Edgefield advertiser. [volume] (Edgefield, S.C.) 1836-current, 1902-08-13
THE CARNELIAN
OF.
GHOST VALLEY.
By JOHN H. RAFTERY.

1lS story or CopplnSer s nSnt WIN III
Iians at the battle of the Caverns, Pro-
cessor Beekman, whom we knew as an
experienced ethnologist and traveller,
showed no astonishment at all over
he manner in which the savages had
burned their children at that famous
imbuscade.
81 believe all our aborigines were
given to the same or similar practices,
though manifested in different ways"
said he. ut is not yet thirty years
since I found as many as seven skele-
ems of Navajo children in the branches
If two trees in the Ghost Valley, one
If the lost gorges southwest of the
Mancos. Major Tuttle, who was liv-
ng at Hermosillo when I last saw
lin, told me that the squaws of an
Did Navajo chief who was slain by the
Unccmpahgres away back in the Sos
aad killed all their young as a sort OF
holocaust to the deity. It's very odd
story, and, come to think of it, l my
, self finally turned up as the uncon-
scious agent of the Indian Manitou.
"It,was at Durango, after myself and
party of scientists had explored the
cliff-dwellings of Mancos, that Major
Tuttle, who was agent at Red Noun
tain in those days, told us lot Of
queer stories about Ghost Valley. It
seems that the Uncompahgres, re-en-
forced by nearly 200 Piutes, had once
surrounded and surprised a Navajo vii
lage which then Nestled in its basin,
and that the Navajos had not only lost
most of their warriors, but that an
idol of great age and experience had
been captured and either carried OF
or destroyed by the victors. Major
Tuttle told us that the sacrifice Of
children had followed, and that to the
present day the only surviving son of
the beaten. and slaughtered chief lived,
an outcast and an object Of supersti-
tious horror, near the Navajo reserva-
ton. This pariah of a once noble fam
lily had, according to Major Tuttle,
gouged out one of his own eyes in the
hope that this self-punishment might
induce the gods to favor his search for
the lost idol of the tribe, which had, it
seems, but one eye.
"You may be sure that after hearing
Major Tuttle's story l was very ak
ious TO penetrate Ghost Valley, and
when we came to Hermosillo, which is
at the edge of the. Navajo's reserva-
tion, set about finding guide among
the tribesmen who would lead our
party into the historic basin. Major
Tuttle, however, had gone tc Denver,
and had to depend WHOLLY upon my
own efforts. The settlers told me that
neither Indians nor whites ever went
into Ghost Valley. That it was known.
to be haunted, that its waters were
poisonous and whosoever ventured
within its bowl-like depths returned no
more. tried to induce some of the
Indians to lead me into the valley, but
they shrugged their shoulders at my
offers of money, till at last fine look
ing young buck who spoke pretty good
English told me:
sttYou get Jim Look Once. Him
go in Ghost Valley. Might never come
back, too. All right By which un-
derstood that Jim Look Once was the
outcast son of the dead chief And so
1t proved. had no trouble in finiihg
him nor in securing his services. He
was an ill-favored, one-eyed Indian
about 40 years old, stoop-shouldered,
5kulking and evidently bowed with the
misfortunes of his forbears. A miner
named Schoolcraft, whom we had pick
ed up at Silver City, and DR.. Hickman,
the geologist, made up our party, and
at daybreak one June morning, with
Jim Look Once leading the pack mule,
we started for Ghost Valley. On the
evening OF the second day, just as the
sun was sinking ! hind the western
mountains, we stood upon high shelf
of granite which looked sheer INTO the
round bowl Of the haunted valley. The
depression, more than 1000 feet Ii
depth and perhaps seven miles in cir
cumference, was so beautiful in its mo-
tionless silence that could hardly re-
sist the desire to plunge onward into
its mysteries. The yellow radiance of
the evening sun seemed to sift even
to its depths; no sound of bird or
breeze or waterfall broke the perfect
silence; there was no motion in the
tall trees or sprawling shrubs, nor in
the weeds and vines which covered its
precipitous walls with luminous YER
dure.
"But we camped where we were for
the night, and often during the dark
hours woke and saw Jim Look Once
sitting at the verge of the rock gazing
silently into the shadowy abyss. No
howl of coyote or scream of night bird
broke the stiffness, and even when the
sun redeemed the east, nature seemed
to sleep on, voiceless and unmoved.
The Indian led us down an almost per-
pendicular trail that seemed to vanish
as the parted shrubbery closed behind
us. When we reached the depths the
air seemed suddenly cooled, and al
though we found no living water, we
passed pool covered with lily pads
and yellow ooze that almost sickened
us with its suffocating perfume. AL
most in the centre Of the oval bottom
land We came upon traces Of the
burned Navajo village of long ago.
Jim, our guide, here abandoned us to
our own resources and went ranging
working the stubble.
1--WE found the burial ground In the
afternoon, and think it was DR.. Hick-
man who came upon the seven baby
skeletons. We tried to get our guide
to go into some of the higher trees to
fetch US down some Of the older skele-
tons, some Of which, their weather.
stained cerements yet clinging to them.
were In a pood state Of Dreservat;on