Herald and news. [volume] (West Randolph, Vt.) 1878-1943, 1889-07-18
CLIFF-DwELLERs.
Survivors of an Ancient Race Found
in Mexico.

kOCuMulhA udo lOuuQ y
tribe Of what seem to be genuine cliff
dwellers in the mountains Of chihuahua,
and gives an account of them in letter
to the Boston Transcript. We quote |:
sin my wanderings through this por-
ton of the Sierra Madres l was FORUM
ate in seeing q large number of them
engaged in about all the labors and
duties which they are known to follow I;
the civilized Tarahumari living in stone
and adobe houses, with fences around
his cultivated fields, the most savage of
the race acknowledging none of the
Mexican laws or customs, and living in
caves in the rocks or under the huge
powders, or in cliffs high up the almost
perpendicular faces of the rocks, at
tending TO a few goats and planting
their corn ON steep slopes, using pointed
sticks to make the holes in the ground
into which the grams are deposited.
1.-The cliff-dwellers on the Bacachic
River had taken a huge cave in the
limestone rock, almost overhanging the
picturesque stream, and had walled up
its outward face almost to the top,
leaving the latter for ventilation prob
ably, as rain could not beat in over the
crest of the abutting cliff. 1t had but
one door, closed by an old, filthy goat
hide, into which the inhabitants had to
crawl, like the Esquimaux into their
igioos, or snowhuts, rather than any
other form of entrance / can liken it to.
The only person we saw was a wild
man of the woods, who, with bow and
arrow in his hand, was skulking along
the big powders near the foot of the
cliff. A dozen determined men inside
ought to have kept away an army corps
not furnished with artillery, although /
doubt if the occupants hold these caves
on account of their defensive qualities,
but rather for their convenience as
places of habitation, needing little work
to make them subserve their rude and
simple wants. My guide said they
would only fly if we visited them, leav-
ing little parched corn, rough nietdte
or stone for grinding it, an unburned
ola to hold water, and some skins and,
perchance, worn-out blankets for bed
ding so / desisted from such useless
trip as getting over to their aerie to in
spect it.
How many there are of them it
seems hard to say. We saw at least two
to three hundred scattered around in
the Businesses of this grand old noun
tain chain, and could probably have
tripled this If we had been looking for
cliff and cave jewellers alone along our
line of travel. A Mexican gentleman
who has spent all his life in this part of
chihuahua, looking for and developing
its almost fabulous mineral wealth, esti-
mates the number of living cave and
cliff dwellers at not far from 1900;
and he had no reason or incentive to
exaggerate numbers, and in a long con-
tact with him l found all his other
estimates correct where / could verify
them. Let us place them at 5000 in
strength, and we would have enough to
write a huge book upon, giving as start
ling developments as one could prob
ably make from the interior of some
wholly unknown continent; in fact,
more curious, for the public is some
what prepared for such a story, by the
large numl err of old, deserted cliff
found in Arizona and New
which have often been assigned
to people older than the ruins of the
Toltec or Aztec races. That there is
some relation between these old cliff
jewellers and the new ones think more
than likely"