John Wesley Powell and Southern Paiute Indians. Photograph by J. K. Hillers, 1873, from Smithsonian Institution, 

Bureau of American Ethnology Collection. 
JOHN WESLEY POWELL 

AND THE ANTHROPOLOGY OF 

THE CANYON COUNTRY 
John Wesley Powell 

and the Anthropology of 

the Canyon Country 

By DON D. FOWLER, ROBERT C. EULER, and CATHERINE S. FOWLER 

GEOLOGICAL SURVEY PROFESSIONAL PAPER 670 

A description of John Weslv Powett' s 

anthropological fieldwork .. the archeology of the C~nyon Country .. and extracts 

from Powell's notes on the origins .. customs .. 

practices .. and beltefs of the Indians of that area 

UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE, WASHINGTON: 1969 
UNITED STATES DEPARTMENTOF THE INTERIOR 

WALTER J. HICKEL, Secretary 

GEOLOGICAL SURVEY 

William T. Pecora, Director 

Library of Congress catalog-card No, 77-601670 

For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office 

Washington, D.C., 20402- Price 50 cents (paper cover) 
llbstract ----------------------------------------

Introduction ------------------------------------- John Wesley Powell's anthropological fieldwork, by 

Don D. Fowler and Catherine S. Fowler _________ _ 

The archeology of the Canyon Country, by Robert C. 

Euler -------------------------------- __________ _ 

The ethnography of the Canyon Country, by Don D. 

Fowler and Catherine S. Fowler _______________ _ 

Extracts from John Wesley Powell's notes on the 

Indians ----------------------------------------

Means of subsistence --------------------------

Contents 

Page 

1 

1 

2 

8 

20 

22 

22 

Page 

Extracts from John Wesley Powell's notes on the 

Indians-Continued 

Animal food --------------------------------- 25 

Courtship and marriage ---------------------- 26 

Mythology and beliefs ------------------------ 27 

The boundaries of the earth ______________ 27 

The origin of the canons of the Colorado ____ 27 

The origin of mountains, valleys, [and] 

canons --------------------------------- 28 

Origin of the Pai-Utes _______________ _____ 28 

References cited --------------------------------- 28 

Illustrations 

FRONTISPIECE. John Wesley Powell and Southern Paiute Indians. 

Page 

FIGURES 1-6. Photographs showing: 

1. Kaibab Paiute Indians ---------------------------------------------------------------- 3 

2. Powell meeting with Kaibab Paiutes ----------------------------------------------------- 4 

3. The Powell-Ingalls Special Commission meeting with Southern Paiutes --------------------- 5 

4. Naches, one of Powell's Northern Paiute informants -------------------------------------- 6 

5. Southern Paiute women wearing Ute dresses -------------------------------------------- 6 

6. Powell with Ute woman and a posed group of Kaibab Paiute men -------------------------- 7 

7. Map showing distribution of the archeological cultures of the Canyon Country and Great Basin ______ 9 

8. Photograph showing ruin on ledge near mouth of White Canyon, Utah ---------------------------- 10 

9. Map showing eastern part of Grand Canyon, }lriz ----------------------------------------------- 11 

10-14. Ph<>tographs showing: 

10. Kayenta Anasazi masonry structure opposite Unkar Creek ------------------------------ 12 

11. Ruins at the mouth of Bright Angel Creek -------~-------------------------------------- 13 

12. Ruins at the c<>nfiuence of Crystal Creek and the Colorado River ------------------------- 14 

13. Ruins above mouth of Shinumo Canyon ------------------------------------------------ 16 

14. Ruins along Tapeats Creek ----------------------------------------------------------- 19 

15. Map showing distribution of historic tribes of the Canyon Country and Great Basin ________________ 20 

16-18. Photographs showing: 

16. Tapeats, one of Powell's Southern Paiute informants ------------------------------------ 21 

17. Kaibab Paiute camp on Kaibab Plateau ------------------------------------------------ 22 

18. Kaibab Paiute woman working with metate and mano, grinding seeds into meal _____________ 24 

v 

JOHN WESLEY POWELL AND THE 

ANTHROPOLOGY OF THE 

CANYON COUNTRY 

By DON D. FOWLER/ ROBERT C. EULER( and CATHERINE S. FOWLER3 

Abstract 

From 1868 to 1879, John Wesley Powell devoted part of 

his time to a study of the Indians of the Canyon Countrythose areas of Utah, western Colorado, northern Arizona, 

and northwestern New Mexico that are drained by the 

Colorado River and its tributaries. In 1879, Congress provided money for the completion of Powell's ethnological 

work, and this led to the creation of the Smithsonian Institution's Bureau of American Ethnology. More than 250 

archeological sites have been found below the rims of 

Marble and Grand Canyons; 37 of the sites are along 

Powell's river route, but only eight are recorded in Powell's 

reports or in the journals of those who went with him. The 

prehistoric human history of the Grand Canyon region is 

briefly described here by R. C. Euler. The origins of the 

Indians in the Canyon Country are portrayed by D. ·D. and 

C. S. Fowler, and brief accounts are presented, using quotations from Powell's notes, on Indian customs, practices, and 

beliefs. 

INTRODUCTION 

On May 24, 1869, John Wesley Powell ~nd nine 

volunteers started down the Green River from 

Green River Station, Wyoming Territory. Their aim 

was to map and to collect scientific information 

about the Canyon Country-those areas .of Utah, 

western Colorado, northern Arizona, and northwestern New Mexico drained by the Colorado River 

and its tributaries. Powell and his men completed 

the trip on August 30, 1869, when they arrived at 

the mouth of the Virgin River below the Grand 

Canyon. Powell and other volunteers made a second 

trip in 1871-72 but concluded their exploration at 

the mouth of Kanab Creek in the Grand Canyon. 

The story of these trips is well known and will not 

be repeated here.• 

Powell's exploits made him a national hero. After 

his 1869 trip, Powell sought and received a congressional appropriation to continue his research. The 

appropriation, continued in later years, established 

the Geographical and Geological Survey of the 

R.ocky Mountain Region, J. W. Powell in Charge. 

Powell's Rocky Mountain Survey became the fourth 

of the so-called great surveys (Bartlett, 1962) 

operating in the American West after the Civil War. 

The others operated under F. V. Hayden, Clarence 

King, and Lt. G. W. Wheeler. 

Throughout the 1870's, Powell and the men who 

worked under him carried out extensive geological 

and topographic studies in the Canyon Country. 

Some of these studies remain as classics in the field, 

especially Powell's (1875a, 1876) on the canyons of 

the Colorado and the Uinta Mountains, G. K. Gilbert's (1877) on the Henry Mountains, and C. E. 

Dutton's (1880) on the Grand Canyon. 

This paper is c.oncerned with yet another facet of 

Powell's work in the Canyon Country-his studies 

of the archeological remains and of the historic 

Indian tribes of the region. 

Research by D. D. Fowler on the materials in the 

introductory and ethnography sections of this paper 

were made possible by a National Research Council 

postdoctoral visiting research associateship at the 

Smithsonian Institution in 1967-68 and by a grant 

from the National Endowment for the Humanities. 

This support is gratefully acknowledged. R. C. 

Euler wishes to express his appreciation to the 

Arizona Power Authority, the National Park Service, Dr. and Mrs. F. E. Bumgarner, and the National 

Science Foundation (Grant GS-1078) for financial 

support of his Grand Canyon research, of which this 

study is a part. To the late Rod Sanderson and his 

sons, of Page, Ariz., who expertly piloted him on 

1 Desert Research Institute, University of Nevada, Reno, Nev. 

2 Prescott College, Prescott, Ariz. • 

3 University of Nevada, Reno, Nev .. 

• See Darrah (1951) and Stegner (1954). Several diaries and journal& 

of both trips were kept. See Gregory (1939), Darrah, Chamberlin, and 

Kelly (1947), Darrah, Gregory, and Kelly (1948-49), Dellenbaugh (1908), 

Fowler and Fowler (1969&). Powell's own published narratives (1875a, 

1895) telescope the events of both trips and report them as taking 

place in 1869. 

1 
2 JOHN WESLEY POWELL AND THE ANTHROPOLOGY OF THE CANYON COUNTRY 

four Colorado River trips through Grand Canyon, 

and to Wayne Learn, the skilled helicopter pilot 

with whom he has spent s.o many hours flying the 

tortuous byways of the canyon, his everlasting 

gratitude for those always exciting yet always safe 

journeys. Finally, a note of thanks to his wife, 

Elizabeth, for smoothing the archeology section 

with her editorial comments. 

JOHN WESLEY POWELL'S 

ANTHROPOLOGICAL FIELDWORK 

By DON D. FOWLER and CATHERINE S. FOWLER 

Powell's first acquaintance with the Indians of the 

Canyon Country came in 1868. He was then leading 

his second expedition of volunteer students and 

friends on a natural history expedition into the 

Rocky Mountains. In the fall, the party journeyed 

to the White River in northwestern Colorado. Most 

of them turned northward and returned home via 

the rail11oad at Green River Station, Wyo., but 

Powell, his wife Emma, and three men remained on 

the White River for the winter. 

Powell's purpose w:as to determine the feasibility 

of a boat expedition down the then largely unknown 

Green and Colorado Rivers, and he spent much of 

the winter making reconnaissance trips along the 

rims of the Green River and its tributaries. 

He did not devote all of the winter of 1868-69 to 

geology and rec.onnaissance, however. A band of 

Tabuats Ute Indians, led by Chief Douglass, was 

also camped on the White River near Powell's 

camp. Powell spent many long winter evenings 

learning the language and observing the customs of 

the Indians. His knowledge of the Ute-Southern 

Paiute language, which he continued to study in 

later years, served him well during his work in the 

Canyon Country. The Utes dubbed him Kapurats, 

meaning "arm off," a name still remembered by 

some of the Indians of southern Utah and northern 

Arizona. In 1967, an old Kaibab Paiute woman from 

northern Arizona told one of the authors that 

Kapurats was remembered by her people as the man 

who many years ago tied rags on trees (apparently 

referring to the surveying tape used by Powell and 

his men in mapping the area), and now, "those rags 

are way up high in those trees." 

The Tabuats Ute were one of the "Northern" Ute 

bands (a term used by anthropologists to distinguish the Ute bands of eastern Utah and northwestern Colorado from the "Southern" Ute bands 

of southern and southwestern Colorado. (See fig. 

15.) The Tabuats, like other Northern Utes, were excellent horsemen. They lived in skin tipis and ventured annually out onto the High Plains east of the 

Rocky Mountains to hunt buffalo and sometimes to 

contest for the buffalo grounds with the Cheyenne, 

Arapaho, and other Plains tribes. 

In later years, Powell again worked briefly with 

various Northern Ute. During a horseback trip 

from the Uintah Indian Agency to Gunnison, Utah, 

Powell fell in with a Ute band, travelled with them, 

and spent the evenings around the campfire learning more of their language. In the summer of 187 4, 

after he had completed his geological studies in the 

Uinta Mountains, he went to the Uintah Agency for 

a few days to gather more information on the Ute 

language. In the winter of 1875 he brought Richard 

Komas, a Northern Ute youth who was a student at 

Lincoln College in Pennsylvania, to Washington, 

D.C., for a time to contin.ue his studies of the language. 

In 1870, Powell, accompanied by Jacob Hamblin, 

the famed Mormon missionary to the Indians, 

visited the Kaibab, Uinkarets, and Shivwits bands 

of Southern Paiute who lived on the plateaus along 

the North Rim of the Grand Canyon. These peoples 

were close linguistic relatives of the Ute but hrd few 

horses or guns and were still living the old, prehorse way of life. 

Later the same year, Powell and Hamblin crossed 

the Colorado River .and visited the Hopi mesas, or 

the Province of Tusayan, as Powell (1875b) called 

it in an article he wrote a few years later. During 

the same trip, Powell and Hamblin met with various 

Navajo Indians in an attempt to bring peace between them and the Mormons (Creer, 1958). 

During the winter of 1871-72 and again in 1872-

73, Powell's party camped near Kanab,· Utah. Their 

primary task was to establish .a base line for their 

planned topographic map of the Utah-northern 

Arizona region. But there was a band of Kaibab 

Indians nearby (figs. 1, 16, and 17), and at every 

opportunity, Powell recorded myths and tales and 

vocabulary items and took down other information 

about the customs of the people (figs. 2 and 17). 

When he could, he took Indians along as guides and 

packers on his trips across the country and continued his inquiries around the fire in the evenings. 

In 1873, Powell and G. W. Ingalls were appointed 

Special Commissioners for the Department of 

Indian Affairs to investigate the "conditions and 

wants" of the Indians of the Canyon Country and 

the adjacent Great Basin (Powell and Ingalls, 
JOHN WESLEY POWELL'S ANTHROPOLOGICAL FIELDWORK 3 

FIGURE 1.-Kaibab Paiute Indians. Left: Woman making basket, Kaibab Plateau. Right: Man posed working on chipped 

stone knife, near Kanab, Utah. Photographs by J. K. Hillers, 1873, from Smithsonian Institution, Bureau of American 

Ethnology Collection. 

187 4). In the course of this investigation, lasting 

from May until early November 1873, Powell was 

able to contact representatives of most of the Indian 

groups in Utah, Nevada, and northern Arizona. 

Many of them came to a meeting held outside Salt 

Lake City, Utah, in May. Later in the summer, 

Powell and Ingalls travelled through central and 

southern Utah and met with various Indian bands or 

their representatives. In September, a sec.ond 

general meeting was held outside St. George, Utah 

(fig. 3). Powell and Ingalls then continued southwestward to Las Vegas and into southeastern California before turning back to Salt Lake City. 

In addition to learning of the "conditions and 

wants" of the Indians, Powell collected a good deal 

of ethnographic and linguistic information. From 

Naches (fig. 4), a son of the famed Chief Winnemucca of the Northern Paiute (Paviotso) of 

Nevada, Powell collected stories, vocabularies, and 

data on kinship. From others, such as Seguit, a 

Gosiute from Skull Valley, Utah, and from Kanosh, 

353 -844 0 - 69 - 2 

the chief of the Pahvant Ute near Fillmore, Utah, 

Powell collected vocabularies, lists of lead€rs of 

Indian bands, myths, and tales (Fowler and Fowler, 

1969b). 

John K. ("Jack") Hillers accompanied Powell 

and Ingalls during their investigations. Hillers had 

joined Powell's second river expedition as a boatman. After E. 0. Beaman, the photographer for the 

party, left at Kanab in 1872, Hillers became the 

official photographer for the Powell survey. He was 

to remain associated with Powell as photographer 

for the Rocky Mountain Survey and, later, the U.S. 

Geological Survey until 1900. 

During the 1873 trip, Hillers took photographs 

of the Indians, especially of the Southern Paiute. 

Many of the photographs, now in the Smithsonian 

Institution, show authentic details of Indian customs and have been studied with profit by anthropologists (Steward, 1939; Euler, 1966b). On the 

other hand, some .of the photographs are not ethnographically accurate. Powell was interested in pro-
4 JOHN WESLEY POWELL AND THE ANTHROPOLOGY OF THE CANYON COUNTRY 

FIGURE 2.-Powell (on right) meeting with Kaibab Paiutes, Kaibab Plateau, 1873. White man to left of Powell may be 

Jacob Hamblin. Photograph by J. K. Hillers, from Smithsonian Institution, Bureau of American Ethnology Collection. 
JOHN WESLEY POWELL'S ANTHROPOLOGICAL FIELDWORK 5 

. ' 

FIGURE 3.-The Powell-Ingalls Special Commission meeting with Southern Paiutes near St. George, Utah, September 1873 

(Powell standing on left). Photograph by J. K. Hillers, from Smithsonian Institution, Bureau of American Ethnology 

Collection. 

• 
6 JOHN WESLEY POWELL AND THE ANTHROPOLOGY OF THE CANYON COUNTRY 

FIGURE 4.-Naches, one of Powell's Northern Paiute informants, 1873. Photograph from National Archives, 

Bureau of Indian Affairs Collection. 

ducing stereopticon views for sale. Apparently in 

order to appeal to easterners' preconceptions of 

what Indians "ought" to look like, Powell had 

brought with him various articles of clothing which 

he had earlier collected from the Ute of the White 

River area. These clothes, together with some feather headdresses, apparently made to order for the 

occasion by the Indians under Ellen Thompson's" 

direction, were used to dress up the Southern Paiute 

to look more like "Indians." In addition, many of the 

poses are very stylized (fig. 6). The women in figure 

5 are Southern Paiute from the Kaibab Plateau in 

northern Arizona, but the dresses are of Northern 

Ute manufacture from northwestern Colorado. 

Powell had a number of such pictures made into 

stereopticon views, which were very popular items 

in 19th-century American drawing rooms. He sold 

5 Ellen Thompson was Powell's sister. Her husband, Almon H. Thompson, served for several years in the 1870's aa P owell's chief cartog rapher 

and second in command. He later worked for the U.S. Geological 

Survey • 

.. 

FIGURE 5.-Southern Paiute women wearing Ute dresses. 

Women are wearing baskets for seed gathering and are 

carrying winnowing trays. Photograph by J. K. Hillers, 

1873, from Smithsonian Institution, Bureau of American 

Ethnology Collection. 

many sets of the views showing the Indians and the 

geological features in Utah and Arizona. A rumor 

among Powell's employees in Washington, D.C., in 

the 1880's was that the mortgage on the Powell home 

at 910 M Street, N.W., was largely paid off by the 

sale of the views. Powell also gave away many sets 

to Congressmen and other Government officials. 

Thus, many people in the East learned something 

about the Indians of the Canyon Country, even 

though the Indians were sometimes dressed in 

other people's clothing. 

During the latter half of the 1870's, Powell devoted most of his time to administration. He found 

little time to continue his studies of the Indians, but 

his interest in Indians continued and broadened. He 

envisioned .a Government agency devoted to the 

study of American Indian cultures, past and present. He began moving in that direction in 1876 by 

hiring the Reverend J. Owen Dorsey and Albert S. 

Gatschet as "philologists" attached to the Rocky 

Mountain Survey. Dorsey had been a missionary to 
JOHN WESLEY POWELL'S ANTHROPOLOGICAL FIELDWORK 7 

FIGURE 6.-Left: Posed group of Kaibab Paiute men. Chuarumpeak, leader of Kaibab band who accompanied Powell on a 

number of trips, is ·on left. Right: Powell, dressed in Indian clothing, with Ute woman, probably in Uinta basin. 

Photographs by J. K. Hillers, 1873 (left) and 1874 (right), from Smithsonian Institution, Bureau of American 

Ethnology Collection. 

the Ponca Indians of Iowa. Gatschet had earlier 

worked for the Hayden survey. Both men continued 

to work with Powell on anthropological matters for 

many years. 

Throughout the 1870's there had been increasing 

agitation to do away with the overlapping work of 

the four "great surveys." Finally, in 1879, the 

Powell, Hayden, and Wheeler surveys were 

abolished and the United States Geological Survey 

was established. Fieldwork by the King survey had 

been completed in 1873. At this time, Powell got his 

chance to form an "ethnological" bureau to study 

the American Indians. The bill that created the 

Geological Survey als.o contained a clause providing 

for the completion of the unfinished ethnological 

work of the Powell survey. This was to be carried 

out under the auspices of the Smithsonian Institution and Powell was named to direct the work. In 

succeeding years, new appropriations were forthcoming. Thus, the Bureau of Ethnology (after 1894, 

the Bureau of Amerioon Ethnology) was created. 

P·owell remained Dir;ector of the Bureau untH his 

death in 1902. 

After 1879, Powell was able to make only one 

brief trip to study the Indians in the West. In the 

fall of 1880, he journeyed to eastern California to 

collect myths and tales from the Wintun Indians. On 

his way back to Washington, D.C., he stopped at 

Pyramid Lake, Battle Mountain, and Willlllemucca 

in Nevada to gather data on the Northern Paiute 

and Western Shoshoni (Fowler and Fowler, 1969b). 

In 1881, Powell became the Director of the Geological Survey, while retaining his position in the 

Bureau of Ethnology. After that, his increasing administrative duties precluded any further fieldwork, 

although he did manage to visit his men in the field 

occasionally and to accompany them on brief visits 

to archeological sites or to various Indian villages. 
8 JOHN WESLEY POWELL AND THE ANTHROPOLOGY OF THE CANYON COUNTRY 

THE ARCHEOLOGY OF THE 

CANYON COUNTRY 

By ROBERT C. EULER 

A century ago, Powell was concerned primarily 

with the investigation of then largely unknown territory and the description of its geological features 

His interest in the aboriginal inhabitants was relegated to a somewhat secondary role. Powell often 

speculated about the prehistoric ancestors of these 

native tribes, but he rarely deviated from his major 

goals in order to make detailed or extensive examinations of prehistoric settlements that so abundantly dotted the landscape. 

In his 36-page report on explorations in 1873 in 

the vicinity of Grand Canyon, for example, Powell 

( 187 4, p. 33) devoted 7¥2 pages to ethnology and 

but one paragraph to "Antiquities." The rest of that 

report is of a geological nature. The archeological 

paragraph mentions prehistoric people who built 

stone or adobe houses, cultivated the soil, and had 

some ceramic art. Powell's succinct summary notes 

only that "The ruins of many of these houses have 

been discovered in the valley of the Colorado 

[River], and in them broken pottery, stone implements, and baskets have been found." 

It is not too surprising, then, that during their 

two voyages through the Grand Canyon in 1869 and 

1872, Powell and his men paid only scant attention 

to the nature of the prehistoric ruins they found. 

Often, in fact, many of th'e diarists of the party 

failed to mention them at all. On both trips .only 

eight ruins were recorded in Grand Canyon and a 

few others were recorded upriver. This is not meant 

to be a hypercritical comment; Powell's task was 

one of primary exploration. In view of this and the 

hardships he ·faced, his lack of c.oncern with prehistory is understandable. 

Later explorers, such as Robert Brewster Stanton, who in 1889-90 surveyed a water-level railroad 

route through Grand Canyon, noted a few additional archeological sites. It was not until later, in 

the 20th century, that professional archeologists 

began systematic surveys. Investigations by Judd 

(1926), Haury (1932), Hall (1942), and Wilder 

(1944) added considerable data, especially about 

prehistoric sites on the rims of the canyon. 

No trained archeologist retraced Powell's river 

route, however, until 1953 when Walter Taylor 

(1958) conducted a survey in the inner gorges of 

Marble and Grand Canyons. This was foilowed by 

more intensive reconnaissance by Schwartz (1960, 

1963, 1965) and the present author (Euler, 1966a, 

1967; Euler and Taylor, 1966; McNutt and Euler, 

1966). 

More than 250 sites below the rims of the canyon, 

37 of them directly along Powell's river routes below Lees Ferry, have now been recorded.6 From 

these surveYIS, a rather clear picture of the nature 

of the prehistoric human utilization of Grand 

Canyon has been drawn (Euler, 1967). 

Some time between 3,000 and 4,000 years ago, 

hunting and gathering peoples, perhaps associated 

with the Pinto Basin-Desert Culture Complex, made 

and deposited split-twig animal effigies in isolated 

caves in the Mississippian limestone formation deep 

within the canyon. These, presumably, were acts of 

imitative magic to give ritual assurance of success 

in the hunt. The Pinto Basin affinities of these 

people remain hypothetical and are based on the discovery of diagnostic Pinto projectile points, probably made about the same time, on Red Butte near 

the South Rim of Grand Canyon (Euler and Olsen, 

1965; McNutt and Euler, 1966). · 

From that archaic period until about A.D. 700, 

the canyon was apparently uninhabited by human 

groups. Then, small clusters of Anasazi (Pueblo) 

Indian farmers,. probably ancestml to the Hopi, began to settle on the rims and in tributary canyons 

below. The Anasazi incursions, from the east, continued to be sporadic until about A.D. 1100. About 

this time, for reasons not yet clear, there was a 

greater influx .of Puebloan peoples, culminating 

about A.D. 1150. Most of the archeological sites 

within Grand Canyon, and all but one recorded by 

the Powell parties, are of this period. They represent Anasazi affiliated with the.'Kayenta branch east 

of the great gorge. The Kayenta people, in turn, 

were closely related to the Virgin, Mesa Verde, and 

Chaco branches of the Anasazi (fig. 7). 

Most of Grand Canyon was abandoned by the 

Pueblos toward the end of this period, again for reasons that remain obscure. Only occasionally, and 

after A.D. 1300, did Anasazi venture into the 

canyon, primarily the eastern section, in search .of 

salt from the now well-known deposits below the 

mouth of the Little Colorado River. 

6 In this paper, a site may be considered to be any lasting evidence 

of human utilization, from a group of surface potsherds marking a 

former campsite to the clusters of ruined masonry structures such as 

those recorded at Unkar or Nankoweap deltas. Each site is recorded 

in. the Prescott College ArchaeoJogiool Survey and is given in this 

paper in brackets; for example, [Ariz. C:l3:4 (PC)]. 
THE ARCHEOLOGY OF THE CANYON COUNTRY 9 

108" 1 • 

WYOMING ____ _ 

----CoLORADO 

40 

38 

36 

\ 50 100MILES 

EXPLANATION 

Cohonina ~ branch 

• Virgin branch 

D 

Kayenta branch 

R 

Mesa Verde branch 

Chaco • branch 

r::::l c_;_;j 

Fremont branch 

FIGURE 7.-Distribution of the archeological cultures of the Canyon Country and Great Basin. 

Soon after A.D. 1150, ancestors of the Southern 

Paiute apparently moved into the canyon in small 

numbers from the north and occupied a few rock 

shelters and an occasional abandoned Pueblo ruin 

in the North Rim tributaries. During the same 

period, some ancestors of the Pai (Walapai and 

Havasupai Indians) moved into the canyon fr.om the 

South Rim. They also favored rock shelters and 

carried on a similar farming-hunting-gathering 

subsistence. The Paiute a.nd the Pai occupations, 

albeit by small numbers of families, continued until 

the 1880's when their range was restricted by governmental fiat, .and they were removed to nearby 

reservations. 

The Indian occupation was followed, in turn, by 

that of a few hardy prospectors searching for 

copper, lead, and asbestos. Their mine shafts am.d 

c.abins, built in the two decades immediately preceding .and following the opening of the 20th 

century, are occasionally found in Grand Canyon 

and, in at least one instance, explain the reconstruction of a prehistoric Anasazi "cliff dwelling." Those 

historic habitations, however, were in use .after 

Major Powell's initial exploration a century ago. 

During the first river trip, the party stopped 

briefly at the confluence of the Green and San 

Rafael Rivers. Powell (1895, p. 199) reported that: 

"Here we stop for an hour or two .and take a short 

walk up the valley, and find it is a frequent resort 

for Indians. Arrowheads are scattered about, many 

of them very beautiful; flint chips are strewn over 

the ground in great profusion, and the trails are 

well worn." 

So far as is known, this site has not been revisited. 

Further downriver at the head of Glen Canyon, 

the party found two ruins (Powell, 1895, p. 227-

228): "July 29-We enter a canyon today, with low, 

red w.alls. A short distance below its head we discover the ruins of an old building .on the left wall. 

There is a narrow plain between the river and the 

wall just here, and on the brink of a rock 200 feet 
10 JOHN WESLEY POWELL AND THE ANTHROPOLOGY OF THE CANYON COUNTRY 

high stands this old house. Its walls are of stone, 

laid in mortar with much regularity. It was probably built three stories high; the lower story is yet 

almost intact; the second is much broken down, and 

scarcely anything is left of the third. Great quantities of flint chips are found on the rocks near by, 

and many arrowheads, some perfect, others broken; 

and fragments of pottery are strewn about in great 

profusion. On the face of the cliff, under the building and along down the river for 200 or 300 yards, 

there are many etchings. * * * We run down fifteen 

miles farther, and discover another group. The principal building was situated on the summit of the 

hill. A part of the walls are standing, to the height 

of eight or ten feet, and the mortar yet remains in 

some places. The house was in the shape of an L, 

with five rooms on the ground floor--one in the 

angle and two in each extension. In the space in the 

angle there is a deep excavation. From what we 

know of the people in the Province of Tusayan [the 

Hopi country of northern Arizona], who are, doubtless, of the same race as the former inhabitants of 

these ruins, we conclude that this was a kiva, or 

underground chamber in which their religious 

ceremonies were performed." 

The first ruin (fig. 8) stands on a ledge overlooking the modern settlement of White Canyon, Utah, 

across the Colorado River from the Rite ferry and 

was occupied by the Anasazi about A.D. 1100 

(Weller, 1959, p. 603). 

The second ruin, at the mouth of Red Canyon, 

was excavated in 1958-59 by the University 

of Utah (Lipe, 1960) and named "Loper Ruin" 

after Bert Loper who built a cabin near the ruinin 

1910 and lived there for many years. The site was 

of Mesa Verde Anasazi affinities of the early 

Pueblo III stage. Powell's suspicions of a kiva 

were confirmed, although the excavations revealed 

that it had never been completed (Lipe, 1960, p. 

132). Both ruins are now submerged beneath the 

waters of Lake Powell. 

A few miles below the second ruin, Powell and his 

men camped for the night. Powell (1895, p. 229) 

wrote: 

FIGURE 8.-Ruin on ledge near mouth of White Canyon, Utah. Photograph from Department of Anthropology, University 

of Utah, Salt Lake City, Utah. 
THE ARCHEOLOGY OF THE CANYON COUNTRY 11 

36' 

15' 

36' 

00' 

112'15' 112'00' 

~C?Peat8 --~~k 

\ 

/ 

Grand Canyon Village 

5 0 5MILES Ll L- ' L_L_LJ_I _ ___l 

FIGURE 9.-Eastern part of Grand Canyon, Ariz. 

"Just before sundown I attempt to climb a 

rounded eminence, from which I hope to obtain a 

good outlook on the surrounding country. It is 

formed of smooth mounds, piled one above another. 

Up these I climb, winding here and there to find a 

practicable way, until near the summit t.hey become 

too steep for me to proceed. I search about a few 

minutes for an easier way, when I am surprised at 

finding a stairway, evidently cut in the rock by 

hands. At one place, where there is a vertical wall 

of 10 or 12 feet, I find an old, rickety ladder. It may 

be that this was a watchtower of that ancient 

people whose homes we have found in ruins. On 

many of the tributaries of the Colorado, I have 

* * * examined their deserted dwellings. Those that 

show evidences of being built during the latter part 

of their occupation of the country are usually 

placed on the most inaccessible cliffs. Sometimes 

the mouths of the caves have been walled across, 

and there are many other evidences to show their 

anxiety to secure defensible positions. Probably the 

nomadic tribes were sweeping down upon them and 

they resorted to these cliffs and canyons for safety. 

It is not unreasonable to suppose that this orange 

mound was used as a watchtower." 

Powell and his companions passed on through 

Glen Canyon without making further note of .other 

archeological sites. 

After Powell and his men left Lees Ferry on 

August 5, 1869, they reported no ruins (although 

some have since been found on the route) throughout the entire 611;2 miles of Marble Canyon. It was 

not until they reached the mouth of the Little 

Colorado River, the arbitrary beginning of Grand 

353 - 844 0 - 69 - 3 

Canyon (fig. 9), that the first mention was made of 

an .archeological site. Powell noted in his journal 

that they reached the Flax River, as he called ifue 

Little Colorado, on August 11 (Darrah, 1947, p. 

129). In his usual terse style he remarked: "Old 

Indian camp seen, trails footpaths." In his lengthier 

and somewhat controversial account (Powell, 

1875a, p. 77-78), he elaborated: 

"I walk down the gorge to the left at the foot of 

the cliff, climb to a bench, and discover a trail, 

deeply worn in the rock. Where it crosses the side 

gulches, in some places, steps have been cut. I can 

see no evidence of its having been traveled for a 

long time. It was doubtless a path used by the people 

who inhabited this country anterior to the present 

Indian races-the people who built the communal 

houses***. 

"I return to camp about three .o'clock, and find 

that some of the men have discovered ruins, and 

many fragments of pottery; also, etchings and 

hieroglyphics on the rocks." 

George Bradley, one of Powell's chief boatmen on 

the trip, corroborated this observation, but in so 

doing, confused the identification of the prehistoric 

people. He noted in his journal entry of August 10, 

1869 (Darrah, 1947, p. 61): "There are signs of 

Indians here but quite old. Cannot tell whether they 

are Moquis [Hopis] or Apaches. I think more likely 

the latter for the Moquis keep close to their villages." Bradley, of course, was unaware that this 

campsite and trail were well known to the Hopi who 

frequented it on their journeys to the salt deposits 

only about a mile down the Colorado River. 

When Major Powell again camped at this spot on 

his second voyage in 1872, he made no mention of 

the ruin. Two of his companions, Stephen Jones and 

Walter C. Powell, the Major's young cousin, however, wrote briefly about it. Jones, on August 23 of 

that year (H. E. Gregory, in Darrah and others, 

1948-49, p. 147), remarked: "Up the Flax [Little 

Colorado] are old trails. Probably the Co-o-me-nes 

[Cosninas, an early name for Havasupai] and perhaps the Navajos had been here." Walter Powell 

(Charles Kelly, in Darrah and others, 1948-49, p. 

441), on the same date, simply noted "an old fireplace on Indian trail found near camp." 

Walter Taylor (1958, p. 23) tried unsuccessfully 

to locate this ruin in 1953. In my first reconnaissance in 1960 (Euler and Taylor, 1966, p. 29), I 

noted a small, one-room stone cabin a short distance above the mouth of the Little Colorado, but 

the construction and the artifacts within it were of 
12 JOHN WESLEY POWELL AND THE ANTHROPOLOGY OF THE CANYON COUNTRY 

recent historic vintage. According to Daniel E. 

Davis: 7 

"Only one person is known to have lived in the 

Lower Little Colorado, a prospector named Ben 

Beamer. He built a stone house under .an overhanging ledge of Tapeats sandstone a short distance up 

the Little Colorado River. Beamer first went into 

this area in February, 1890 via the Tanner Trail. 

Apparently he lived here until 1892, leaving the 

canyon only once during that time. The only people 

he saw during his entire stay was a railroad survey 

party in the spring of 1892. His house is still in a 

good state of preservation and much of his equipment is still there including a plow with which he 

tried to cultivate a small plot of land near his 

house." 8 

Numerous prehistoric potsherds were found in 

the face of the eroding alluvial terrace in front of 

Beamer's cabin during my 1960 and subsequent 

investigations in 1962, 1965, and 1968. It is hypothesized that Beamer, in 1889, built his cabin from the 

7 Davis, D. E., 1959, A resume of the scientific values and interpretive 

potential of the lower portion of the canyon of the Little Colorado 

River and its environs: unpub. ms., Grand Canyon Nat!. Park, Ariz. 8 R. C. Stanton, the railroad surveyor, did not mention seeing Beamer 

or his cabin when he stopped at the mouth of the Little Colorado River on 

J anuary 20, 1890. Two days later and approximately 14 miles downriver, however, he met a prospector from Flagstaff, Ariz., Felix Laritier, 

a nd his dog {Stanton, 1965, p. 144-146). Davis was in error on his date 

and identification. Beamer's possessions noted by Davis have since been 

removed to the visitor center at Grand Canyon National Park for safekeeping. 

ruins of the prehistoric site that Powell's men had 

recorded two decades earlier. 

An analysis of the ceramic materials indicates 

that the site [Ariz. C:13:4 (PC)] was utiliz·ed by 

at least three or four different ethnic groups over 

.a long period of time before Beamer arrived on the 

scene. The earliest use was during the 12th century 

A.D. by Kayenta Anasazi peoples in an early Pueblo 

III stage of their culture. The site was then used by 

the Hopi, perhaps as early as A.D. 1300, and they 

continued to use the site conceivably into late historic times. At some time after A.D. 1150, the site 

also was visited by Southern Paiute and Pai 

Indians; their diagnostic pottery, probably indigenous and not representing intrusive trade ware, 

also has been recovered from the surface of the 

ruin. It is not possible to infer whether the site was 

in use on a more or less permanent basis or was 

only seasonally occupied during journeys to the salt 

deposits nearby. There is, to be certain, no evidence 

of Bradley's Apaches, who never ranged that far 

north, nor of Walter Powell's Navajos, who, before 

1872, probably were not often seen that far west of 

their own-territory. 

Between the mouth .of the Little Colorado River 

and Unkar Creek, some 11 miles down the Colorado 

(fig. 9), is the greatest concentration of Pueblo ruins 

to be seen anywhere along the river through Grand 

Canyon. Only one such site was seen by the Powell 

parties, although, in 1872, Frederick Delle.nbaugh, 

FIGURE 10.-Kayenta Anasazi masonry structure opposite Unkar Creek. On August 27, 1872, Walter Powell and Almon 

Thompson "climbed a peak about 500 feet high * * *." and "Found an old stone house '' * *" (Charles Kelly, in 

Darrah and others, 1948-49, p. 442). Right: Note loophole in upper left wall. Arrow indicates magnetic north and is 

30 centimeters long. Photographs by R. C. Euler. 
THE ARCHEOLOGY OF THE CANYON COUNTRY 13 

artist and boatman ,on the second expedition, recorded what may have been a Paiute hut. On August 

,27, while pursuing some mountain sheep in the 

vicinity of the Unkar delta, he noted (Dellenbaugh, 

1908, p. 224) that: "Near this point there was a 

small abandoned hut of mesquite logs." No one has 

ever been able to relocate this site. My hypothesis 

that it may have been Southern Paiute is based upon 

the following points: 

1. Pueblos did not construct wood houses, and even 

if they had, one would not have survived unscathed until the time of Dellenbaugh's visit. 

2. Paiutes frequently did build wood or brush 

structures (Euler, 1966b). 

3. Dellenbaugh was hunting on the right bank of 

the river, which, after A.D. 1150 was within the 

territory of the Southern Paiute. 

Later that same day, after making camp on the 

opposite side of the river, Walter Powell and Almon 

Thompson (known to the men as "Prof.") 

"climbed a peak about 500 feet high * * * ." and 

"Found an old stone house evidently built by the 

Sto-ce nee nas [Cosninas]" (Charles Kelly, in 

Darrah and others, 1948-49, p. 442). This is the 

only desc:dption given by any of Powell's party on 

either expedition of a large, well-preserved oneroom masonry structure located on a high bluff opposite the mouth of Unkar Creek (fig. 10, left 

FIGURE 11.-Ruins at the mouth of Bright Angel Creek discovered by Powell on August 16, 1869: "Late in the afternoon 

I * * * discover the ruins of two or three old houses * * *. Only the foundations are left * * *" (Powell, 1895, p. 259). 

Arrow indicates magnetic north and is 30 centimeters long. Photograph by R. C. Euler. 
14 JOHN WESLEY POWELL AND THE ANTHROPOLOGY OF THE CANYON COUNTRY 

·FIGURE 12 (above and right) .-On August 17, 1869, camped at the confluence of Crystal Creek and the Colorado River, 

Powell wrote, "Grand scenery. Old Indian camps" (Darrah, 1947, p. 130). Abo1•e: Arrow points to site of ruins which 

is on a gravel terrace remnant of the Crystal Creek delta. Right: One of the four Pueblo masonry ruins. Photographs 

by R. C. Euler. 

photo)." As reported earlier (Euler and Taylor, 

1966, p. 41), this ooursed masonry room is 3.6 

meters wide, 8.5 meters long, and has walls that still 

stand to a height of almost 2 meters. Two or three 

small rectangular openings near the top of the walls 

resemble loopholes. The site appears today (fig. 

10, right photo) in much the same condition as it 

did when Stanton photographed it in 1890. H commands an extensive view in all directions and lies 

on what probably was a cross-canyon trail from the 

Pueblo villages in the Unkar vicinity up to the 

South Rim of the canyon. An analysis of its surface 

ceramics would indicate that it was not a Cosninas, 

or Havasupai, site, buti was utilized by the Kayenta 

9 [Ariz. C :13:2 (PC)]. We (Euler and Taylor, 1966, - p. 41) earlier 

thought that this site had first been discovered by Stanton in 1890. 

Closer interpretation of W. C. Powell's journal leads us to believe that 

he and Thompson first saw it in 1872. 

Anasazi in an early Pueblo III stage about A.D. 

1100-1150 and may have been a "lookout" if not a 

defensive unit. There is no evidence for overt hostility in Grand Canyon. 

On Major Powell's first trip in 1869, the party entered the Precambrian "granite" for the first time 

on the evening .of August 13. This was about 15 

miles below the mouth of the Little Colorado at 

what is now known as Hance Rapid where Red 

Canyon joins the Colorado (fig. 9). The Major noted 

cryptically in his journal, "Ind. camp nearby" 

(Darrah, 1947, p. 129). This campsite is probably 

the one in the sand dunes on the right bank of Red 

Canyon, a short distance from its mouth. Although 

the site [Ariz. C:13:5 (PC)] is today badly eroded, 

it consists of five small sherd areas, each about 3 

meters in diameter. Each also is marked by charcoal-stained sand and burned, fire-cracked rocks. An 
THE ARCHEOLOGY OF THE CANYON COUNTRY 15 

analysis of the sherds indicates an occupation by 

Kayenta Anasazi ·of an early Pueblo III stage 

(about A.D. 1100-1150), who probably came down 

to the river on a trail through Red Canyon from the 

South Rim. 

When the 1869 expedition reached the mouth of 

what Powell at first called Silver Creek (Darrah, 

1947, p. 130) and later, Bright Angel Creek 

(Powell, 1875a, p. 87), he belatedly mentioned that 

he had "(Found some [Indian] remains at Silver 

Creek) (,and Mill)." In his expanded 1895 publication (p. 259), he gave more details. His entry for 

August 16, 1869, reveals: 

"Late in the afternoon I return, and go up a little 

gulch, just above this creek, about 200 yards from 

camp, and discover the ruins of two or three old 

houses, which were originally of stone laid in 

mortar. Only the foundations are left, but irregular 

blocks, of which the houses were constructed, lie 

scattered about. In one room I find am old mealing 

stone [the "mill" of his first journal], deeply worn, 

as if it had been much used. A great deal of pottery 

,is strewn around, and old trails, which in some 

places are deeply worn into the rocks, are seen." 

Powell then attempted to interpret these ruins 

(fig. 11), and he wondered why the inhabitants 

chose such inaccessible places for their homes. He 

suggested that they were an agricultural people but 

had no lands to farm, although he also drew a parallel with the Hopi terraced gardens at the village of 

Moenkopi, Ariz., east of Grand Canyon. Then, 

without the time perspective we have today, he suggested that the Indians who had occupied the Bright 

Angel site fled into the canyon from the Spaniards. 

Other members of Powell's party in 1869, and 

again on the second trip in 1872, noted these ruins. 

Bradley, writing on August 16, 1869 (Darrah, 

1947, p. 65), remarked that "There is another old 

Moqui ruin where we are camped tonight. Have 

found the same little fragments of broken crockery 

as we did before." Three years later, on August 31, 

1872, Stephen Jones wrote briefly (H. E. Gregory, 

in Darrah and others, 1948-49, p. 150) that he 

"Found Shinumos ruins at mouth of Bright Angel 
16 JOHN WESLEY POWELL AND THE ANTHROPOLOGY OF THE CANYON COUNTRY 

FIGURE 13 (above and right).-Ruins above mouth of Shinumo Canyon discovered by Powell on August 20, 1869. Above : 

"Here on a terrace of trap, we discover another group of ruins." (Powell, 1875a, p. 90). Photograph by George 

Wharton James, 1899, courtesy of Southwest Museum, Los Angeles, Calif. Arrows point to the ruins. Right: Closeup 

view of one of the ruins. Note the metate and mano on the large rock inside the room. Arrow indicates magnetic 

north and is 30 centimeters long. Photograph by R. C. Euler. 

Creek." Shinumo was an alternate term that Major 

Powell used in reference to Pueblo ruins. Walter 

P,owell, the following day from the same camp, 

noted in his journal (Charles Kelly, in Darrah and 

others, 1948-49, p. 445) that they "Found the remains ·of some Moquis houses near by with some of 

their mills for grinding corn." 

This site [Ariz. B:16:1 (PC)] was rediscovered" in 1953 by Taylor (1958, p. 22) alongside 

the present trail that leads from the north end of 

the suspension bridge across the river to Phantom 

Ranch. It is only a few meters above the high-water 

mark of the river and consists of three coursed 

masonry rooms. In the cliffs above are some small 

masonry granaries, and atop a towering, almost 

vertical pinnacle on the right bank of Bright Angel 

Creek a few hundred meters south is a small, single 

masonry room. The ceramic evidence from the 

structures near the river again indicates an early 

Pueblo III Kayenta Anasazi occupation, abandoned 

about A.D. 1150, long before the first Spaniard 

viewed the Grand Canyon in 1540. The only possibility of level land for agricultural pursuits nearby 

consists of the rock-studded sand dunes of the 

Bright Angel delta. A few miles up this creek, however, where the canyon widens fr.om the narrow 

walled defile in Precambrian rock, are several sites 

of the same cultural affiliation, with ample room to 

aocommodate the small agricultural plots that the 

Pueblos would have cultivated. These locations, like 

so many others in Grand Canyon chosen by the 

Anasazi for their homesites, probably did not seem 

inac·cessible to them. On the contrary, they provided 

access to game such as mountain sheep, edible plants 

such as mesquite beans, and a long, relatively frostfree growing season for their crops of beans, 

squash, and corn, none of which was available to 
THE ARCHEOLOGY OF THE CANYON COUNTRY 17 

them on the rims of the canyon 4,500 to 5,700 feet 

above. 

In the hot, rainy August of 1869, Powell and his 

men, after making new oars at their camp on Bright 

,Angel Creek, continued their trip and made 1014 

miles on August 17. That evening, at their camp 

(No. 33), at a side ·canyon just above a rapid, the 

Major wrote: "Walk up creek 3 miles. Grand 

scenery. Old Indian camps" (Darrah, 1947, p. 

130) . The only place this could refer to is the mouth 

of Crystal Creek, exactly 1014, miles below Bright 

Creek Angel (fig. 9). Although there are some ruins 

in the Crystal Creek drainage, all are more than 3 

miles from its mouth. However, perched on a gravel 

terrace remnant of the Crystal Creek delta (fig. 12) 

are four single-roomed masonry dwellings [Ariz. 

B:16:3 (PC)], and I believe this is the site to which 

Powell referred. The rooms are roughly circular, 

ranging from 2.30 to 4.10 meters in diameter, and 

are constructed of slabs of Vishnu Schist, the only 

building rock available in this inner gorge of the 

canyon. The structures are set back close to the cliff 

and away from the precipitous terrace face that 

drops sheerly to the river below. Only nine potsherds were found when W. W. Taylor and I, after 

receiving word of the location of the site from Otis 

Marston, recorded it in 1965. Five of these were of 

Kayenta Anasazi affinities, whereas the rest were 

associated with the very similar Virgin branch of 

the same culture. All seemed to place the occupation 

in the early Pueblo III stage, again dating in this 

area between A.D. 1100 and A.D. 1150. 

By August 20, 1869, 4 days later and just slightly 

more than 20 miles downriver from Bright Angel 

Creek, Major Powell reported another prehistoric 

ruin (fig. 13). The party had run through some 

vicious rapids, made several portages, and was enduring torrential rains. They camped in a little 

alcove on the right hank of the river, and Powell 

(1875a, p. 90) set down what for him was a lengthy 

description: 

"Here, .on a terrace of trap, we discover another 

group of ruins. There was evidently quite a village 

on this rock. Again we find 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, 
18 JOHN WESLEY POWELL AND THE ANTHROPOLOGY OF THE CANYON COUNTRY 

it falls to pieces. There are many beautiful flint 

chips, as if this had been the home of an .old arrow 

maker." 

Powell's original1869 field diary (Darrah, 1947, p. 

130) was considerably briefer. "Found remains of 

old Moquis village on bank, stone houses and pottery 

* * * "reads his only entry. John Sumner, one o;f the 

Major's most trusted companions on that first trip, 

was the only other member of the party to jot down 

a note about these ruins in his journal. He recorded 

the location simply by writing on August 20, 

"Camped on north side near a lot of Moqui ruins" 

(Darrah, 1947, p. 120). Powell stopped at the same 

place on his 1872 trip and, in his recently located 

field journal for that trip (Fowler and Fowler, 

1969a), he noted on September 3, that they 

"Camped for dinner at the Shinumo Ruins above 

the deep side gulch." 

This "deep side gulch" was Shinumo Canyon 

(fig. 9) and the "terrace of trap" on which the ruins 

were discovered is scarcely half a mile upriver and 

ori the north or right bank. Stanton camped here in 

1890 (Stanton, 1965, p. 178), and before 1900, 

William Bass, a prospector and early tourist guide 

in the canyon, had built a cableway across the river 

at this point on his trail to his winter camp on the 

Shinumo. In 1899, the noted author of the day, 

George Wharton James (1900, p. 197-203), photographed and described these Pueblo ruins. 

This site [Ariz. B:15:1 (PC)], on the lower end 

of the terrace below a high hill separating the terrace from Shinumo Creek, consists of at least six 

single, separated, coursed masonry rooms (fig. 13). 

Two or three other rooms are at the upper end of 

the terrace about a mile upriver. Many potsherds, 

fragmentary flaked blades and chert chips, a mano, 

and two metates were found on the surface during 

my 1962, 1966, and 1967 visits. The masonry rooms 

are generally rectangular with rounded corners; 

they average about 3.0 X 3.5 meters in size and the 

walls are still standing to a maximum height of 1 

meter. The sherd analysis indicates an occupation 

of about A.D. 1100-1150 by Kayenta Anasazi. This 

site, close by the river, was probably socially and 

politically allied with many sites occupied at the 

same time farther up the Shinumo drainage to the 

north, just as the sites at the mouths of Crystal and 

Bright Angel Creeks were similarly allied. 

The Shinumo terrace site was the last prehistoric 

ruin mentioned by Major Powell on his first expedition. However, one other was noted in 1872. On September 6 of that year, as the second expedition 

neared the conclusion of its journey at Kanab Creek, 

Frederick Dellenbaugh wrote from its camp at the 

mouth of Tapeats Creek about 10 miles upriver 

(fig. 9): "A morning was spent at Tapeats Creek 

for examinations, and we found there some ancient 

house ruins not far up the side canyon" (Dellenbaugh,1908,p.240). 

Tapeats Canyon boxes about one quarter of a 

mile from its mouth. It is narrow and precipitous 

in that stretch and to get above the cliffs to the upper end of the canyon requires some agile climbing 

over steep talus. Once above that, however, one can 

proceed along ledges and terraces for many miles. 

On the tops of some of those terraces, beginning 

about three quarters of a mile upstream from the 

mouth, are several Anasazi masonry ruins. None are 

found below this point in the narrower section of 

the canyon itself. Dellenbaugh must have been referring to at least one of those sites farther upstream when he wrote about "some ancient house 

ruins." The first site one finds in walking up 

Tapeats Canyon is a very obscure, small, one-room 

masonry site [Ariz. B:11:39 (.PC)], partly hidden 

by a large boulder which forms one of its walls. This 

Pueblo structure is on the left side of Tapeats 

Creek, the side of most difficult access, and is some 

50 meters above the water. Dellenbaugh was probably walking up the right bank and found a much 

larger structure, quite visible on the terrace [Ariz. 

B:11:38 (PC)]. This pueblo consists of four 

single and separated rooms flanking a series of approximately five contiguous storerooms (fig. 14). 

Again, .as for the other sites mentioned here, the 

ceramic analysis of the many sherds collected indicates a Kayenta Anasazi occupation during an early 

Pueblo III stage, about A.D. 1100-1150. 

The Paiute gardens that Powell saw on August 

26, 1869 (Darrah, 1947, p. 131), apparently were 

near the mouth of Whitmore Wash. No trace of 

them or of a Paiute campsite at this point has been 

recorded. Although the Major remarked (Powell, 

1875a, p. 95-96) that, "Since we left the Colorado 

Chiquito, we have seen no evidences that the tribes 

of Indians inhabiting the plateaus on either side 

ever come down to the river * * * ", several Paiute 

and Pai campsites have since been located along the 

river through Grand Canyon. These seem to have 

been small, impermanent camps, and they cannot be 

dated with any precision except that they must have 

been in use after A.D. 1150. 

Although the Powell expeditions through Grand 

Canyon did not contribute greatly to the archeology 

of the Southwest, they did, through the diaries and 

publications that resulted from them, show that 
THE ARCHEOLOGY OF THE CANYON COUNTRY 19 

ma;n had inhabited that seemingly inhospitable region centuries earlier. It should have been clear to 

the emaciated and battered explorers that those 

prehistoric aborigines were in many ways much 

better adapted to the environment than the explorers were with their rancid bacon, soggy coffee, 

and mildewed flour. Indeed, the more intensive recent archeological studies centered in Grand Cany.on 

have demonstrated not only that its depths provided 

adequate subsistence for a people technogically atFIGURE 14.-Ruins along Tapeats Creek discovered on September 6, 1872, during Powell's second expedition. "A morning 

was spent at Tapeats Creek * * * and we found there some ancient house ruins * * *" (Dellenbaugh, 1908, p. 240). 
20 JOHN WESLEY POWELL AND THE ANTHROPOLOGY OF THE CANYON COUNTRY 

tuned to their habitat, but that movement on foot 

through its vast recesses was entirely feasible. 

THE ETHNOGRAPHY OF THE 

CANYON COUNTRY 

By DON D. FOWLER and CATHERINE S. FOWLER 

During the centuries in which the Anasazi and 

Fremont cultures were developing in Arizona and 

Utah, an older non-Pueblo way of life continued in 

the Great Basin in western Utah, Nevada, and 

southern Oregon. Archeologists call this tradition 

the Desert Archaic (Jennings, 1964). The climate 

and environment did not permit the practice of 

horticulture without irrigation, and the subsistence 

base continued to be one of foraging, hunting of 

40" 

38° 

36" 

120" 

I 

, --!::z. ________ OREGON _ L 

'0 

!:o 

'-t 

':r. 

ftT\ 

I o ~ I Reno 

7.. 

UTE 

Linguistic divi ion 

PAHVANT 

UTE 

Band division 

114" 

animals and birds, fishing, .and gathering a wide 

variety of seeds, roots, nuts, and insects for food. 

About A.D. 1000 some of these Desert Archaic 

peoples who spoke Numic languages (Miller, 1966; 

Goss, 19,68) began spreading in a fan-shaped pattern .across the Great Basin from a point somewhere 

around Death Valley. These peoples were the ancestors of the historic tribes of the Great Basin and 

much of the Canyon Country (fig. 15). 

The thrust of one group was along the Sierra 

Nevada and into southern Oregon. These people became the historic Mono and Northern Paiute 

(Paviotso) of western Nevada, eastern California, 

and southern Oregon. After horses were introduced 

in the 18th century, some of these people moved into 

southern Idaho to become the Bannock tribe of historic times (Steward, 1938). 

106" 

100 MILES 

FIGURE 15.-Distribution of historic tribes of the Canyon Country and Great Basin. 
THE ETHNOGRAPHY OF THE CANYON COUNTRY 21 

A second group spread across the central part .of 

the Great Basin to become the Western Shoshoni, 

the Gosiute, the '

1

N orthwestern" or "Idaho" Shoshoni (who were closely affiliated with the Bannock 

in the 19th century), the Lemhi and Sheepeater 

Shoshoni in the mountains along the Idaho-Wyoming borded, and the Wind River Shoshoni of western Wyoming (Stewart, 1958). Sometime in the late 

17th or early 18th centuries, part of the Wind 

River Shoshoni pushed out onto the Great Plains 

and turned southward to become the Comanche of 

historic times (Shimkin, 1940). 

A third group of Numic-speaking peoples spread 

south and east along the southern part of the Great 

B.asin to become the historic Kawaiisu of California, 

the Chemehuevi of southern Nevada, and the 

various Ute-Southern Paiute groups of southern 

Nevada, southern and central Utah, and western 

and southern Colorado ( Goss, 1968). 

As noted above, the Numic-speaking peoples were 

carriers of the old Desert Archaic lifeway-they 

were foragers exploiting the available resources of 

an arid environment. As they pushed eastward, 

some of them may have encountered the Anasazi or 

the Fremont peoples. They may, in fact, have contributed to the withdrawal of the Anasazi or the 

Fremont peoples by raiding their fields and villages. 

The Southern Paiute may have learned farming 

techniques from the Anasazi peoples. In 1776, when 

the Southern Paiute along the Virgin River were 

visited by Dominguez and Escalante (Bolton, 1950), 

they were farming along the river bottoms. Basically, however, most of the Numic peoples, including 

the Southern Paiute, remained foragers. 

A change for some of the Numic people, however, 

soon came. The Spanish began exploring the Southwest in 1540, and by the 1590's, they were well entrenched in Santa Fe and other settlements. The 

Spaniards brought new crops, such as wheat and 

peaches, to the area, as well as new animals, including sheep, burros, and the animal which had the 

greatest impact in the area-the horse. 

By the late 1600's, the Indians around the Spanish settlements had learned to ride and care for 

horses. Soon the Indians began to steal horses, and 

horses began spreading rapidly northward to other 

tribes, often with the Ute, Comanche, and Wind 

River Shoshoni acting as intermediaries. By 1710, 

mounted bands of Southern Ute and Comanches 

were harassing the Spanish settlements. By 1750, 

horses had reached the northern Plains (Haimes, 

1938). Many previously semisedentary, earth-lodgedwelling farmers in that area rapidly became nomadic tipi-dwelling buffalo hunters-the true 

"Plains" Indians-for example, the Crow, Arapaho, 

Cheyenne, and others. 

On the edges of the Canyon Country the Northern 

and the Southern Ute bands also became horsemen. 

They ranged through the central Rockies and out 

onto the high plains of Colorado, Wyoming, and 

even Kansas. The Indians in the Canyon Country 

and in the high plateaus of Utah and the Great 

Basin to the west, however, did not become horsemen until much later. There was little to be gained 

by owning horses. Few, if any, buffalo were in those 

areas. Furthermore, especially in the Great Basin, 

horses competed with the Indians for the available 

grasses, a primary seed-food resource. Not until the 

latter half of the 19th century did some of these 

peoples take up the use of horses and then only 

briefly, as an aid in preying on ranches and wagon 

trains. 

By the time Powell visited them, the N umicspeaking peoples of the Canyon Country and the 

FIGURE 16.-Tapeats, one of Powell's Southern Paiute informants, outside his house near St. George, Utah. Photograph by J. K. Hillers, 1873, from Smithsonian Institution, 

Bureau of American Ethnology Collection. 
22 JOHN WESLEY POWELL AND THE ANTHROPOLOGY OF THE CANYON COUNTRY 

FIGURE 17.-Kaibab Paiute camp on Kaibab Plateau. Indians 

are wearing rabbit-skin blankets. Photograph by J . K. 

Hillers, 1873, from Smithsonian Institution, Bureau of 

American Ethnology Collection. 

Great Basin had been in direct, if sometimes intermittent, contact with white men, or elements of 

their culture, for nearly 100 years. Fathers Dominguez and Escalante has passed through the area in 

1776, seeking a trail to southern California (Bolton, 

1950). The advent of the !American fur trade in the 

early 19th century brought increasing contacts between whites and Indians, especially along the headwaters of the Green River (Cline, 1963). U.S. Army 

exploring parties began probing the area in the 

1840's ( Goetzmann, 1959). The Mormons began 

settling along the central cordillera of Utah in 

1847, and the trail to the California gold country 

opened up the following year. 

When Powell arrived in 1868, the Indian cultures 

were beginning to undergo a period of rapid transition. Steel and iron began replacing chipped stone 

for tools; pots and pans were replacing baskets and 

some pottery vessels; and castoff whitemen's clothes 

were being substituted for bark skirts and rabbitskin robes (figs. 16 and 17). 

By 1868, the Indians were rapidly being dispossessed of their lands and resources. Settlers and 

miners were moving in and taking over land and 

fencing it-an idea completely foreign to the 

Indians. Livestock were turned loose in most areas 

and rapidly depleted the grasses and other plants on 

which the Indians depended heavily for food. 

Pinyon trees, another important Indian food 

source, were cut down for firewood and fenceposts. 

EXTRACTS FROM JOHN WESLEY 

POWELL'S NOTES ON THE INDIANS 

As we noted above, Powell made observations on 

most of the Numic-speaking bands in the Canyon 

Country and the Great Basin, but he knew the 

Southern Paiute, especially the Kaibab, Shivwits, 

and Uinkarets bands, best. Powell learned many 

things from Chuarumpeak (fig. 6), the leader of 

the Kaibab band, who accompanied Powell on a 

number of trips. 

Powell was the first observer to systematically 

record details of the customs, practices, and beliefs 

of many of the Indians of the Canyon Country and 

the Great Basin. His early observations, at a time 

when many of the Indian groups were first coming 

into contact with whitemen, are invaluable to an 

understanding of the Indian ·cultures of the Canyon 

Country. 

Powell intended to write a general ethnographic 

monograph on the "Numa," as he called the Numicspeaking peoples, paying special attention to the 

"Ute," by which he meant the peoples we have 

herein called the Northern and Southern Ute and 

Southern Paiute. Increasing administrative and 

other duties, however, kept Powell from completing 

the task. Several manuscripts of the intended study 

remain in the Smithsonian Institution Department 

of Anthropology archives and have recently been 

edited and prepared for publication (Fowler and 

Fowler, 1969b). The following sections are taJnm 

from those manuscripts. They represent part of the 

material Powell prepared on the "Ute" people of the 

Canyon Country and are in his words. 

"Means of Subsistence" 

"The food .of the Utes consists of a very great 

variety of articles such as nuts, seeds, fruits, fleshy 

stalks of plants, bulbs, roots, inner bark of trees; 

many mammals, birds, reptiles, fishes and insects. 

In autumn when the nuts of the pifion pine are 
EXTRACTS FROM JOHN WESLEY POWELL'S NOTES ON THE INDIANS 23 

ripening, and before they have sufficiently matured 

to drop from the trees, the cones containing them 

are gathered and thrown in the fire, where they are ' 

left until the cones are somewhat charred, and the 

nuts partially r.oasted. They are then raked from the 

fire and separated from the charred chaff by picking 

them out with the fingers when they are ready for 

use. 

"In seasons when these are abundant, great stores 

are laid away, or cached, for the winter. Usually 

these nuts receive no further preparation, but sometimes they are slowly and thoroughly roasted in a 

manner which will hereafter be described in explaining the preparation of smaller seeds. The nuts 

thus roasted are ground and made into mush by 

boiling the meal in basket jars heated with hot 

stones. Sometimes the meal is made into cakes and 

baked in the ashes. Perhaps no vegetable food is 

more highly prized than this. 

"In the region inhabited by the most southern Pai 

Utes two species of leguminous plants are found in 

great abundance; the popular names of these plants 

are mesquite [Prosopis juliflora glandulosa] and 

mescrew [Prosopis pubescens]. These shrubs bear 

great quantities of pods which contain small seeds 

like the forest locust, the pod itself though much 

smaller contains a saccharine substance something 

like the honey locust. The pods and seeds are 

gathered and ground together in a flour and afterward used as mush or made into cakes. Very often 

these cakes instead of being baked in the fire, are 

sun dried and kept on hand for quite a lengthy period. 

"The seeds of a very great variety of weeds and 

grasses are used for food; the method of gathering 

these will first be described. They are collected 

chiefly by the women and children. For this purpose 

a large cooical basket holding from two to three 

bushels is used; it is carried on the back with a 

strap over the head [fig. 5]. Into this the seeds are 

placed from time to time as they are collected in a 

smaller basket of the same shape holding about two 

gallons. This is carried in the left hand and the 

seeds are swept into it with a little fan held in the 

right hand. 

"Sometimes where the plants bearing the seeds 

are very bushy the entire clump will be pulled up by 

the roots and is then beaten against the edge of the 

basket so that the seeds fall within. By these methods a large basket will be filled in one .or two hours 

where seeds ,are found in abundance. The gleaner 

will the.n repair to the camp where the seeds are 

winnowed. This process is as follows: A gallon or 

more is placed in a large shallow tray and a handful 

or two of finely powdered charcoal or ashes 

sprinkled .over them, and the whole is then tossed in 

such a manner that [as] the chaff is carried to the 

edge of the tray it is blown off by the wind. In this 

winnowing the women become quite dextrous. When 

the greater part of the chaff has been blown away 

any little remnant that may be left is blown off with 

the mouth. Then the ashes and charcoal dust are removed in the same way-that is by blowing with the 

mouth as the seeds are tossed, and the grains of 

charcoal ,are gathered on one side in a line around 

the bottom of the heap by deftly shaking the whole, 

and then raked off with the fingers. In this manner 

from a peck to a half a bushel of clean seed will be 

separated from the large basket of unwinnowed material brought in from the fields, and not infrequently a day's labor is rewarded with three or four 

pecks of seeds. 

"The seeds are now ready to be roasted; for this 

purpose another and smaller tray is used in which 

two .or three quarts are placed and about the same 

amount of live coals are raked from the fire into the 

tray. The woman then seizes the tray with both 

hands and tosses the whole mass in such a way that 

the coals are gently fanned and the seeds kept in 

constant motion, so that they cannot be burned. This 

process is continued ten .or fifteen minutes until they 

are thoroughly roasted. Many of them swell and 

burst open so that the bulk is much increased and 

the seeds that were gray and brown and black when 

placed in the tray are now of a beautiful white color 

like a quantity of pop corn. 

"When roasted in this way the seeds are ready to 

be ground. For this purpose two mealing stones are 

used, one a flat slab about fourteen by twenty inches 

in size called a mar; the other a small oblong stone 

more or less rounded and held in the hands: This is 

called a m6-a [fig. 18]. The woman when grinding 

sits on the ground sometimes with her legs 

stretched out at full length, but usually doubled 

back, so that her toes and front part of her foot are 

prone on the ground and her heels beside her 

haunches so that she does not sit upon her feet but 

quite down upon the ground. The mar is then placed 

between her legs, the farther edge resting on a tray 

called ta-kwi-o-goats. Another tray holding the 

roasted seeds is near by, and from it she takes a 

small quantity and puts it in the mar and rapidly 

grinds the seed into a meal, dextrously separating 

the finer from the coarser and unground seeds, and 

at the same time pushing the meal thus separated 

over the edge of the stone into the tray. Sometimes 
24 JOHN WESLEY POWELL AND THE ANTHROPOLOGY OF THE CANYON COUNTRY 

FIGURE 18.-Kaibab Paiute woman working with metate 

and mano, grinding seeds into meal. Photograph by J. K. 

Hillers, 1873, from Smithsonian Institution, Bureau of 

American Ethnology Collection. 

a little child sits by and slowly feeds this mill with 

a little horn dipper, while the woman works away 

singing merrily, or scolding her lord or screaming 

her orders to the household. Sometimes the meal is 

eaten without further preparation. In such a case, 

the tray is placed in the camp where the household 

gather about it, each one helping himself by taking 

up a small pinch with his thumb and two fingers 

and deftly tossing it into his mouth. Mark, I say 

'tossed into his mouth' for it is quite rare that such 

food is placed there, as it is thrown in with a jerk. 

"At other times the meal is cooked in a kind of 

mush, for which purpose it is placed in a basket jar, 

and boiled with hot stones, in which form it is 

usually eaten with horn spoons, without waiting for 

it to be cooled. It .never ceased to be a matter of 

astonishment to me to see how this hot boiling mush 

could be eaten, without producing any signs of pain 

from burning or scalding, which seemed to be 

inevitable. 

"A species of cactus ( opuntia) is very abundant 

in some parts of the country and it bears a beautiful 

crimson apple; very juicy and quite luscious. The 

fruit is beset with minute spines which are barbed. 

In gathering this fruit great pains are taken to 

divest them of their armiture [sic], and a little 

brush is made of a bundle of wire grass for this purpose. When the spines are carefully brushed off the 

fruit is gathered into a basket and carried into camp 

where the juice is expressed from the pulp which is 

afterwards formed into rolls or large lumps and 

sometimes dried for winter use. 

"The mesquelle [mescal or agave] is a very important article in the food of these people. The 

Indian name for this plant is yant. The season in 

which it is found is one of great scarcity, for it 

usually formed in the spring, and the regions where 

it is found in abundance are often called Ta-mun 

Ka-ni'-ga. 

"The plant has a fleshy stalk- or crown, from 

which spring a number of bayonet shaped leaves 

and from the lower part of the stalk, fine roots pe.netr.ate the ground. A large seed stalk rises from the 

centre of the crown, the last year of the life of the 

plant, which derives its chief nourishment from the 

store of material previously prepared in the crown. 

Early in the spring, before this plant starts its 

growth, this stalk is very rich, and it is then when 

it is gathered for food. The older the plant is before 

the stalk is started, the richer it will be found, but 

after the stalk is grown it is no longer valued. 

"The plant is gathered by taking a sharp stick 

and driving it down with a large stone through the 

crown, and then the mesquelle is wrenched from the 

ground, and whilst it is yet on the stalk the bayonet 

leaves and rootlets are trimmed off. When five or six 

crowns are thus gathered on one stick they are carried into camp. There they are roasted in the ashes. 

When r.oasted the whole is composed of a treaclelike substance held together by a great number of 

fibres. They are placed on trays and cut into strips 

and the saccharine material is sucked out. I once 

heard a white man say that this way of eating the 

mesquelle was very much like sucking molasses with 

a straw broom. 

"This food is considered a very great luxury by 

the Indians, and the time of gathering the yant is 

a season of great festivity. In early spring they repair to the region where it is found in abundance, 

and collected i1n great quantities. Many bushels are 

sometimes brought into camp by the tribe in a single 
EXTRACTS FROM JOHN WESLEY POWELL'S NOTES ON THE INDIANS 25 

day. While the women are collecting the plant the 

men dig a pit, and in it they build a large fire and 

the pit is kept full of live coals and hot ashes. Just 

at daybreak these embers are raked out to the sides 

so as to form a deep hollow in the centre and into 

this the crowns are thrown and covered with the 

coals and ashes. Stones which have been previously 

heated around the fire are then thrown over them, 

and the loose dry earth about the fire is piled over 

all. All this is done with some ceremony. Here the 

plants are allowed to remain for twenty-four hours. 

From time to time a woman will thrust a stick into 

the mound and stir it up a little as if to give vent to 

gases that may have generated within. At dawn the 

next morning the yant is ready for use and the little 

tribe gathers in a circle around the heap and sings 

the yant song and dances the yant dance, which 

lasts for an hour or more. Then the pit is opened 

and they have a great feast. This dancing and singing and feasting is continued until the whole pit is 

exhausted, and another collection is then made. 

.. Animal Food" 

"The flesh of the grizzly bear is esteemed very 

highly, and the hunter who succeeds in killing one 

is considered a great hero. They are now killed by 

fire arms but the Indians aver that they were formerly killed with arrows, and they tell many stories 

of the prowess of their fore-fathers in attacking and 

killing these huge animals. It seems that all the men 

of the tribe turned out on such occasions. 

"The flesh of the elk, antelope, mule deer, mountain sheep, beaver, otter, three or four species of 

rabbits, badger, prairie dog, porcupine, and some 

other animals are deemed to be good food. The wolf, 

fox, swift, mountain lion, wild cat and others are 

eaten only in times of great scarcity but when very 

hungry the Indian will refuse no kind of meat. 

"The Indian as a hunter exhibits great patience 

and his success is due chiefly to this characteristic. 

He walks in a crouching attitude through the woods 

or over the plains with almost noiseless step. His 

practiced eye discovers the tracks or sees an animal 

at a great distance, and when the game is discovered 

he will walk around for a long distance to get in 

such a position that the deer will be to the windward. Great care is taken to crawl upon the deer so 

a.s not to frighten him, and for this purpose an 

Indian will often crawl upon the ground many 

hundred yards so managing that the little trees and 

bushes even, or the inequalities of the ground, will 

cover his approach. 

"He never discharges his gun or shoots an arrow 

from a distance, but if the deer occupies some position so that he cannot get quite near enough to him 

without exposing himself he will lie down and 

gently wait until his position is changed, even 

though it may be necessary to wait in such a place 

for hours. 

"When any large game is killed it is sometimes 

skinned, dressed, cut into pieces, and hung up on a 

tree, the hunter himself rarely carrying but a portion into camp. This is done very quickly and the 

Indian proceeds on the hunt. When he returns to 

camp, as he usually does without game he seems to 

be able to describe on which [tree] it is cached in 

such a way that the woman can go to it unerringly. 

"When a party goes out to hunt in company he 

who may be successful in killing the game is entitled 

to the skin but the flesh is divided equally among all 

the people. When it is brought into camp, the successful hunter himself cuts up the game and sends 

the several portions to those persons to whom it 

should be given. 

"Clubs, javelins, sling stones, and arrows were 

formerly used by the Indians in the hunt, but all 

these articles except the bow and arrow are now 

superceded by fire arms. They still use a small stick 

like a cane with a curved handle for the purpose of 

pulling rabbits from their burroughs. 

"The sage plants of the territory inhabited by the 

Utes are the homes of vast numbers of rabbits, and 

they have means by which a great many of these are 

caught. They form a very important article of food 

and their skins are made into robes. The fibres of 

two or three species of plants are twisted into cords 

a:nd with these cords large nets are made, something 

like a fishing seine -about three feet wide and from 

four to six hundred yards in length. Often a number 

of such nets are used together. They are placed so 

as to enclose a semicircular piece of ground, the 

whole length of the combined nets often being more 

than half a mile. Wings of brush are then extended 

on either side and the whole tribe, men, women and 

children, turn out and surround a large space, probably several square miles, and advance concentrically toward the net beating the bushes and shouting 

and screaming. The rabbits are started up and they 

shoot at them with arrows, killing one now and 

then, and driving the remainder into the net where 

they are entangled and shot. From two or three to 

twenty rabbits may be caught at one drive in this 

way. The owner of a section of net is entitled to the 

skin of the rabbit caught in his portion, but the 

meat is divided among all the families of the tribe. 
26 JOHN WESLEY POWELL AND THE ANTHROPOLOGY OF THE CANYON COUNTRY 

"Another little net is used. [It is] sack-like in 

form with its mouth pinned or staked over the burrough of the rabbit, which on coming out is entangled in the meshes of the snare. 

"In seasons of the year when the skins of these 

rabbits are comparatively worthless for clothing, 

the flesh is prepared for eating by throwing the rabbit on the fire without removing the entrails or 

taking off the skin. The fur is soon burned off a.nd 

when the body is fairly warmed through it is ready 

to be eaten. It is then opened and the entrails taken 

out. The intestines are emptied of their contents by 

taking the long gut between the fingers which are 

tightly compressed. The pouch is cut open and 

turned inside out. They are then put on the fire and 

roasted to a crisp and are considered the most desirable part of the animal except, perhaps, the 

brain. 

"Grasshoppers and crickets form a very important part of the food of these people. Soon after they 

are fledged and before their wings are sufficiently 

developed for them to fly, or later in the season 

when they are chilled with cold, great quantities are 

collected by sweeping them up with brush brooms, 

or they are driven into pits, by beating the ground 

with sticks. When thus collected they are roasted in 

trays like seeds and ground into meal and eaten as 

mush or cakes. Another method of preparing them 

is to roast great quantities of them in pits filled 

with embers and hot ashes, much in the same manner as yant is prepared for consumption. When 

these insects are abundant, the season is one of 

many festivities. When prepared in this way these 

insects are considered very great delicacies. 

"Earth worms gathered: in the same way and 

treated as lizards are very often dried for winter 

use. 

"Birds eggs are eaten wherever found and if incubation is nearly complete they are much preferred. 

"Most of the tribes of Pai Utes still continue to 

cultivate the soil to a greater or lesser extent, raising ka-mout [Camote], corn, and squashes. The 

little patches of ground selected for this purpose are 

situated in the vicinity of springs which are utilized 

f.or purposes of irrigation. Corn is planted sometimes in the sand eighteen or twenty inches deep; 

two or three seeds are planted in a hole, and when 

the plants come up, they branch just below the 

ground, so that there are usually fifteen or twenty 

stalks and each one will often bear a small ear of 

corn. After planting no further attention is given 

to any of the crops until they are harvested. 

"Doubtless In former years before the introduction of fire arms, all the Indians paid much more 

attention to this mode of gaining a subsistence. An 

old man told me this and mourned greatly the degeneracy of his people and affirmed that they were 

much more prosperous and happy in the old days 

than at the present time. 

"Courtship and Marriage" 

"There are two methods of marriage. One is to 

steal the maiden and the other is to fight for her. 

Even if the maiden and all her friends are willing 

there is always a semblence of disapproval and so 

it is necessary that the girl should be taken by one 

of three methods. There are two words for marriage, one signifying pulling, the other conquering. 

"The fighting occurs when there are rivals. 

"Two men desire the same girl, and it is arranged 

that they shall determine the matter by wager or 

battle. 

"Each party enlists .a number of his friends and 

that they shall determine the matter by wager or 

feast and dance. Then one of the suitors walks out 

into the plain and in boastful language challenges 

his rival, ending with the expression, 

A-near-ti-tik-a-nump-kwaik-ai-ger 

'Fighting is the tool by which I 

gain my living, I tell you!' 

"Then the rival steps forth boasting of his prowess, and of that of his friends and ending with the 

same expression A-near-ti-tik-a-nump-kwaik-ai-ger. 

'Fighting is the tool by which I gain my living I 

tell you!' and the combat commences. 

"No weapons are allowed and when either champion falls not another blow must be struck, but the 

conqueror immediately repeats his challenge, a.nd 

another champion enters the ring, and so the fighting is continued until one or the other of the parties 

is conquered. Fair dealing in these contests is always inculcated, but it often happens that in the 

heat of the contest one or the other party does 

something which is considered against the rules and 

a general fight in terrible earnest ensues. 

"The girls are invariably married very young, 

and when the elder sister is married, and she is alw.ays taken first, the husband is entitled to all the 

sisters as they grow up and come to a marriageable 

age. But the oldest son is also married first, and all 

his brothers as they come to a marriageable age are 

also entitled to his wives, so that a family of boys 

marries a family of girls, but usually a division of 

the girls is made among the boys, though this is not 
EXTRACTS FROM JOHN WESLEY POWELL'S NOTES ON THE INDIANS 27 

always the case. Still as they come up, he may have 

to fight for them, and may be willing to relinquish 

them without a fight, but such is usually not the 

case." 

Mythology and Beliefs 

Powell was very much interested in the myths 

.and tales told by the Indians ,and in their conceptions of the spirit world. In his narrative of his trip 

in 1870 to the Uinkarets Plateau, he relates how he 

induced the Indians to tell their myths (Powell, 

1875c, p. 667): 

"Having finished our business for the evening, I 

asked if there was a 'tu-gwe-wa-gunt' in campthat is, if there w:as anyone present who was skilled 

in relating their mythology. Chuar said that Tomor-ro-un-ti-kai, the chief of these Indians, the 

Uinkarets, was a very noted man for his skill in 

this matter; but they both objected, by saying that 

the season for tu-gwe-nai had not yet arrived. 

[Tales were usually told only in wintertime.] But 

I had anticipated this, .and soon some members of 

the party came with pipes and tobacco, a large kettle 

of coffee, and a tray of biscuits, and after sundry 

ceremonies of pipe-lighting and smoking, we all 

feasted; and, warmed up by this (to them unusual) 

good living, it was decided that the night should be 

spent in relating mythology." 

Powell gathered many myths and tales from the 

Indians, as well as their beliefs about the country 

in which they lived, including explanations of the 

boundaries of the earth and of the topography and 

the peopling of the earth. 

.. The Boundaries of the Earth" 

"The region of country inhabited by the Utes has 

some very remarkable topographic features, and 

it is necessary to bring out these in order to appreciate their ideas of the form and boundaries of the 

world. 

"These features are towering cliffs, or bold escarpments of rock, often hundreds of miles long, 

and hundreds or thousands of feet high. The faces 

of these cliffs are in rnany places vertical. These 

cliffs are the boundaries or edges of mesas and high 

plateaux. This region of country is also traversed 

by deep chasms, the channels of the streams which 

drain the country. These streams usually have a 

great depth below the general surface of the country, often hundreds and thousands of feet. The 

Grand Cafion, one of the features with which they 

are very familiar, is from four to five thousand feet 

in depth, and more than two hundred miles in 

length, and the whole country is cut by a labyrinth 

of these deep gorges. The Indian name for these 

cliffs is Mu-kwan-a-kunt. The earth they believe to 

be bounded on the west by such ,a line of cliffs. That 

is, by going beyond the sea in this direction, you 

climb to a· summit of a mesa and then look off from 

the brink of the cliffs where the world ends. They 

believe too that these cliffs are very treacherous, 

that there are projecting rocks ,at the summit that 

are delicately balanced ,and that too inquisitive 

people in looking over the brink have fallen over 

and gone--ah! they know not where. 

"The middle of the world is the Kaibab Plateau, 

the home of the Pa Utes, or true Utes as the word 

signifies. 

"The eastern edge of the world is a line of cliffs 

like that on the west. It may seem strange, but in 

talking with them I have never been able to obtain 

from them any ideas of what they supposed might 

be the northern and southern boundaries * * *. 

Their usual reply is, 'The ancients never told us 

about a northern and southern end to the ground.' 

.. The Origin of the Canons of the Colorado" 

"Many years ago when wise ,and good men lived 

on the earth, the great Chief of all the Utes lost his 

beloved wife. 

"Day and night he grieved, and all his people 

were sad. Then Rabbit [Ta-vwoats] 10 (one of the 

dignitaries in the mythology) appeared to the chief 

and tried to comfort him, but his sorrow could not 

be allayed. So at last Rabbit promised to take him 

to a country away to the southwest where he said 

his dead wife had gone and let him see how happy 

she was if he would agree to grieve no more on his 

return. So he promised. Then Rabbit took his magical ball and rolled it before him, and as it rolled it 

rent the earth and mountains, and crushed the rocks 

and made a way for them to that beautiful land-a 

trail through the mountains which intervened between that home of the dead and the hunting 

grounds of the living. And following the ball, which 

was a rolling globe of fire, they came at last to the 

Spirit Land. Then the great Chief saw his wife and 

the blessed abode of the Spirits where all was plenty 

and all was joy, and he was glad. 

10 The animal characters a)) had human personalities and could talk 

in the mythical "ancient times," but their descendents are said to have 

lost these attributes. Powell used the Indian names for the characters in 

the myths; for example, "Ta-vwoats" or Rabbit. For clarity the English 

names have been substituted with an indication in brackets of the 

Indian name. 
28 JOHN WESLEY POWELL AND THE ANTHROPOLOGY OF THE CANYON COUNTRY 

"Now when they had returned Rabbit enjoined 

upon the chief that he should never travel this 

trail again during life, and that all his people 

should be warned not to walk therein. Yet still he 

feared that they would attempt it so he rolled a 

river into trail-a mad raging river into the gorge 

made by the globe of fire, which should overwhelm 

any who might seek to enter there. 

.. The Origin of the Mountains, Valleys, 

[and] Canons" 

"Originally the surface of the Earth was a smooth 

plain, but one day Coyote [Shin-au-av] told Hawk 

[Kusav] to place the latter's quiver at a short distance from where they stood that it might be used 

as a mark, at which he would shoot. Then Coyote 

sent an arrow from his bow which struck the quiver, 

but glanced and plowed its way about the face of the 

earth in every 'conceivable direction, digging deep 

gorges .and canons, making valleys, plowing up 

mountains, hills, and rocks. In this way the water 

courses were determined and the hills and mountains made and huge rocks were scattered about the 

country. 

"Origin of the Pai-Utes" 

"The Pai-Utes have a number of stories about an 

Old Woman of the Sea, many of which I have not 

been able to understand. One has been told me several times, and it is believed the substance has been 

obtained. 

"Old Woman of the Sea [Si-chom-pa Ka-gon] 

came out of the sea with a sack filled with something 

and securely tied. Then she went to the home of the 

Shin-au-av brothers [Wolf and Coyote] carrying 

her burden with her, which was very heavy, and 

bent her nearly to the ground. When she found the 

brothers she delivered to them the sack and told 

them to carry it into the middle of the world and 

open it, and enjoined upon them that they should 

not look into it until their arrival at the designated 

point and there t;hey would meet Rabbit [Tavwoats], who would tell them what to do with it. 

Then the Old Woman went back to the sea disappearing in the waters. 

"Wolf gave the sack to Coyote and told him to do 

as the Old Woman had directed, and especially enjoined upon him that he must not open the sack lest 

some calamity should befall him. He found it very 

heavy and with great difficulty he carried it along 

by short stages and as he proceeded, his curiosity 

to know what it contained became greater and 

greater. 'Maybe,' said he, 'it is sand; maybe it is 

dung I who knows but what the old woman is playing a trick!' Many times he tried to feel the outside 

of the sack to discover what it contained. At onetime he thought it. was full of snakes; at another, 

full of lizards. 'So,' said he, 'it is full of fishes.' At 

last his curiosity overcame him .and he untied the 

sack, when out sprang hosts of people who passed 

out o.n the plain shouting and running toward the 

mountain. Coyote overcome with fright, threw himself down on the sand. Then Rabbit suddenly appe"lred and grasping the neck of the sack tied it up, 

being very angry with Coyote. 'Why,' s.aid he, 'have 

you done this? I wanted these people to live in that 

good land to the east and here, foolish boy, you have 

let them out in a desert.' 

"There were yet a few people left in the sack and 

Rabbit took it to the Kaibab Plateau to the brink of 

the Grand Canyon and there took out the remainder 

where the food was abundant on the cliffs, and 

herds of game wandered in the forests. 

"These are the Pai-Utes, the true Utes, the others 

have scattered over the world and live in many 

places.'' 

Powell collected other data on the Ute, Southern 

Paiute, .and other Indians of the Canyon Country 

and the Great Bflsin. Much of it consists of vocabulary lists, lists of chiefs and headmen, myths and 

tales, and miscellaneous notes. It is lamentable that 

Powell never found time to complete his intended 

monograph on the "Numa.'' He clearly knew more 

than he wrote down, but the knowledge died with 

him. 

Nevertheless, Powell called attention to the 

anthropology of the Canyon Country-the silent 

ruins of past cultures, as well as the historic 

tribes-and to the need for systematic study of 

these cultures and peoples. Others have heeded the 

call and taken up the work. The Canyon Country 

and adjacent areas are one of the best known areas 

of North America anthropologically. A large part 

of the accumulated anthropological data was 

gathered by employees of Powell's Bureau of 

American Ethnology, who continued the work ~egun 

by Powell. The knowledge gained by these persons, 

as well as by later workers from many other institutions, serves well as a fitting monument to Powell 

-the first anthropologist of the Canyon Country. 

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