and the goods that industry and skill had gathered within. Those who had no food stored when famine swooped upon them, came and begged from those who had. By and by jealousy and envy prompted theft, and then strife began. Strife spread and grew, until war in all its horrors became the normal condition. In self preservation, these peaceable, friendly, hospitable peoples were compelled to be warriors. But their foes were many and crafty, skilful in war, wary in attack and retreat. Their harassments became more than could be borne, so, in their desperation, the peaceable people retreated to the cliffs and walls of the Canyons, where surprise could be guarded against, where a small supply of water could be reasonably sure, and where, not too far away, when permitted to do so, they might cultivate a small piece of arable land.
Compelled to Wage War. Think of the state of affairs! A state of perpetual siege and watchfulness, of readiness to fight at any moment, of keeping lookouts on the alert day and night, of working in the fields with one hand on the implements of peace and industry, and the other on the implements of war. The night attack, murder, rapine, fire and bloodshed became common experiences, and the discovery of many bodies, the skulls crushed with battleaxes, of skeletons of men slain with the deadly arrow, of bodies twisted by torture and charred by fire, reveal what a reign of terror and dread that epoch must have been in the land of the cliff-dweller.
Houses Became Fortresses. For how many decades or centuries this lasted, we do not know. Somewhat uncertain tradition is all we have to rely upon. But ultimately the pressure became less severe. In some cases, hostilities largely ceased; in others, they became less constant. So the pueblos we find in existence to-day slowly began to arise. One by one, the bands of cliff-dwellers dared to leave their wall fortresses and to build in more congenial places, nearer to their fields and springs or water-courses. But, taught by past experience, they made their homes into fortresses. The houses were massed together, largely for protective purposes; there was no means of easy entrance to the bottom story (they were built from two to seven stories high), the only way provided being by a hatchway and ladder from the roof. The rooms of the second story were thrust back a little, so that the roof of the first story formed a kind of courtyard for its inhabitants. Ladders that could easily be removed afforded ingress and egress, and the doorways could be guarded by flat slabs of rock. Numerous loop-holes afforded outlook points, and also opportunity for the shooting of poisoned arrows upon an oncoming foe.
Buildings in Inaccessible Places. In some cases, as that of the Hopi villages, Acoma and old Zuni, the new towns were erected upon almost inaccessible mesas, the steep trails of which could be securely guarded against an army by a handful of hidden men.
Arrival of Spaniards. This was the state of affairs when the Spaniards marched into the country (after the reconnaissance of Fray Marcos), under the leadership of Coronado and his lieutenant, the ensign Tovar. Hence it will be seen that the original discoverers and inhabitants of the Grand Canyon were evidently the ancestors of the present pueblo peoples.
This book comes from：m.funovel.com。