Omaha daily bee., 1894-03-25
sun, SILENCE AND ADOBE
Somuolent New Mexico and the Never End
ing Rest of the Incident Native.
LAND OF POGO TEMPO OR NANANA
Where Nothing is Done To-day that Can lie
Put Over Tin Tomorrow vivid Picture
of n Prospective state aud
Its People.

'''"N w AHN IlNNult VI NIt tuulllTN uTHN1 DN
G. +. Lummis in his book, Land of POGO
Tempo" Mr.. Lummis is a traveller and
writer OF considerable note. Many years
of his life have been spent in the southwest.
He has lived with the Indians as well as the
natives OF Arizona and New Mexico in
pursuing his Investigations. and is
thoroughly conversant with the subjects
treated. OF New Mexico he writes:
Sun. silence aud adobe--that is New
Mexico in three words. II a fourth were to
be added, it need be only to clinch the three.
1t is the great American mystery-the
national Rip Van Winlle-the United States
which is not United States. Here is the
land or POGO tiempo'-the home of pretty
Soon of New Spain is better than the
Nov! Now" Of the haggard states. The
optate sun soothes to rest. the abode is made
to lean against. the hush of day-long neon
would not be broken. Let us not hasten
manana viii do. Better still, pasado manana.
New Mexico Is the anomaly of the republic.
IL is a century older in European civilization
than the rest, and several centuries older
still in a happier standardization of its own.
IL had its little walled cities of stone before
columbus had grandparents-tO-be; and il has
them yet. The most incredible pioneering
the world has ever seen overran 1t with the
zeal or a prairie fire $50 years ago: and
the embcrs of that unparauelod
blaze of exploration are not quite dead TODAY.
The most superhuman marches, the most
aWiul privations, the most devoted heroism
the most unsleeping vigilance, wrested this
pare, brown land to the world; and having
wrested 1t. went to sleep. The winning was
the wakefullest in history-the after-nap
eternal. 1t never has wakened-one does
not know that it ever can. Nature herself
does little but sleep here. A few semi
bustling American towns wart the territorial
map. 1t is pockmarked with cattle ranches
ana mines. where experience has welded his
costly birch over millionaire pupils from the
east and from abroad. But the virus never
reached the blood-the pits are only skin
deep. The Saxon excrescences are already
asleep, too. The cowboy is a broken idol
lie no longer Shoots up the town" nor rid
dies heels reluctant for the dance. His day
is done; and so is that of the argonaut. They
Doth are with us. but their lids are heavy.
ANA around them in New Spain again
dreamy as ever after their rude but short
lived %nudging. The sheep-which feed New
Mexico-doze again on the mesas, no longer
routed by their long-horned foes; and where
sheep are, is rest. The brown or gray adobe
hamlets Of the descendants of those fiery
souls who wreaked here a commonwealth be-
fore the Saxon fairly knew there was a new
world; the strange terraced towns of the
aboriginal pioneers who out-Spaniarded the
Spaniards by unknown centuries: the scant
leaven of incongruous American brick-all
are under the spell. And the abrupt noun
tains, the echoing, rock-walled canons, the
sunburnt mesas, the streams bankrupt by
their own shylock sands, the gaunt, brown,
treeless plains. the ardent sky. all harmon
ICES with unearthly unanimity.
SUNS VERY OWN CORNER.
Picturesque" is a tame word for it. 1t is
a picture, a romance, a dream, all in one.
1t is our one corner that is the suns very
own. Here he has had his way. and no dis
crepancy mars his work. 1t is q land of
quaint. SWArt tnpaS Df Oriental 1paSc MD
unspelled speech; a land where distance is
lost and the eye is a liar; a land of inefable
lights and sudden shadows; of polytheism
and superstition, where the rattlesnake is d
demigod and the cigarette a means of grace.
and where Christians mangle and cruelty |
themselyes-the heart of Africa beating
against the ribs of the Rockies. There are |
three typical races in New Mexico now-for
1t would be wrong to include the 10 per cent
american" Interpolation as a type. With
them ] have nothing to do. They are po-
tential, but not picturesque. Besides them
and around them are the real auctothones,
a quaint ethnologic trio. First. the 1000
Pueblo Indians-peaceful, fixed, house |
dwelling and home-loving tilIers of the
soil; good Catholics, in the churches
they have builded with a patience infinite as
that of the pyramids; good pagans every
where else. Then the 10 900 Navajo Indians
those other 10, 900 are in Arizona-sulIen,
nomad. horse-loying, hOrse-stealing, horse |
living Migrants of the saddle; pagans first, |
last and all the time. and inventors of the |
mo;her-in-law joke gray centuries before the
civilized world awoke to. it. Last of all, the
Mexlcans; inbred and solation-shruuken
descendants Of the Castilian world-fnders; |
living almost as much against the house as
in 1t; igno ant as slaves, and more courteous
than kings; poor as Lazarus. and more hos
pitable than Croesus; Catholics from A to
lizard, except when they take occasion to
be penitents-and even then fighting to
bring their matted scourges and bloody
crosses into the church which bars it's doors
to them. The Navajos have neither houses
nor towns; he Pueblos have nineteen COM
pact little "%cities," and the Mexicans several
hundred villages, a part of which are shared
by the invader. The few towns of undiluted
gringo hardly count in summing up the teri
ritory of 300 by 400 miles.
UNIVERSALLY II FEATURE.
If New Mexico lacks the concentration Of
natural picturesqueness to be found else
where. it makes up in universally. There
are almost no waterfalls, and not a river
worthy of the name. Canons are rare, md
inferior to those of Colorado and the farther
The mountains are largely sky
ward miles of savage rock, and forests are
far between. But every landscape Is char
and even beautiful-with a
weird, unearthly beauty. treacherous as
the flowers of the cacti. Most of New Mex
most of the year, is an indescrib-
able harmony in browns and grays, over
which the enchanted light of its blue skies
cdSlS an eternal Spell. ilS very rocks are
unique-only Arizona shares those astound-
ing freaks of form and color carved by the
scant rains and more liberal winds on i'm
centuries, and towering across
The bare land like the milestones of forgot
ten giants. The line of huge buttes of
Dlood-red sandstone. which stretches from
Mount San Mateo to the Little Colorado.
including the Navajo Church" and n
minor wonders. is typically New
The Navajo Reseryation-whlch
les part in this territory and part in
Arizona-is remarkably picturesque through
with it's broad plains hemfled
by giant mesas split with wild
,anons. So are the regions about
Jamez, Cochiti, Taos, Santa Fee, AComa, and
few others. The most unique pictures I'm
New Mexico are to he found among It's
unique pueblos. Their quaint terraced archt-
ecture Is the most remarkable on the con
lnent; ana there is none more picturesque
IL the world. 1t remains intact only in the
'emoter pueblos-those along the Rio Grande
nave been largely MoNicani2ed into one
itoried tameness, Laguna, on the Atlantic
7 Pacific railroad, has some three-story ter
aced houses still. Acoma,o on its dizzy island