The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1896-10-11
INDIANS OF THE PUE8L0S.
"'rHE MOST MYSTERIOUS PEOPLE
IN NORTH AMERICA"
Life Among the Modern Descend
ANTS Of the CIiR DwriIers-specu-
IatiOn rs to Their Origin-Ancient
Customs That survive-The Force
Tint NNiII OhIiterate Them.

That VIII Obliterate Them.
From the Ladies' Home Journal.
In passing from the plains of Eastern
Colorado to the seward slope of the
Sierras the traveller sees little else than
sand, sage brush, magnificent cliffs of
red and green stone, and distant mountain
peaks. 1t is an arid land. There IS but
one oasis of green in the mighty and re-
splendent desert-that is the San Fran
isco group of mountains. After leaving
Albuquerque there are no towns on the
Santa Fe line till Flags taff-which is
only lumber village-then desert again,
and at last the Serras and Los Angeles.
There are stations and forts and Indian
pueblos and Mexican towns in New Mex
leo; in Arizona scarcely forts or villages,
only long rows of settlers houses mark
ed one two, three, and so on and on. The
train rises and falls over enormous d.
vides, and winds down sunken rivers with
yiolet-shadowed cliffs of mighty mesas
on either hand-seems ever climbing or
descending, and yet as a matter Of fact
this whole land is a prodigious plateau
from six to eight thousand feet above sea
level. 1t is meshed by a thousand canons
with almost perpendicular SIDES and dot
ted by peaks, a region of ancient noun
tains with sand-illed valleys.
All through this region Of perpetual sun
| shine and shimmering sky line-in the val
| ieys beside the slender rivers lost amid
| sands, on the mesas hundreds of feet above
| the valley, in the seams of cliffs thou
sand feet high, in the cinders of extinct
| volconoes-are to be seen the homes of the
America.
| Pueblo-dwelling Indians. They occupy a
| position entirely apart from the Indians
| Of the north and east. AS you ride by IN
| the train you may see them threshing
| grain at Santa Clara, urging their MIN
! BILE ponies round and round the corral,
! trampling out the wheat as the Egyptians
! did of old. AT Isleta their boys and girls
| will enter the car to sell peaches and mel
ons and at Laguna 10 show jars and quaint
| clay figures. At Gallup and Zuni will sit
| his horse, among the NaVajos, and watch
the train go by, and at Acoma young men
viii meet you with baskets of fruit.
Counting out the Navajo and the Apache
| this whole blazing and beautiful and sinis-
| ter land is the home of the Pueblo man,
| who is, in fact, the modern representative
| of the cliff dweller and the mound builder
| of ancient habit.
| The cliff dweiler was the ancestor OF the
| Pueblo Indian In times of trouble or OF
|
| the Apache, or the Spaniard, he let him.
| self down over the cliff and built a secret
| refuge for himself and his children. With
| meredith cunning he traced out trail
along the side of the cliff, hewed STAIR
way out of a pine tree, or twisted a
| ladder out of horsehair and when his en-,
| emies raVined he FASTENED to his cliff
dwelling like a sand martin to its burrow.
| You may see their caves and ruined dwell
| lings high over the modern pueblo of San
| ia Clara and in the Canon du Chiefly and
| in the Little Colorado. They look like
| swallows nests high up there in the sott
| sandstone. You may find, also, on Thin
der mountain and other enormous nights
| about Zuni traces of ancient villages
| which were used in times when fortitca-
| ton was more needfui than now. These
| are the stages In time Of greatest dan
| ger the cliff dwelling were built and tenn
| porarily inhabited; in times of less dan
ger the towns were built, like Acoma and
Walpi,, on high, preeipitous mesa points
in times of peace pueblos were built in
the valleys Isolated by desert stretches
| from friends and enemies as well.
| In New Mexico these cliff people have
come down off the nights, for the mos
| part but not entirely. Santa Clara, Isleta,
! Laguna, Zuni, and many other towns are
| built in the valley floor, but Acoma still
remains perched perilously upon an iso-
| lated table butte moro than AGO feet above
the valley. A wonderful town this is,
! unforgettable as Gibraltar; as strange as
remote as Thebes. In Arizona are to De
| found 1.-THE seven villages of TuScayan,
all on nights nearly $50 feet above the
valley "Walpee," "Hah-no," See
| chum-a-vee," "Shum-o-pa-vee," Mash
| ong-na-vee" "Oraibee," "Schee- paul-o-
wee" Il am spelling these phoneticaly).
| In the Cataract canon the Suppai people
| live 5000 feet above the rim of the canon.
| a n6 in itaf hi
| innumerable ruins of older peoples whose
| life was practically that of Walpi and
Oraibi to-day. The cities on the cliffs are
uninhabited now, save by bats and the
mountain lion, possibly
The cliff dwellers are now considered to
be not of enormous antiquity. Even in
the cave dwellings of this region pottery
tools, and clothing almost identical with
that of the Oraibi and Walpi have been
found. If we know how the people OF
Walpi, Zuni and Oraihi live we can infer
how the cliff jewellers lived. The tradi-
tons of the Hopi people called the Mo
| quisD tell Of the wandering of their peo-
pie from the southwest, and that on these
| journeys they often built houses in the
cliffs or on high mesa points. And Dr.
| Walter Fewkes of the Smithsonian Insti-
tuition, and field workers, under Mai
Powelrs direction, have proved the truth
of these traditions by excavatng along
the lines indicated by the Hopi story
teller. They are known to be descend
ants of "cliff dwellers" in the strict mean
ing of that term.
The origin of these people is quite an
other question. They may have come
from the south-from Central America.
They may have come from China. Prob
ably they came from Central America
Certainly they are set apart from the
nomadic northern Indian. To me they
seem Chinese or Egyptian. saw faces
among them which were marvelously Sc
mitic. while their speech-their pigeon
English had the movement and the
endings OF the Chinese. They are dark
bronze in color, and mainly light and
graceful, and are matchless climbers and
runners-such development being a ne
cessity in cliff folk 1t is among this
mysterious people that ethnologists are
seeking to-day for origins and develop
ments to explain and account for the Az
tee, the mound builder and the cliff
dweller.
About 100 miles north of the Santa Fe
road and midway in the northern half of
Arizona lies the Indian reservation called
Tusayan, after the Spanish. Within few
miles square there lie the seven villages
| named abOvp-best known ~ ie