East Oregonian : E.O. (Pendleton, OR) 1888-current, 1906-01-09
AMONG GREEN RIVER CLIFF JEWELLERS

The following interesting article on
yon is from the Four Track News, and
was written by Carl H. Paddock.
1t gives a highly entertaining ac-
count. of this strange district in the
American desert:
Miners of copper are unlocking the
gates of the desert. The stretches of
blstering sand and the moat-like
canyons that have long held back the
advance of civilization have been
overcome. The ruined forts, villages
and canals of the vanished race that
once peopled the rock-walled meadows
of southern Utah can now be easily
reached. After centuries of silence
the echoes of the once populous cliffs
have been awakened by the whistle
of the river steamer.
Tourists are carried to the home of
this ancient people by a passenger
steamer that made her first trip this
summer. The boat plies between
Riverton. a railroad town on the
Green River. and the little Mormon
city of Moab, on the Grand river, a
distance of 230 miles, taking the trav-
eler, in the course of the journey to
the head of the grand canyon of the
Colorado.
Mystery and beauty are combined
in the fascinating interest this region
possesses for the tourist. The course
of the boat lies at depth of
thousands of feet below the surround
ing country, affording an ever-chang-
ing panorama of terraced cliffs, tint
ed by nature in rainbow hues. Chis-
eled and painted on the great tablets
Of the precipices are hieroglyphics,
for the most part undeciphered.
Two kinds of inscriptions appear;
one, made with stone implements and
murky colors. is evidently the work
of modern Indians: the more ancient
records are the work of skilled arti-
sans using metal tools, and pigments
that are still vivid.
BY giving the name canyon dwellers
to the makers of the earlier inscrip-
tons, the burden of racial classifica
tion is shifted upon more capable stu
dents. The canyon dwellers seem to
have made greater progress toward
civilization than the allied peoples
from whom the modern Pueblos have
descended and, according to tradition
they were totally eXterminated by the
more barbarous tribes that laid their
country waste. Legend says that the
last desperate survivors leaped into
the river and their spirits entered into
the white salmon. To the modern In
dian the salmon is known as the spir-
it fish, and he will not touch it, alive
or dead.
A hint of the tragedy is contained
i'm the last of the cliff records made by
the canyon dwellers. Usually the
final picture represents an Indian
with his typical head-dress of feath-
ers, a figure that does not appear in
the earlier records. This last picture
is often incomplete, an indication that
destruction, when it came, was swift.
During their undisturbed possession
of the occasional strips of irrigable
land along the rivers, the canyon
dwellers made progress in the arts and
agriculture. Their canals, sometimes
dug from solid rock, show an empiri-
cal knowledge of engineering princi-
pies. A map of Green river chiseled
on a cliff is remarkably accurate.
Their architecture has a certain rude
grandeur, indicating that they were
not insensibe to the sublimity of their
surroundings. In the lines of their
fields and artificial ponds is revealed
taste for formal gardening.
Still growing wild along the river
is plant from the fiber of which
they made coarse cloth. For food
they probably depended largely upon
maize. and the size of their granaries
indicates communal polity. For
fruit they had something resembling
peach. This now grows wild in the
region. and has a delicious flavor.
That belief of immortality was
very real to the canyon dwellers is
evident from the care they took In the
disposition of their dead. For pro-
lection from insects the bodies were
wrapped in mating woven from the
inner bark of the cedar.
The dryness of the atmosphere
completed the work of mummifica-
tion. The burial places were crevices
and chambers in the rock; after the
bodies had been placed within them
in a sitting posture. these were tight
| ly sealed with cement. The lines of
the workmen's hands are still distinct