The Prehistoric World or Vanished races Part 31

It is somewhat strange to meet thus in the interior of the United States with the record of a military expedition some months before the Puritans landed at Plymouth. There seems to be nothing especial to describe about the ruins. Both Simpson and Whipple notice that the masonry seems to be unusually good. As it must have been very difficult to procure water, the location must have been chosen solely for the protection it afforded. The early Spanish accounts contain the names of one hundred and twenty-six pueblos. Some are, however, mentioned two or three times.

Mr. Bandelier has succeeded in identifying every one. The Rio Puerco Valley was never a very prosperous one, and the river is scarcely a permanent one. At present a few ruins at Poblazon, for instance, are to be seen, and the valley looks poor and barren.

The valley of the Rio Grande River was occupied by a number of Pueblo tribes, and there are at present eight inhabited pueblos along this river, in New Mexico, and one in Texas. The region around Bernalillo was a prosperous section. At intervals, up and down the river, and along its tributaries, we can still trace low crumbling ruins, evidence of an old pueblo. If the statements of the Spanish writers are to be believed, the number of inhabited towns, at the time of the conquest, was at least ten times that now existing. The population could never have exceeded forty thousand. At present it contains about nine thousand. Still making all allowance for Spanish exaggeration, we are convinced that it was a thickly populated country at the time of the conquest.

One of the most interesting pueblos in New Mexico is Jemez, on a river of that name, sixty miles west of Santa Fe. We speak of it here because it is the center of a most interesting group of ruins. Like the pueblo of Zuni, it is a remnant only of a prosperous people. The reports of Coronado's expedition frequently mention Jemez, though it may be doubtful whether they refer to the pueblo of that name now, or to one of the numerous ruined ones in the immediate vicinity. Jemez is a prosperous pueblo, having fine fields, large irrigating ditches, and extensive flocks of sheep.

Simpson describes it in 1849 as follows: "The pueblo of Jemez is an Indian town of between four and five hundred inhabitants,... and is built upon two or three parallel streets, the houses being of adobe construction, and having second stories disposed retreatingly upon the first, to which access is had by means of ladders.... About the premises are probably a dozen acres covered with apricot and peach trees....

The Rio de Jemez, upon which the pave lies, is an affluent of the Rio Grande, varies from thirty to fifty feet in breadth, is of a rapid current.... Patches of good corn and wheat skirt it here and there along its banks, and the extent of cultivable land bordering it may be estimated at about a mile in breadth."

We are more interested, however, in ruins testifying to past greatness.

"Six miles up the river you come to the union of two canyons--the Guadalupe and San Diego. Where the mesa between these canyons narrows itself to a point, are the ruins of two pueblos, one upon the lower prominence of the mesa, the other upon the mesa proper, and only approachable by two narrow, steep trails, the mesa everywhere else being nearly perpendicular, and seven hundred and fifty feet high. The view from the mesa is picturesque and imposing in the extreme. Far beneath, to the right and left, a stream makes its way between the colossal walls of the sandstone upon the narrow width of the mesa; near frightful precipices are the ruins of a town of eighty houses, partly in parallel rows, partly in squares, and partly perched between overhanging rocks, the rim and surfaces of which formed the walls of rooms, the gaps and interstices being filled in artificially."

"Nearly every house had one story and two rooms. The building material was trachytic rock as found upon the mesa. Broken pottery, charred corn, and millstones for grinding corn, were found in some of the rooms. The roofs had all fallen in, and so also had many of the side walls, in the construction of which wood was but little used. Pinon trees have taken root within many of the former rooms. Upon asking my Indian guide whether the former inhabitants of this town were obliged to descend the steep and dangerous pathway every day to the creek to procure water, he replied there were cisterns upon the mesa, in which rain, formerly plentiful, was caught. He then called my attention to some conical heaps of stones along the rim of the precipice which was the material for defense."<12>

This description introduces us to another cla.s.s of ruins--that is, detached separate houses, different from the great communal structures we have already described. What connection exists between these two forms of houses will be studied in another place. As a rule, the rooms in the detached houses are larger than in the communal houses.

Exceptions occur in some of the inhabited pueblos.<13> This is only one of many towns in ruins thereabouts. According to Dr. Loew there are no less than twenty-five or thirty.

It is not our purpose to describe any more of the pueblos of this section of New Mexico than is required to enable us to understand the customs, manners, and habits of the Pueblo tribes. We learn that in New Mexico we are brought face to face with feeble remnants of former tribes, and that these were probably in their most flouris.h.i.+ng condition when the Spaniards first invaded the country, and though in a few instances the ruins imply a great antiquity, as at Inscription Rock, still we may be reasonably sure that the majority of them date but a few centuries back. The ruins of Catholic churches established by the Franciscan monks in the sixteenth century occur in several places, five being found around Jemez.

The story of the decline of the Pueblo tribes may be ill.u.s.trated by the history of Pecos. This pueblo was situated on the Rio Pecos, about twenty-five miles south-east of Santa Fe. With the exception of the present inhabited town of Taos, it was the most eastern point reached by the pueblo building tribes. This, though a very large pueblo, has nothing especial to attract attention, except that the entire mesa was inclosed by a stone wall about six feet and a half high, and twenty inches thick, having a total length of three thousand, two hundred and twenty feet.<14> Its history is, however, interesting and instructive.

Coronado, with his army, visited Pecos before he abandoned the country in 1543. His reports mention it as a prosperous pueblo. Several raids were made into New Mexico by Spanish parties, but the conquest proper occurred in 1598, when the Pecos pledged fidelity to the crown of Spain.

The Catholic Church at once set about establis.h.i.+ng missions at various pueblos. The Pecos Church was established in 1629, though missionary work had been done here before that time. One of the priests who accompanied Coronado remained behind at Pecos. He was never afterwards heard from. This church became one of the most renowned in New Mexico.

The inhabitants became herders as well as agriculturists. It was prosperous. In 1680 the Pueblo of Pecos sheltered two thousand Indians.

"But a storm was brewing from whose effects the Pueblo tribes never recovered." In 1680 the Indians rose against the Spanish and drove them from New Mexico. The priests were murdered, the churches were sacked.

From this time doubtless date the ruins of the churches seen around Jemez. At Pecos and many other places intertribal warfare set in. b.l.o.o.d.y battles were fought.

Neither were the Spaniards idle. In 1682 one expedition was made, and at least two pueblo towns were destroyed by them. In 1689 the entire country was reconquered. Some tribes were nearly exterminated, and all more or less weakened and a great many ruins date from that time. It was the beginning of a decline for the Pueblo tribes, and this decline was hastened by intertribal warfare, by drought, and by ravages from wild Indians. As to the drought, it is sufficient to state that some ruins are now fifteen, and even twenty, miles from permanent water.

The Comanches were the scourge of the Pecos. On one occasion they slaughtered all the young men but one. This was a blow from which they never recovered. Finally reduced by sickness to but five adults, the Pecos sold their lands and, at the invitation of their brethren at Jemez, went to live with them, and the pueblo of Pecos speedily became the ruins we now find it.<15>

No doubt a similar history could be written of many other ruins. "Our people," said Hosta, "were a warlike race, and had many fights, not only with the Spaniards, but also with other Indian tribes the Navajos and Taos, for instance and were thus reduced to this pueblo of Jemez, which now forms the last remnant." New Mexico is now becoming rapidly "Americanized," and it will soon be brought to a test whether the Pueblo tribes can withstand this new influence and retain their peculiar civilization, or whether, like many other races, their life force is nearly spent, in which case they will live only in history.

We must not overlook the Moki Pueblos in Arizona. They are situated one hundred miles northwest of Zuni. The Spaniards discovered them, and called their province Tusayan. They are much like the Pueblo tribes of New Mexico, only they have been much less disturbed by outside influence. There are a number of ruined towns in this vicinity. We wish to refer to them because of their intimate connection with the ruins to the North. Their houses are built of stone on precipitous mesas.

Ill.u.s.tration of Wolpi. (Maj Powell)------------

Lieut. Ives, who visited them in 1858, has left quite a full description of them. He states that "each pueblo is built around a rectangular court, in which, we suppose, are the springs that furnished the supply to the reservoirs. The exterior walls, which are of stone, have no openings, and would have to be scaled or battered down before access could be gained to the interior. The successive stories are set back, one behind the other. The lower rooms are reached through trap-doors from the first landing. The houses are three rooms deep, and open upon the interior court."<16> He was much pleased with the manner in which they had terraced off the bluff of the mesas into little garden patches, irrigating them from the large reservoirs from the top.

There is one feature common to all the Pueblo tribes which is necessary to refer to here, from its connection with the ruined structures further north. In all of the inhabited pueblos there is a structure known as an Estafa, some pueblos having several. They are usually circular, but occasionally (as at Jemez) rectangular. They are generally subterranean, or mostly so. They are great inst.i.tutions among the Pueblos. "In these subterranean temples the old men met in secret council, or a.s.sembled in wors.h.i.+p of their G.o.ds. Here are held dances, festivities, and social intercourse."

Another common feature, represented in this cut, is the watch-tower. It is either round, as in this case, or rectangular. It may be interesting to recall in this connection the signal mounds of the Mound Builders.

They were not always in the immediate vicinity of other ruins. Neither can we state that there was a system in their arrangement, one answering to another at a distance, and yet it was noticed where the rains were numerous that several were in view from one point.<17> In dimensions these towers range from ten to fifteen feet in diameter, and from five to fifteen feet in height, while the walls are from one to two feet thick. They are in many cases connected with structures rectangular in form.

Ill.u.s.tration of Watch Tower.-----------

We will now leave the inhabited pueblos and the ruins in their immediate vicinity and, going to the north, explore a section of country that shows every evidence of having sustained a considerable population some time in the past. To understand this fact clearly, it will be necessary to fix the location of the places named by means of the map. From time to time confused reports of the wonders to be seen in the San Juan section of Colorado had appeared in the East, but the first clear and satisfactory account is contained in the reports of Messrs. Jackson and Holmes, members of the U.S. Geographical and Geological survey of the territories under Dr. Hayden for 1874 and 1876.

In the south-western portion of Colorado is a range of mountains known as the San Juan. Stretching from their base west to the Sierras is a great plateau region, drained by the numerous tributaries of the San Juan River. It would, perhaps, be more in keeping with the facts of the case to say "had been drained some time in the past," for this is now such an arid, semi-desert country that the majority of the streams are dry, or have but scattered pools of water in them, during a large portion of the year; and yet, at times, great volumes of water go sweeping through them. This whole plateau is cut up with long, canyoned valleys, presenting, in effect, the same surface features that we have already described in New Mexico. Yet this precipitous, canyon-marked section of country is literally filled with the crumbling ruins of a former people. The situation in which they occur is in many cases very singular, and the whole subject is invested with great interest to us, because we see in them the remains of a people evidently the same as the Pueblo people to-day.

One of the most extensive ruins in this section is situated at Aztec Springs. This, it will be seen, is about midway between the Rio Mancos and the McElmo. Mr. Holmes found the site of the spring, but it contained no water. He was told, however, by those familiar with the locality that there had been a living spring there up to within a few years. It was evidently a place of considerable importance once. Mr.

Holmes describes the ruins as forming the most imposing pile of masonry found in Colorado. They cover an area of over ten acres. This includes only the ruins around the springs. But all about this central portion are scattered and grouped the remnants of smaller structures. So that nearly a square mile is covered with the ruins of this ancient pueblo.

Most of the stone used was brought from the Mesa Verde (Green Plateau), a mile away, and must have been a great work for a people so totally without facilities.

Ill.u.s.tration of Ruins at Aztec Springs.----------

It will be seen that immediately to the right of the Springs is a large rectangular ruin in better preservation than the rest. This now "forms a great mound of crumbling rock from twelve to twenty feet in height, overgrown with artemisia, but showing clearly, however, its rectangular structure, adjusted approximately to the four points of the compa.s.s."

This house, from its ma.s.sive walls, must have had an original height of at least forty feet. "The walls seem to have been doubled, with a s.p.a.ce of seven feet between; a number of cross-walls at regular intervals indicate that this s.p.a.ce has been divided into apartments, as seen in the plan." Two low lines of rubbish cross the square, probably part.i.tion walls.

Surrounding this house is a net-work of fallen walls, so completely reduced that none of the stones seem to remain in place. Mr. Holmes was at a loss to know whether to call them a cl.u.s.ter of irregular apartments, having low, loosely built walls, or whether they are the remains of imposing pueblos. In the group of ruins to the left of the spring are two well-defined circular estufas. Below the main ma.s.s of ruins, connected by low walls of ruins, is another great square, nearly two hundred feet in dimensions. One wall seems to have consisted of a row of apartments; the other walls served to simply inclose the square, near the center of which was another large estufa.

Several important conclusions can be drawn from a study of this locality. The spring, now dry, was once evidently the source of a considerable stream. Whether the group of low ruins were collections of small houses, or remains of imposing pueblos, we need not doubt that the walls of the square inclosures were composed of pueblo houses. The estufas were probably in all respects similar to those of the present inhabited pueblos. The country around, now so dry and barren, must once have supported considerable population. As to the period of abandonment, we have nothing to guide us. Being an agricultural settlement, it was probably abandoned at an earlier date than the cave-dwellings and cliff-houses of the canyons of the vicinity. The reason for this will appear subsequently. The site of this ruin, as well as for a long distance around, is covered with pieces of broken pottery. We notice that the spring has only lately gone dry. This ill.u.s.trates the changes now taking place all through the country. It is drying up, and this process has been in operation for a long while.

Ill.u.s.tration of Ruins in the McElmo Canyon.-------

Many groups of ruins are now in localities where the people could not hope for subsistence. About six miles to the north of these ruins, about a mile from the McElmo, is the group of ruins here represented, which may throw some light on the remains at Aztec Springs. The princ.i.p.al feature is the triple walled tower, of which a plan is given. The tower has a diameter of about forty-three feet, and a circ.u.mference of about one hundred and thirty-five feet. The walls are traceable nearly all the way around, and the s.p.a.ce between the two outer ones, which is about five feet, contains fourteen apartments or cells. The walls about one of these cells were still standing at the time of Mr. Holmes's visit, but the cell was filled with rubbish from the fallen walls. A door-way, opening into this apartment, could still be seen. The inner wall was probably never very high. It simply inclosed the estufa.

The ruins surrounding this tower consist of low, fallen walls, scarcely traceable. The apartments number nearly one hundred, and were generally rectangular. They are not of a uniform size, and were certainly not arranged in regular order. Now, as Mr. Holmes observes, it would certainly seem that, if they are the ruins of such structures as the pueblos of the south, there would be some regularity of size, and some systematic arrangement. He says that, in reality, they are more like a cl.u.s.ter of pens, such as are used by the Moqui tribes for keeping sheep and goats.

Since these surveys were made, Mr. Bandelier, as agent for the Archaeological Inst.i.tute, has made important researches. He finds that the small, detached houses, such as we described in the ruined village near Jemez, are found in Arizona, with a small court-yard or inclosure attached to them. If we understand the description of the ruins just mentioned, and those at Apache Springs, they are villages of these small houses and their inclosures. In such villages the inclosures meet each other, so as to form a checker-board of irregularly alternating houses and courts. The houses are easily discernible from the fact of little rubbish mounds having acc.u.mulated where they stood. Around these parts of the wall can still be traced. This combination makes a strong, easily defended position. Each of such villages contains one or more open s.p.a.ces of large size, but they are irregularly located.

We must notice one point more: Each village of this nature, that was of any size, contained a larger ruin in the center. This was noticed in the ruins at Aztec Springs. This larger building was in the nature of a citadel, and there the inhabitants could retire when the approaches were carried by the enemy. This central building ultimately swallowed up all the others, and so developed into the pueblo structures we have noticed.

The little walled inclosures surrounding the houses were largely in the nature of defenses. Tradition a.s.serts that in many cases they were garden plats, and appearances sometimes confirm this. "They may also have been the yard proper for each family, in which the latter slept, cooked--in fact, lived--during the heat of the Summer months."<18>

Referring once more to the ruins near the McElmo, we are told that every isolated rock and bit of mesa within a circle of miles of this place is strewn with remnants of ancient dwellings. We presume these were small, separate houses. They may have been outlying settlements of the tribe whose main village was at Aztec Springs. We must also notice the small tower in the corner. This was a watch tower. It was fifteen feet in diameter, walls three and a half feet thick, and in 1876 was still five feet high, It overlooked the surrounding country. The rainfall in the past must have been more abundant, to support the population we are justified in thinking once lived there. The nearest water is now a mile away, and during the dry season some fifteen miles to the north, in the Rio Dolores, and yet we have every reason to believe these old inhabitants were very saving of water. They built cisterns and reservoirs to store it up against the time of need.

Ill.u.s.tration of Tower on the Rio Mancos.-----------

We give a cut of the tower of the ruins of a similar village, or settlement, to the one just described, which occurs twenty miles to the southeast in the canyon of the Rio Mancos. Being so similar, we will mention it here. In this case the tower had only two walls. Mr. Holmes says the diameter of the outer wall is forty-three feet, that of the inner twenty-five feet. The s.p.a.ce between the two circles is divided by cross-walls into ten apartments. This tower is placed also in the midst of a group of more dimly marked ruins or foundations, extending some distance in each direction from it. Mr. Holmes, however, states that there are no ruins of importance in connection with this tower, but that there are a number of ruins in the immediate vicinity. In this case, then, the citadel (if such it was) was not directly connected with other ruins.

The Rio Mancos, that we have just mentioned, was a favorite place of resort for these old people. This stream, rising in the La Platte Mountains, flows through beautiful valleys to a great table-land known as the Mesa Verde. Mr. Jackson explored this valley in 1874, and he reports as follows: "Commencing our observation in the park-like valley of the Mancos, between the mesa and the mountains, we find that the low benches which border the stream upon either side bear faint vestiges of having at some far away time been covered with dwellings, grouped in communities apparently, but so indistinct as to present to the eye little more than unintelligible mounds. By a little careful investigation, however, the foundation of great square blocks of single buildings and of circular inclosures can be made out, the latter generally of a depressed center, showing an excavation for some purpose."

From this description we can not quite make out whether these ruins are great communal buildings, like the modern pueblo, or cl.u.s.ters of separate houses. We incline to the latter opinion, however. The circular depressed area was doubtless used as an Estufa, the place of religious meetings for men alone. "The greater portion of these mounds are now overgrown with artemisia, pinion-pine, and cedar, concealing them almost entirely from casual observation." "We found the surest indication of their proximity in the great quant.i.ty of broken pottery which covered the ground in their neighborhood. The same curiously indented, painted, and glazed ware, was found throughout New Mexico and Arizona. It was all broken into very small pieces, none that we could find being larger than a silver dollar." Specimens of this pottery will be figured in its appropriate place.

"Nowhere among these open plane habitations could we discover any vestige of stone-work, either in building material or implements. It is very evident that the houses were all of adobe, the mound-like character of the remains justifying that belief." In this last respect we note a difference between these remains and those already described. The mesa verde is one of those elevated plateaus we have so often described.

Through this the Mancos has cut a canyon nearly thirty miles in length, and from one to two thousand feet deep. The description we have already given is of the valley of the river before coming to the canyon.

Entering the canyon, Mr. Jackson continues: "Grouped along in cl.u.s.ters, and singly, were indications of former habitations, very nearly obliterated, and consisting mostly, in the first four or five miles, of the same mound-like forms noticed above, and accompanied always by the scattered, broken pottery. Among them we find one building of squared and carefully laid sandstone, one face only exposed of three or four courses, above the ma.s.s of _debris_ which covered every thing. This building lay within a few yards of the banks of the stream, was apparently about ten feet by eight, the usual size, as near as we could determine, of nearly all the separate rooms or houses in the larger blocks, none larger, and many not more than five feet square. The stones exposed are each about seven by twelve inches square, and four inches thick, those in their original position retaining correct angles, but, when thrown down, worn away by attrition to shapeless bowlders."

"As we progressed down the canyon the same general characteristics held good. The great majority of the ruins consisting of heaps of _debris_ a central ma.s.s considerably higher and more ma.s.sive than the surrounding lines of sub-divided squares. Small buildings, not more than eight feet square, were often found standing alone apparently, no trace of any other being detected in their immediate neighborhood." We would call especial attention in this description to the character of the ruins, the central, higher ma.s.s surrounded by other ruins; also to the houses found occasionally standing alone. We notice they are of the same general character as the ruins at Aztec Springs.