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Show ZiJ Mil PARK Eyre Powell in Salt Lake Tribune Zion National Park, Utah. August 15. Adventuring down the trail of prehistoric man through multicolored multicolor-ed gorges where time has been forgotten, for-gotten, Wallace Smith of Portland, noted western author and artist, has recently completed investigation of records left by the cliff-dwellers that may go far in helping wrest the ancient an-cient secrets of Zion National park from its tremendous picturebook of the ages. In identifying and classifying pet-roglyphs pet-roglyphs and wall paintings left by long-gone inhabitants in still unchanged un-changed surroundings of the dim past. Mr. Smith found both rock carvings and drawings in color which he declares to be among the earliest of American "old masters," from the originals of which much of the modern mod-ern Indian art of the southwest has probably come. The confirmation of this fact adds another link in piecing together the story of the forgotten for-gotten race. In his adventurous explorations ex-plorations Mr. .Smith came across what is probably the first architect's designs on record, the ground plan of a cliff-dwelling carved on the side of a rock ledge which leads to the ruins of the house itself, sheltered in the cliffs but a short distance from the Lodge center in the main canyon of Zion National park. It was incorporated in-corporated as part of a map which shows its location in relation to the river and ancient trails. Following these pictographs from ruin to ruin along paths that were old when Babylon was in her prime, he reached one newly found outpost of the cliff-dwellers in such perfect preservation that it looked as though its inhabitants had but stepped across to a neighboring cliff to tea, instead of having met a mysterious fate twenty centuries or so ago. While the pictographs of the cliff-dwellers cliff-dwellers have no alphabetical significance signi-ficance and no literal translation of their meanings has ever been made, their classification and the finding of the originals of mystic designs in the Zion region lends support to the recently re-cently advanced theory that perhaps here was the religious and cultural mecca of the prehistoric cliff folk, explaining somewhat the fear in which the great abyss of Zion canyon was held by later Indians. Indians Mystified Even to the Indians, however, the mystery of the canyon and the fate of the earlier race which had inspired inspir-ed it was almost a closed book. Only the taboo and scraps of legend left by their passing had remained after being handed down from generation gener-ation to generation for countless centuries. Scientists, however, do not discount dis-count Indian legend in their search for the answer to this unsolved riddle rid-dle of western America, and because of the fact that of all the places where remains of the prehistoric race have been found this was the one which left the spell of fear among the later Indians, the theory has been advanced that possibly the flaming gorges of the Zion region may hold the key. For countless generations, from the time of the unexplained fate of the cliff-dwellers, the Indian curse remained re-mained on the mysterious recesses of the great canyon, the legendary terror ter-ror of their disappearance and superstitious super-stitious significance of the place existing ex-isting even when the first white man discovered it. When the Mormon pioneers came to settle the valley of the Virgin river they found the gigantic gi-gantic color-washed abyss with its carved spires, domes and temples surmounting sheer walls half a mile in height. Far up its floor they saw the huge circular rock-walled am-phiteater am-phiteater mentioned in old lore of the outside savages, in whose center stood the twin pillars which legend spoke of as the idol of rocks of prehistoric pre-historic worship. Near by were vestiges ves-tiges of the ancient civilization of the cliff folk. To the Indians it was Mukuntuweap, place of spirits, and none would approach farther than its mouth even in daylight, or let nightfall find them near its portals. Even the war trail of the dread Nav-ajos Nav-ajos circled it in a wide detour across the plateaus. It was this legendary fear that led to its name, for in the gorge the settlers found safety in times of Indians raids, and they called it Little Zion, afler Zion. now Salt Lake City, the refuge of the Mormon faith to the north. . Canyon Feared It is but since the coming of the white people in numbers to see America's newest national park that the Indians would consent to enter. Only shortly before. Mr. Smith's explorations ex-plorations two chiefs and a medicine man of the Piutes held a formal cere- mony there to declare the ancient spell lifted, and the three were the first of their race to penetrate the recesses re-cesses of the canyon within memory of man. Following the clues that might help to fill missing links in the story was literally an excursion into the past, in penetrating back areas of the park wThose aspects have not changed in ages. Adventures such as might duplicate those of the dwellers dwel-lers of so long ago were met, and in one of them the Smith party had the choice of spending the night in one of the prehistoric apartment houses or racing a cloudburst down a narrow nar-row canyon on the way to the Zion lodge center and modern comfort. Choosing the latter, they made the dash through the storm for some fifteen fif-teen miles with the flood boiling down the stream bed but a few minutes min-utes behind them. They won the race, but a party of cattlemen whose horses were not so fast were caught and had to remain over night until the water went down. In traversing the prehistoric trails of the Parunuweap was followed a side canyon to the main gorge of Zion National park, from which reports re-ports of the newly found and unusually unusu-ally preserved dwellings had come. No one in Mr. Smith's party had seen them and only their approximate approxi-mate location was known, but they were finally discovered after some search by sighting a doorway, the only portion visible from the canyon floor. Climbing for probably a thousand feet up a spur a fresh spring and pool in the ledge of the cliffs was reached and directly above that was the dwelling group itself. Wood Preserved Protected from above and on three sides by the overhanging rock, it was perfectly shielded from the elements. Roofs, floors and walls were intact. The smoke of past fires stained the rock ledge behind them and the embers em-bers were still visible below as though but recently scattered and put out. The corn cobs of the dwellers' dwel-lers' last meals were strewn around and there was little in the scene to indicate that time had moved since the cliff folk had last set foot there. Mr. Smith describes it as the most eerie sensation of his experience. "In a few steps," he says, "we had left our horses and the trappings of the twentieth century and walked into in-to a period long before Christ. It was as though we had dropped a century cen-tury a step, and after that it would have surprised no one in the party to have seen the cliff-dwellers themselves them-selves emerging from one of the houses. The time might have been one or two thousand years ago." Dwellings built to last twenty centuries cen-turies or more without repair could teach modern builders many a lesson, les-son, and in them the roofs and floors in the two-story portions are perfect examples of ancient construction. The main beams were found to be cedar, a wood that in dry climates is practically indestructible. Across these beams were laid smaller sticks, woven together with withes of some pliable wood, probably willow. On top of this wooden base were laid wet bricks, somewhat like abode, which were dried in place and which still remain solid. The tiny rooms, almost cubicles, indicate the small statue of the prehistoric pre-historic people, who apparently used the dwellings, however, for storage rather than for their principal living quarters. During warm weather most of their domestic life seems to have taken place in a sort of courtyard court-yard formed by the ledge and the overhanging cliff. Over the soot of ' generations of fires some later dweller dwel-ler of more artistic instincts had plastered the wall with the red adobe-like mud, perhaps the first interior in-terior decorator. On this wall were paintings done in, both red and yellow, showing men as well as animals and rather intricate intri-cate designs, all of which Mr. Smith who has made a study of the subject, classed as original conceptions, done with considerable skill by someone whose sense of line and proportion had never been dulled by seeing any other artist's work. A modern parallel par-allel of such orignal skill, according to Mr. Smith, is sometimes shown, by a child who sketches a thing exactly as it sees it, occasionally with unusual un-usual fidelity unmarred by ever having hav-ing seen someone else's idea of the same thing. Rock carvings in other places which were replicas of some other artist's work were easily detected. de-tected. In this dwelling were original designs de-signs which are familiar in more modern Indian art, showing their first experimental working out, and then the finished lines of the first American masterpieces. While the disappearance of these people is still a mystery, it is known that they were skilled builders, weavers and artists whose relics show evidences of a high state of culture cul-ture at a period when the ancestors of the Anglo-Saxon race were living in dugouts and caves and fighting with clubs. Where science fails, imagination im-agination fostered by the old Indian traditions can picture the thrifty, extremely ex-tremely religious cliff-folk incurring the displeasure of their gods, who exacted some terrible vengeance. And that this, as the old Indian spell hints, may have centered in the mul-ticlored mul-ticlored temples of Zion National park where legend says they once gathered to worship, is still but conjecture. con-jecture. Such clues as followed by Mr. Smith, however, are gradually filling the missing portions of the romantic story of Zion in which the prehistoric folk, the more modern Indians and finally the white thousands thou-sands who broke the spell, all fill Mr. Smith's own story of his prehistoric pre-historic ventures will appear in nationally na-tionally published periodicals. |