The Somerset reporter., 1888-01-04

Los MuERTos, A. T., a-.. The
Hemenway expedition, under the direction
OF Frank Cushing, has been at work for
several months, and excavated the ruins of
city three miles long and two miles wide.
The excavations are not continuous, but
have been made at various points along
the main street and at the limits of the
town.
Mr.. Cushing acquired from the Zuni In
dians, among whom he has lived for some
years, the knowledge of customs and ira
ditions which enabled him to find the buried
cities of the Salt river valley.
The first one e1cavated is called Los
Muertos, the CITY of the dead Others that
have been partially excavated are El Pu-
eblo de los Hornos, the city of ovens; El
Cludad de los Pueblitos and FL Pueblo de
los Pedros.
But these are only part of the chain of
cities that once covered the desert. There
are nineteen buried cities in tho valley
alone, and Los Muertos, which had
population of 10000, is one of the smallest.
The entire valley was once a system of
cities, with adjacent farms, and up in the
mountains are sacrlfcial caves and pueblos
Of stone, many Of which never have been
explored, and are entirely unknown to the
The people who lived in these were not
Aztecs as has been supposed They were OF
the race that preceded the Aztecs, and had
upon this continent civilization older
than the pyramids. This is proved by the
human remains and relics found Elmo
logical research, prosecuted by Mr.. Cush-
ing by the comparative method, demon
strates that the dwellers of the plain were
Totecs, and that they reached a high state
of civilization many centuries before the
Aztecs appeared. They were probably of
Asiatic origin, but not Mongoloid The
Indian of the Pacific coast appears to he
Mongoloid and later immigrant from
Asia.
The age of the Toltec ruins is reckoned
in thousands OF years The Totecs were
an agricultural people and had tho plain OF
Tempe under high state of cultivation.
The climate and character OF the soil
were, apparently, the same a. now and q
vast system Of irrigation was required to
make the soil productive The maps made
by the surveyor OF the Hemenway party
how at least 300 lines OF ditch work
The Toltecs had no occasion to raise more
corn than they could consume, and, there
fore, the population of the plain may be
calculated on the basis of cultivated acre
age. The 1000 Pyma Indians on the 1000
acres support themselves and sell 8, 600 600
pounds OF wheat yearly. 1t is within
bounds to place the ancient population at
100000.
In one of the sacrifcial caves of the
Superstition mountains was skeleton that
eloquently tells the story Of the earthquake
and the terror of the inhabitants 1t is
that of a maiden sacrificed as the vessels
and Offering on the altar show the ethnoo-
gist, to appease the wrath of the earth
quake demon. There had been several
shocks, and the people had offered up ordi-
nary sacrifices in vain At last, the priest
went up to the sacrfcial cave and made
the supreme offering of maiden OF the
tribe Tho people returned to their homes,
assured that their danger had been averted.
Then came the greatest quake of all. Those
not caught in the ruins fled in terror to the
fields The gods had abandoned them to
the malignant wrath of the powers of
evil, that even to-day are believed by
the Indians to dwell in the Superstition
mountains. They fled in panic, the Toltec
people were scattered through the country,
the wild tribes of she hills and forests made
war upon them and drove them to the
south, and a splendid civilization of pre-
historic times was obliterated from the face
of the earth.