The Coconino sun., 1922-07-28
SHOWS APACHES AND THE. |NAVAJ0S NOT ABORICINES

By Col. A. F. Banta in the Pres-
 colt Courier.
 Many persons suppose the Apaches
 and Navajos to be aborigines of the
 southwest. This is an error as will be shown. The claim of "great an- tiquity" by those people is wholly tra- ditional and without any foundation. All peoples having no written lan- guage estimate two or three hundred years to be of great antiquity"
 The numerous ruins found in many
 sections of the southwest mutely tes- tify of numerous population that once occupied the land, all of whom
 have been totally destroyed previous
 to the coming of the Spaniards. In
 some of these ruins, the writer found
 wooden posts in good preservation,
 which indicated their occupation less
 than three hundred years ago. Near
 St. Johns, Arizona, are ruins of two
 considerable towns. In one of these
 ruins the writer found symbols of Phallicism.
 The earliest Spanish explorers, be- ginning with Fray Marcos, in l539,
 Francisco Vasquez de Coronado, in
 1540-41 and 42, Antonio 7spejo, 1584- 4ot Judl uC oudtC, IOOO-OC, lOVA-
 5, explored the country in many di- rections; discovered the Big Colorado river, and the Grand Canyon; had mo- tice of the Great Salt Lake in Utah;
 explored the San Francisco noun
 tains, which were named San Fran cisco, the patron sain of Coronado.
 These various exploring parties were accompanied by one or more priests,
 also by "reiator," whose duties were to record all events, distances travel ed, etc., etc. In all exploring expedi. tions, and Coronado sent out quite number from his headquarters at Zu- nj, between July 2, 1540, the day he arrived at Zuni, and November of the same year, and not one of them met
 or saw any sign of 'wild mem Apaches or Navajos. The Zunis, Mo
 quis and other pueblo Indians, had lived in the country many centuries prior to the advent of the Spanish, and none had seen or heard of the "wild men," since called Apaches and Navajos, until those people attacked Aguis, one of the Zuni villages, sack ed it and slaughtered every living soul. The Spanish account of this af- fair is as follows: "The Apaches in- vaded the Zuni country, sacked and assassinated every living soul, Fray Pedro de Ayala, the resident priest also being murdered. This was on October 7th, 1872" Here was the first evidence the Zunis had of "wild men" and to this day they have
 tradition of that affair as follows: "The night following the day the priest was killed, shot from behind boulder. the Apaches carried the body to their camp. After stripping off its Zuni clothing, the Apaches were astonished and dumfounded at sight of a white body, thing utterly un. known to them. The white body ex- cited their curiosity, and overcame } their habitual desire for murder They l made overtures for talk" by signs. At this talk the Zunis gave the "wild men" to understand the white man would never die, in spiritual sense, !; of course, but the Apaches took 1t , literally, and for many years there
 after made annual visits to the vll- lage to see the white man redivious. The peace agreed to at that time has
 never been violated by either party |. to this day" Can the white race show a record comparable to it? The foregoing facts exclusively prove the Apaches came into the southwest sub
 sequent to the last expedition by
 Onate in 1605. Of the last expedition
 of Onate, the records say: "In Octo- Der T, 1904, Juan de Onate, with 30 men and two priests, left San Miguel, New Mexico, on an exploring expedi- tion to the shores of the Pacific. The party passed through Zuni and the Mooui villages, from the Moqui will lage of Oraibi the party took west erly course, following the trail made by Espejo in 1885, crossing the Little Colorado at the Black Falls, thence across the range west of the San Francisco peaks to where Espejo turned back for the Zuni village" At this point Onate took southwesterly course, passing through in the vicinity of Prescott, Wickenburg and the Vul- ture mine, crossing the Big Horn
 range, through a pass about twenty miles south of the Vulture mine.
 South of the Big Horn the party en- tered cactus plain which extended to the Gila river.
 Some years ago the writer crossed the Big Horn by the same pass, and in crossing the cactus plain found an imitation of Bishops crosier made
 of malpais boulders. It was about one hundred feet in length, and the crook at the northeastern end was about five or six feet in diameter. Un-
 doubtedly the work of the Onate party on their return trip in 1905.
 In July, 1869, the writer was in the Mogollons, northwest of where Camp