Western United States, The

<h2><SPAN name="page_176">THE CLIFF DWELLERS AND THEIR DESCENDANTS</SPAN></h2> <p class="indent"> The region of the high plateaus of the southwestern United States presents many strange and interesting aspects. Equipped with pack animals for the trails, and conducted by a guide who knows the position of the springs, one might wander for months over this rugged and semi-arid region without becoming weary of the wonderful sights which Nature has prepared.</p> <p class="indent"> In travelling over the plateau one has to consider that often for long distances the precipitous walls of the ca&ntilde;ons cannot be scaled, and that the springs are few and inaccessible. To one not acquainted with the plateau it appears incapable of supporting human life. There is little wild game and scarcely any water to irrigate the dry soil.</p> <p class="indent"> However, if the country is examined closely, the discovery will be made that it was once inhabited, though by a people very different from the savage Indians who wandered over it when the white men first came. These early people had permanent homes and were much more civilized than the Indians. They lived chiefly by agriculture, cultivating little patches of land wherever water could be obtained.</p> <p class="indent"> Go in whatever way you will from the meeting point of the four states and territories, Colorado, Utah, Arizona, and New Mexico, and you will find the ruins of houses and forts. Upon the tops of precipitous cliffs, in the caves with which the ca&ntilde;on walls abound, by the streams and springs, there are crumbling stone buildings, many of them of great extent, and once capable of sheltering hundreds of people. Scattered over the surface of the ground and buried in the soil about the ruins are fragments of pottery, stone implements, corn-cobs, and in protected spots the remains of corn and squash stems.</p> <p class="indent"> The people who once inhabited these ruins have been called Cliff Dwellers, because their homes are so frequently found clinging to the cliffs, like the nests of birds, in the caverns and recesses of the precipitous ca&ntilde;on walls. The Cliff Dwellers have left no written records, but from a study of their buildings and of the materials found in them, and from the traces of irrigating ditches, we are sure that they were a peaceful, agricultural people.</p> <p class="indent"> The oldest ruins are probably those in the open and less protected valleys. It is evident that after these dwellings had been occupied for an indefinite time the more fierce and warlike Indians began to overrun the plateau region and make attacks upon the primitive inhabitants. These people, peacefully inclined and probably not strong in numbers, could find no protection in the valleys where they irrigated little patches of land and raised corn and squashes; so, retreating to the more inaccessible ca&ntilde;ons, they became cliff dwellers. Seeking out the caverns so abundant in these ca&ntilde;ons, they went to work with tireless energy to build for themselves impregnable homes and fortresses to which they could retreat when the savage Indians appeared.</p> <p class="indent"> The ca&ntilde;on of Beaver Creek in central Arizona contains one of the most interesting of these fortresses, known as Montezuma's Castle. Many small buildings nestle along the sides of the ca&ntilde;on upon the ledges and under over-hanging rocks, but Montezuma's Castle is the most magnificent of them all, and must have given protection to a number of families.</p> <p class="indent"> Halfway up the face of a cliff two hundred feet in height, there is a large cavern with an upward sloping floor and jagged overhanging top. Here with infinite toil the Cliff Dwellers constructed a fortress, the front of which rose forty feet from the foundation and contained five stories. This front was not made straight, but concave, to correspond to the curve of the cliff.</p> <p class="indent"> What an effort it must have been for these people, who had nothing but their hands to work with, to quarry the stone. To carry their materials from the bottom of the ca&ntilde;on, by means of rude ladders, up the steep and rugged wall to the foot of the cavern, and then to lay the foundation securely upon the sloping floor, must have been a still harder task.</p> <p class="indent"> The stones were laid in mud, and in most cases were also plastered with it. Here and there little holes were left to let in light, but the rooms, with their low ceilings, would have seemed very dismal and dark to us. Beams were set in the walls to support the different floors. Smaller sticks were laid upon the beams, and then a layer of earth was placed over the top.</p> <p class="indent"> To pass through the openings between the different rooms the inhabitants had to crawl upon their hands and knees. The places where they built their fires are indicated by the dark stains which the smoke has left upon the walls. Broken pottery and corn-cobs are scattered profusely about the building. How safe these ancient people must have felt in this retreat, where they were protected, both from the storms and from their enemies!</p> <div class="img_ctr" style="width: 750px;"> <ANTIMG src="images/fig075.jpg" width-obs="750" height-obs="486" alt="Fig. 75"> FIG. 75.&mdash;MONTEZUMA'S CASTLE, BEAVER CREEK CA&Ntilde;ON, ARIZONA</div> <p class="indent"> Near some of the ruined dwellings in this region there are remains of buildings which are supposed to have been watch-towers. We can picture to ourselves the sentinels' alarm given to the workers in the fields at the approach of the savage Apaches, and the hasty flight of the Cliff Dwellers to the castle far up the ca&ntilde;on wall,&mdash;the pulling up of the ladders and the retreat to the upper rooms from which they could look down in perfect safety. They must have kept water and food stored in the cave houses. As long as these supplies held out no injury need be feared from the attacking party.</p> <p class="indent"> But apparently there came a time when the Cliff Dwellers either abandoned their gardens and fortresses or were killed. It is possible that the climate of the plateau region became more arid and that many of the springs dried up, for there is no water now within long distances of some of the ruins. It is, perhaps, more probable that the attacks of the savages became so frequent that the Cliff Dwellers were driven from their little farms and were no longer able to procure food.</p> <p class="indent"> Those who were not killed by enemies or by starvation retreated southward and gathered in a few large villages, or pueblos, where they were still resisting the attacks of their enemies at the time of the coming of the early Spanish explorers.</p> <div class="img_ctr" style="width: 780px;"> <ANTIMG src="images/fig076.jpg" width-obs="780" height-obs="504" alt="Fig. 76"> FIG. 76.&mdash;PUEBLO OF TAOS, NEW MEXICO</div> <p class="indent"> A careful study of the early inhabitants of America reveals the fact that the Pueblo Indians are the descendants of the race of Cliff Dwellers. Their houses, their pottery, and their religious ceremonies are, so far as can be determined, very similar to those of the Cliff Dwellers. If you travel through northwestern New Mexico and northeastern Arizona, you will find the villages situated upon commanding rocks which are often surrounded by almost inaccessible cliffs. To these elevated villages all the food and water has to be carried from the valleys below. The houses are solidly built of stone, and rise, terrace-fashion, several stories in height, each succeeding story standing a little back of the one below. These houses can be entered only by a ladder from the outside. In time of danger the ladders are drawn up so that the walls cannot be easily scaled. There are a number of groups of the Pueblo Indians, but the Zuni and Moki are perhaps as interesting as any of them.</p> <div class="img_ctr" style="width: 484px;"> <ANTIMG src="images/fig077.jpg" width-obs="484" height-obs="259" alt="Fig. 77"> FIG. 77.&mdash;GRINDING GRAIN, LAGUNA, NEW MEXICO</div> <p class="indent"> Wonderful indeed are some of the pueblo villages which were still occupied at the time of the coming of the Spanish, more than three centuries and a half ago. As in the pueblos now occupied, there were no separate family houses. The people of an entire pueblo lived in one great building of many rooms. Some of the pueblos were semi-circular, with a vertical wall upon the outside, while upon the inside the successive stories formed a series of huge steps similar to the tiers of seats in an ancient amphitheatre.</p> <div class="img_ctr" style="width: 515px;"> <ANTIMG src="images/fig078.jpg" width-obs="515" height-obs="379" alt="Fig. 78"> FIG. 78.&mdash;THE ENCHANTED MESA <p class="imgnote">The summit was once the site of an Indian pueblo</p> </div> <p class="indent"> In the pueblo of Pecos were the largest buildings of this kind ever discovered. One had three hundred and seventeen rooms, and another five hundred and eighty-five. Taos is another of the large pueblos, and is especially interesting because it is still inhabited. This great building has from three to six stories with several hundred rooms. In the foreground of the photograph (Fig. 76) appears one of the ovens in which the baking is done. In some of these pueblos the women still grind their corn by hand in stone <i>matates</i>, just as their ancestors did for many hundreds and perhaps thousands of years.</p> <div class="img_lft" style="width: 264px;"> <ANTIMG src="images/fig079.jpg" width-obs="264" height-obs="306" alt="Fig. 79"> FIG. 79.&mdash;POTTERY OF THE ACOMA INDIANS, NEW MEXICO</div> <p class="indent"> In northwestern New Mexico there is a remarkable flat-topped rock known as the Enchanted Mesa, which rises with precipitous walls to a height of four hundred feet above the valley in which it stands. It was long believed that human beings had never been upon this rock, although there were traditions to the effect that a village once existed upon its summit. According to the tradition, the breaking away of a great mass of rock left the summit inaccessible ever afterward. The cliffs were scaled recently by the aid of ropes, and evidences were found in the shape of pottery fragments, to show that the Indians had once inhabited the mesa. Two or three miles away, across the valley, is the large village of Acoma, where a great deal of pottery is made for sale.</p> <p class="indent"> The pottery of the Pueblo Indians is very attractive, and their religious festivals and peculiar dances draw many visitors. These Indians no longer fear attacks from the savage Apache or Navajo, but they have become so used to their rock fortresses that it is not likely they will soon. leave them. The Navajos now live in peace and raise large herds of sheep and goats; while the more savage Apaches have been gathered upon reservations, never more to go upon the war-path. Most of the Apaches still live in their rude brush habitations.</p> <div class="img_ctr" style="width: 510px;"> <ANTIMG src="images/fig080.jpg" width-obs="510" height-obs="387" alt="Fig. 80"> FIG. 80.&mdash;NAVAJO WOMAN WEAVING A BLANKET</div> <p class="indent"> While the Pueblo Indians make attractive pottery, the Navajos are noted for their blankets. The wool, which is taken from their herds, is dyed different colors, and woven upon their simple looms into the most beautiful and costly blankets.</p> <p class="indent"> We usually think of the native inhabitants of America as leading a wild and rude life, moving from place to place in search of food, and constantly engaged in warfare with one another. The Pueblo Indians alone are different. Possibly if the white man had never come to America these Indians might in time have become highly civilized. But it is more than likely that in their struggle with Nature in this wild and rugged country, where they were constantly subjected to attacks from their more savage neighbors, they would have sunk lower instead of rising, and would finally have disappeared.</p> <p class="indent"> The Apaches were dreaded alike by the agricultural Indians and the early Spanish. Issuing from their mountain fastnesses the Apaches would raid the unprotected villages and missions, and then retreat as quickly as they came. For many years after the American occupation prospectors had to be constantly on their guard, and many are the tragedies that have marked this remote corner of our country.</p> <div style="break-after:column;"></div><br />