The Intermountain Catholic. (Salt Lake City [Utah] ;) 1899-1920, 1907-03-09


while all history proves that races at one time IL
possession of civilization have passed over that ter
rtory and descended into the gloomy depths OF
savagery, where many of them vet remain. In Ari
zona at least ii was impossible for the Indian tC
lift himself out of his degradation for when he
BEGAN his rude cultivation of the land the ferocious
mountain tribes swooped down upon him and drove
him into the desert to the Inaccessible cliffs.
The Cliff DweIIers and Pueblo People
Following the instinct of ADMINISTRATION. he
built his stone hut on lofty lodges or scooped from
the friabe mountain side, fifty one hundred two
hundred feet in air a cave which served for an OBJ
servatory and refuge for his wife and children.
With a rope ladder twisted from the fibre of the
pithaya cactus or the hide of the mountain lion he
climbed down from his lofty perch returning with
| food and water for his miserable family Thus be-
gan the now famous ''cliffdwellings" which seven
ty years ago many of our learned antiquarians
thought were the dens of an extinct species. half
animal and half man. Seeing and knowing moth
| ing of the rope which always lifted bv the
woman when the man was at home or on the hunt.
the deduction was quite natural that no human be-
ing could scale the face of the almost perpendicu-
lar cliff
! The Moqui Indians still inhabit these strange
rock airs the northern side of the Colorado Chi
quito There is no tribe of aborigines LETT upon the
earth there's no region of the world more deserving
of examination than the Moqus and the mysterious
land they occupy. Here at the village of E[uaipi
on mesa or table land surrounded by sand dunes
and anonymous bouders of old red sandstone, is
held every second year the mystic rite of the Feast
of the Snake" when the tribal medicine men or
shamans. holding in their mouths and fondling ven
omous rattlesnakes, dance around and through the
sacred fire and rushing wildly through the assem-
bled crowd of women and children. disappear be-
hind the estufas and hberate the reptiles. These
Moqui dwellings, and the Zun pueblos of New
Mexico are the oldest continuously inhabited struc-
in their original state than those of any other alb
original people in North or South America
For chronological study it is hardly possible to
overestimae the value of these strange people-the
Moquis and the Zunis. In the accounts OF their
early explorations the Spanish Missionary fathers
found from eighty to a hundred of these pueblo
and cliff villages inhabited in Sonora. Chihuahua
and Arizona. Clearly the whole of New Mexico,
Arizona and northern Mexico was occupied by
these semi-cvilized people, who lived in stone and
adobe houses, cultivated the land with stone hoes
and irrigated it with water brought in channels
from the nearest river. Centuries before the adj
vent of the Spaniards the decline of the race be-
gan and eventually would have ended III total saw
agery if the European had not entered upon the
scene Internecine wars, drought pestilence and,
above all, the coming into the land of the fierce
Apaches, or Dinnes and their many predatory and.
annihiating raids, wore down the ancient race and
threatened their extinction. All the adobe and
stone ruins all the remains of bitches and canals
from all over the river lands Of New Mexico and
Arizona, the relics of these strange people.
This is not the place to enter into disquisition
the origin migration of the race. [ may, how
ever, add that III the of adobe for
building material in the plain walls rising to a
height of many Stories the architecture of their
terraced structures absence of doors in the lower
stories the ascent by external ladders to the higher,
their buildings were altogether unlike any found
in Mexico. Yucatan or Central America. In the
absence of arched ceilings, of overlapping blocks,
of all architectural decorations, of idols temples
and building for religious rites. of burial mounds
and mummies or human remains, rock Inscriptions
and miscellaneous relics, the monuments of the
Zunis and MoquiS present analogies with the
Mayas. CLUTCHES or any known race of people now
existing
Wonders of Arizona.
Returning from this depression. let me continue
my explorations. Here in this land of wonders is
giant trees over ten feet in diameter and hundred
feet long, changed from wood into carneian, pre-
cious jasper and banded agate. Here are hundreds
Of tons--a riotous outpouring-of chalcedonv. to-
paz, agate and onyx, protected from vandals by de-
cree of congress. Here also is the Cohino Forest.
through which one may ride for five days and find
no water unless it be the rainy season. There are
places here where the ground is covered with pure
baking soda, which at times rises in cloud of II
ritating dust, and when driven by the wind excori-
ates the nostrils throat, eyes and There
depressions near the mouth of the Virgin River,
where slabs of salt, two Or three feet thick and
clear as lake ice, may be cut out; and rnirages of
deceiving bodies of water realistic that even
the old desert traveller, parched with thirst, is
sometimes lured to his death.
In this territory is Mogolon Mountain whose
sides and summit are covered with forest OF giant
pine trees At some time in the remote past nature,
when in an experimental mood, fashioned it. cast
inc the huge freak O one side and 1auOhino aloud
left it unfinished in the lonely desert. It is
exampled upheaval marvellous oddly from whose
western rim one looks down 5000 feet into the
Tonic abyss, weird depth, where ravines arroyos,
angular hills and volcanic settings conspire pro-
duce one of the toughest and strangest spots on
the earth's surface.