Arizona republican., 1899-03-31

l locality or people put was due to en-
 vironment and stage of intellectual de-
 velopment, which in some respects was
 but little above the wild and ferocious animals with which he was surrounded
 and with which he lived. To avoid
 attack from these, and assaults from
 his fellow men he sought the high cliff
 for his residence, thus taking advant-
 age of the protection nature afforded
 him in securing residence of com
 parative safety for himself and little
 ones. The deep canyons of Arizona with these cliff houses present won derful object lesson of the development
 of man on this continent. No richer field for this kind of study can be found | in the world than in the Canyon du Chelly, the Mancus canyon and the Rio Verde and it's tributaries. In these deep canyons one will find cliff houses perched many hundreds of feet high, and so far no means of gaining access
 to them has been discovered. The | question is frequently asked how did | these people gain access to their
 houses? The answer seems simple
 enough These canyons were not all
 ways so deep and at the time these l houses that now occupy the highest points in the cliffs were built they
 were as easy of access as the lower
 ones are now. The canyons have been cut down deeper and deeper and as the | approaches eroded and were cut away by freshets and cloud bursts, the old houses were abandoned and new ones
 built lower down. Therefore the houses occupying the highest points in
 the cliff are the oldest.
 Montezuma castle, situated on
 Beaver creek, a tributary of the
 Rio Verde, and about three miles
 above Camp Verde, gives a good idea
 of a cliff house. This is the largest building in the group. It is forty-eight feet high and contains twenty-eight
 rooms.
 The Cavate lodge presents very little
 that calls for special mention here.
 They vary in size from single room to lodges containing several hundred rooms. They usually occur at the base of cliffs in the canyons and along the streams where the cliff is overhanging or shelving. An outer wall of stone
 usually laid in mortar is run along parallel with the cliff and tied to the cliff by cross walls which also form partitions between rooms. These walls occur every ten or twelve feet as was demed necessary by the ancient builder Each of these rooms was the home of an entire family
 The Pueblo building marks the third step in the evolution of this ancient architecture. These buildings occur on high rocky promonEories and in the adjacent valleys. There may be a few houses in a group joined together or segregated usually however they were joined together, and are known as communal houses. Almost all these houses, especially the communal, the ground plan is symbolic of some deity or in some way contributed to the re- ligious part of their lives. The stu dent of archaeology cannot make much progress in his studies if he ignores the religious symbolism and sacred of these ancient people, It r is well known that they were intensely religious and that larger proportion of the objects that we find brings us in close touch with their daily life, even the smallest objects are some times of the greatest scientific value.
 They were well acquainted with the summer and winter solstices and wor- shipped the sun as the central deity, the life-giving force from which origi- mated the idea of the life to come and eternity. They were familiar with the movements of the heavenly bodies and regulated their lasts and feasts by them. This fact is demonstrated by the same practice among our pueblo people of today. They believed and still believe that man came from the under world This belief is interesting when we come to consider some of our own expressions, as mother earth" \ Dust thou art, and unto dust thou shalt return,' worm of the earth, etc. These expressions are regarded a 6gures of speech. But whence tn origin?
 These people builded temples places of worship, some of them peculiar. There is one near Tue; It covers several acres of land and sists of rows of columns of sto about four or five feet long and al i've inches square. Two or three of these columns of stone are set he ground. This temple was with roof or covering and is identical w 1ne built by Adrastus at Sicyan belongs to the sect known as fire w 'hipers. Evidence of this form of VI ship is found abundantly in Arizol in the valleys of the GN md Salt rivers. Cremation was praC ised extensively in these localities lot as a sanitary measure but as rite, believing as they did, N hat fire was one of the chief gods, they Ilso believed that the consumption of he dead insured their immediate transmission into the presence of the lefty.
 The ancient inhabitants of Arizona quilt pyramids similar to those in Central America, Egypt, Syria, etc, nd for the same purpose, viz, they were emblematic of their deities and in ome instances served as a last resting 'lace for their, sacred dead.
 Adjacent te/ these pyramids may be ound another singular earth work, onsiSting of an oval or circular ring arying in size, some being 100 feet in From these ovals or circles
 ridge earth extends proper dis ance to yive symmetry and at the end