The Prehistoric World or Vanished races Part 33

The San Juan River does not seem to be as rich in ruins as some of its tributaries. Yet near the mouth of the Montezuma we came upon a ruin which shows considerable a.n.a.logy to the pueblos. Mr. Jackson says upon the top of the bench (fifty feet high) overlooking the river are the ruins of a quadrangular structure of a peculiar design. It is arranged very nearly at right angles to the river. We see from the plan that we have the ruins of a larger building arranged around an open court--at least, Mr. Jackson could detect no trace of a wall in front. We must notice the seven apartments, arranged in the form of a semicircle, back of the court. Extreme ma.s.siveness is indicated throughout the whole structure.

In the immediate vicinity of this ruin were found a number of little, cave-like dwellings. They were so small that doubts were raised as to whether they were suitable for human habitations, but the majority of them bore ample evidence in smoke-begrimed walls that such was their use. Twelve miles below the mouth of the Montezuma this group of ruins was discovered. These were situated in a cave that was almost exactly a hemisphere in shape. Where the curve of the roof met the curve from the bottom a little projecting bench had been utilized as a foundation for a row of houses.

Ill.u.s.tration of Cave-Town.------------------

The little community that built their houses here seem to have practised all the industries of a savage life. In one place there was evidence that on that spot had been carried on the manufacture of stone implements. At another place holes had been drilled, as if for a loom.

In the main building there were fourteen rooms or apartments, ranging from sixteen to nine feet in width. "In the central room of the main building we found a circular, basin-like depression, that had served as a fireplace, being still filled with the ashes and cinders of aboriginal fires, the surrounding walls being blackened with smoke and soot. This room was undoubtedly the kitchen of the house. Some of the smaller rooms appear to have been used for the same purpose, the fires having been made in the corner against the back wall, the smoke escaping overhead.

The masonry displayed in the construction of the walls is very creditable. A symmetrical curve is preserved throughout the whole line, and every portion perfectly plumb. The subdivisions are at right angles to the front. The whole appearance of the place and its surroundings indicate that the family or little community who inhabited it were in good circ.u.mstances, and the lords of the surrounding country. Looking out from one of their houses, with a great dome of solid rock overhead that echoed and re-echoed every word uttered with marvelous distinctness, and below them a steep descent of one hundred feet to the broad, fertile valley of the Rio San Juan, covered with waving fields of maize and scattered groves of majestic cotton-woods, these old people, whom even the imagination can hardly clothe with reality, must have felt a sense of security that even the incursions of their barbarian foes could hardly have disturbed."<21>

To describe the defensive ruins on Epsom Creek, Montezuma Creek, and the McElmo is simply to repeat descriptions already given. We meet with cave-houses, cliff-houses, and sentinel-towers in abundance. The whole section appears to have been thickly settled. Further explorations will doubtless make known many more ruins, but probably nothing differing in kind from what is already known. We think the defensive ruins belong to a later period of their existence than do the old and time-worn structures we have hitherto described along the river valleys and open plains, as at Aztec Springs. These structures plainly show that at the time they were built the people were subject to an invasion from a stronger foe, one before whose approach they had to fly for protection to the almost inaccessible cliffs.

They would obviously never have settled there had they always had to contend with these savage tribes. It needs no great skill to read the story of the dispersion of these old people from the ruins we have described; the many watch-towers, which were also used as fortresses or citadels in which to find protection, testifying to the need of increased watchfulness. The cave-houses and cliff-fortresses, cunningly hidden away to escape detection, or so placed as to defy the a.s.sault of their enemies, show to what desperate straits they were driven; and imagination only can picture the despair that must have filled their hearts when the hour of final defeat came, and they must have realized that even these s.h.i.+fts would not allow them to stay in the lands of their fathers.

That this is the explanation of these ruins, we will cite the legendary stories given by an old man among the Moquis concerning some ruins in the canyon of the McElmo, just over the line in Utah. At this point the canyon widens out considerably, and in the center of the valley is still standing a portion of the old mesa, once filling the entire valley. It is now a ma.s.s of dark red sandstone, about one hundred feet high, and three hundred feet around, seamed and cracked, and gradually disappearing, as the rock has gone all around it. The top of this rock is covered with the ruins of some building; there are also ruins at the base and all around the immediate vicinity. There were watch towers and estufas, showing that this was a place of great interest.

Ill.u.s.tration of Battle Rock, McElmo Canyon.----------

The story is as follows: "Formerly the aborigines inhabited all this country as far east as the headwaters of the San Juan, as far north as the Rio Dolores, west some distance into Utah, and south and south-west throughout Arizona, and on down into Mexico. They had lived there from time immemorial, since the earth was a small island, which augmented as its inhabitants multiplied. They cultivated the valley, fas.h.i.+oned whatever utensils and tools they needed very neatly and handsomely out of clay, and wood, and stone, not knowing any of the useful metals; built their homes and kept their flocks and herds in the fertile river bottoms, and wors.h.i.+ped the sun. They were an eminently peaceful and prosperous people, living by agriculture rather than by the chase. About a thousand years ago, however, they were visited by savage strangers from the north, whom they treated hospitably. Soon these visits became more frequent and annoying. Then their troublesome neighbors, ancestors of the present Utes, began to forage upon them, and at last to ma.s.sacre them and devastate their farms. So, to save their lives at least, they built houses high up on the cliffs, where they could store food and hide away until the raiders left.

"But one Summer the invaders did not go back to their mountains, as the people expected, but brought their families with them and settled down.

So, driven from their homes and lands, starving in their little niches on the high cites they could only steal away during the night and wander across the cheerless uplands. To one who has traveled these steppes such a flight seems terrible, and the mind hesitates to picture the sufferings of the sad fugitives. At the 'Creston' (name of the ruin) they halted, and probably found friends, for the rocks and caves are full of the nests of these human wrens and swallows. Here they collected, erected stone fortifications and watch-towers, dug reservoirs in the rocks to hold a supply of water, which in all cases is precarious in this lat.i.tude, and once more stood at bay. Their foes came, and for one long month fought, and were beaten back, and returned day after day to the attack as merciless and inevitable as the tide. Meanwhile the families of the defenders were evacuating and moving south, and bravely did their defenders s.h.i.+eld them till they were all safely a hundred miles away.

"The besiegers were beaten back and went away. But the narrative tells us that the hollows of the rocks were filled to the brim with the mingled blood of conquerors and, conquered, and red veins of it ran down the canyon. It was such a victory as they could not afford to gain again, and they were glad, when the long flight was over, to follow their wives and little ones to the south. There, in the deserts of Arizona, on well-nigh unapproachable, isolated bluffs, they built new towns, and their few descendants, the Moquis, live in them to this day, preserving more carefully and purely the history and veneration of their forefathers than their skill or wisdom."<22>

Mr. Jackson thinks this legend arises from the appearance of the rocks.

The bare floor of nearly white sandstone, upon which the b.u.t.te stands, is stained in gory streaks and blotches by the action of an iron const.i.tuent in the rocks of another portion of the adjoining bluffs.

That may well be true, but we believe that there are germs of truth in the story. Driven from their homes, where did the fugitives go? Some of them may have gone east, but probably the body of the migration was to the south. It has been the tendency of all tribes, but especially of the sedentary tribes, to pa.s.s to the south and east, and this is also the traditions among the inhabitants of still existing pueblos.<23> We find that every available portion of New Mexico and Arizona bears evidence of having been once populated by tribes of Indians, who built houses in all respects like those already described. In northern New Mexico, Prof.

Cope has described a whole section of country as being at one time more densely populated than the thickly inhabited portions of the Eastern States. He says: "The number of buildings in a square mile of that region is equal to, if not greater than the number now existing in the more densely populated rural districts of Pennsylvania and New Jersey."<24>

In one location he found a village of thirty houses, built of stone, and all in ruins. He found, over a large extent of country, that every little conical hill and eminence was crowned with ruins of old houses.

We, of course, can not say that these ruins are necessarily younger than those to the north of the San Juan, and yet we think from Prof. Cope's description that they do not present such evidence of antiquity as do the crumbling ruins previously described. And then, besides, they were always located in easily defended positions.

The village spoken of was really a Cliff Village, being arranged along the very edge of a precipitous mesa, the only access to it being along a narrow causeway. Then again, although we have described many ruins near which no water is to be had, at least, in dry seasons, yet we have every reason to suppose water was formerly more plentiful and easily attained.

But in this section it must always have been a serious question with them to obtain enough water for necessary purposes. They must have had to store away water in vessels of pottery, whose ruins are now so abundant. It is not such a country as we would suppose a people to choose for a place to settle in, only that they knew not where else to go.

It is also considered settled that all the inhabited pueblos, as well as those in ruins near the inhabited ones, were built by the descendants of these people whose houses we have described. This is proven by the similarity of pottery. Though some styles of ancient corrugated ware are found in the San Juan section not found near the inhabited pueblos, yet vast quant.i.ties of ware, similar to that now found in the inhabited pueblos, can be picked up all over the ruins to the north. Again, their religion must have been the same, as ruined estufas are common, in all respects similar to those now in use. In the modern pueblos we are struck with the small cell-like rooms, yet they are but little smaller than the ordinary single houses plentifully found over the entire field of ruins. All the Pueblo tribes are agricultural, so were these old people. In fact, all evidence confirms the conclusion that the remnants of the Pueblo people that we have already described, are also the descendants of the people driven by hostile bands from north of the San Juan.

This statement may give false impressions, however. The traditions of the Pueblo Indians, of New Mexico, are to the effect that they came from the north, and also that their ancestors formerly lived in the small houses we have described. But we do not mean to say that all the small houses and pueblos in Arizona and New Mexico are later in date than the cliff-houses. The pressure has always been from the north to the south.

Neither would we be understood as saying that all the sedentary tribes, both ancient and modern, belong to the same stock of people. There are several different stocks of people even among the present Pueblos.<25>

In the valley of the Rio Chaco, about midway between the Rio Grande and the San Juan, we meet a group of ruined pueblos whose style of masonry is thought to indicate a greater antiquity than the inhabited pueblo towns; these probably indicate another settlement of these people. As these are really remarkable ruins, we must briefly describe them. In the Chaco Canyon, as indicated on the map, within the s.p.a.ce of ten miles are the ruins of eight larger pueblos. Another is located at the very beginning of the canyon, and two more on the edge of the mesas just outside of the canyon. These are large communal houses of regular pueblo type, and, theoretically at least, they should be later in date than the majority of ruins throughout the area represented on the map. We think the development has been from small, separate houses, to a closely connected cl.u.s.ter, with a central citadel, which finally drew to itself all the other buildings, and became the communal building we call a pueblo.<26>

We give a restoration of, one--the Pueble Bonito--one of the largest and most important of the ruins. We can not doubt but what the restoration is substantially correct. It shows the open court, the terraced structure, and the system of defense. The circle itself is not as near a half-circle as we would imagine. The ground plan shows that it was really a many-sided building. This pueblo must have presented a striking appearance when it was in a complete state.

Ill.u.s.tration of Restoration of Pueblo Bonito.---------

By comparing this structure with the views of some of the present pueblo towns, we will understand the remarks made earlier, as to the different styles of pueblo structures. This building must have had not far from six hundred and fifty rooms. "No single edifice of equal accommodations has ever been found in any part of North America. It would shelter three thousand Indians."<27> This pueblo will compare favorably with some of the structures of Yucatan; though not so ornamental, yet for practical convenience it must have met the wants of the builders fully as well.

This may be given as a fair example of the entire cla.s.s.

The evident plan on which they started to build their structures, is shown in the following plan of the pueblo. But some of them were not fully completed. Two of them had but one wing. In the restoration the court is seen to be closed by a straight row of small buildings, but in most cases the wall inclosing the court was more or less circular.

In one case the court was left open. We will only give general descriptions. It is now believed that these great structures were built only a part at a time; perhaps the main body, or a part of it, first.

Afterwards, as the number of inhabitants increased, a wing would be added, and then the other; and so, many years would elapse before the pueblo would a.s.sume its completed form.

Ill.u.s.tration of Plan of Pueblo Bonito.---------

These structures ranged in extent from about four hundred to twelve hundred feet in external measurement and could furnish a home to from two hundred to eight hundred or a thousand Indians, and, in one case at least, many more.

In the next cut we have represented the different styles of masonry employed in the pueblos of this valley. It varied all the way from careful piling of big and little stones, and of alternate layers of such materials, to very good masonry indeed. Speaking of it, Mr. Jackson says, "It is the most wonderful feature in these ancient habitations, and is in striking contrast to the careless and rude methods shown in the dwellings of the present pueblos. The material, a grayish-yellow sandstone, breaking readily into thin laminae, and was quarried from the adjacent exposures of that rock. The stones employed average about the size of an ordinary brick, but as the larger pieces were irregular in size, the interstices were filled in with very thin plates of sandstone, or rather built in during its construction; for by no other means could they be placed with such regularity and compactness. So closely are the individual pieces fitted to each other that at a little distance no jointage appears, and the wall bears every indication of being a plain, solid surface."

Ill.u.s.tration of Different Styles of Masonry.--------

Besides these important ruins, there are a great many others not especially different from those previously described. We can not state positively that these ruins are of a later date than those of the North; we think they are. From the character of the structures, we are more inclined to cla.s.s them with the great pueblos of the Rio Grande, Puerco, and Zuni. By examining the map we see that the Rio Chaco would afford a convenient route for them in their migration from the San Juan Valley.

Ill.u.s.tration of Room in Pueblo Bonito. (Bureau of Ethnology.)---

It may be of some interest to notice one of the rooms in this pueblo.

Simpson says it is walled up with alternate layers of large and small stones, the regularity of the combination producing a very pleasant effect. Mr. Morgan thinks this room will compare not unfavorably with any of equal size to be found in the more imposing ruins of the South.

We must notice the ceiling. The probabilities are that the Rio Ch.e.l.ly, further to the west, afforded another line of retreat. Some ruins are found scattered up and down the river or canyon, which we will not stop to describe. Off to the south-west are the inhabited towns or pueblos of the Moquis, who, as we have seen, have a tradition that they came from the north.

There are some ruins found in the south-western part of Arizona which must be described in a general survey of the ruins of the Pueblo country. The river Gila, with numerous tributaries, is the most important stream in that portion of the State. It is in just such a section as we would expect to find ruins, if anywhere. Coronado, as we have seen, invaded the country about three hundred and fifty years ago. At the time of his visit this was then a ruin, for his historian describes one ruin as "a single ruined and roofless house... the work of civilized people who had come from afar."<28> This gives us a point as to the antiquity of some of the ruins in the Gila Valley. As we shall see, there is every reason to suppose that this section was at one time a thickly inhabited one.

From the similar character of the remains, we conclude the original inhabitants to be of the same race of people as those we have already described, but what was the exact relation between them we can not tell, but we think a study of the ruins will only confirm the general truth of the traditions of the Pueblo tribes. In any one tradition there is doubtless much that is distorted. One form in which the traditions find expression is: "That they proceeded from the north-west to the upper waters of the Rio Colorado. There they divided, portions ascended by the San Juan, canyon De Ch.e.l.ly, or the more easterly branches of that stream towards the center of New Mexico. Others, pa.s.sing over the waters of the Rio Verde (see map), descended its valley to the Rio Gila."<29>

One hundred and fifty miles southwest of Zuni we notice the Verde River flowing into the Rio Salado, and the latter into the Gila. Besides those streams, there are other smaller ones, not marked on the map.<30> Mr. Bandelier found near the Canyon del Tule an improvement on the irrigating ditches, that was a lining of concrete; and in this section also was noticed the ruins of both pueblos and the small houses. Near Ft. Apache he found the ruins of the largest villages discovered in Arizona, but we have no details of it. The valley of the Rio Verde and Salado seems to have been a favorite resort.

As early as 1854 attention was called to ruins in the Rio Verde. Mr.

Leroux reported to Mr. Whipple that the "river banks were covered with ruins of stone houses and regular fortifications, which appeared to have been the work of civilized men, but had not been occupied for centuries.

They were built upon the most fertile tracts of the valley, where were signs of acequias (irrigating ditches) and of cultivation. The walls were of solid masonry, of rectangular form, some twenty or thirty paces in length, were of solid masonry, and yet remaining ten or fifteen feet in height. The buildings were of two stories, with small apertures or loop-holes for defence, when besieged."<31>

Mr. Bandelier confirms this account as to the number of ruins. The entire valley of the Verde is filled with ruins of every description.

From the account of the valley itself, we can see how well suited it was to the needs of village Indians. Mr. Leroux speaks in high praise of its fertility. Wood, water, and gra.s.s were abundant. In the neighborhood of Fort Reno Mr. Bandelier discovered a new architectural feature of great interest to us. This is a raised platform, on which the buildings were supported. This raised platform is a very important feature, as we shall learn in the ruins of Mexico and Central America. We have already seen how it was employed by the Mound Builders.

In other words, the detached houses are seen to form villages, with a central stronghold, and the tendency is observed to raise an artificial foundation for this central house, which draws into itself the surrounding houses. This is but another modification of the same idea which, in other sections of this area developed into the communal pueblo. Near Tempe a still more significant arrangement was noticed.

Here was a four-sided platform, three hundred and forty feet long by two hundred and eighty feet wide, and five feet high, supported a second platform measuring two hundred and forty by two hundred feet, and six feet high. Elevated platforms, as a general rule, were not very distinct. Mr. Bandelier thinks that, owing to the peculiar drainage of the country, these artificial foundations were required to preserve the buildings from being swept away by a sudden torrent. The settlement of the sedentary tribes in this region cl.u.s.ter on the triangle formed by the Rio Verde, Salado, and Gila Rivers. "This is a warm region, with a scanty rainfall, and but little timber, and the soil is very fertile when irrigated, and two crops a year can be readily raised. Mr.