OCR Text |
Show WOMAN'S EXPONENT. acteristics, not only among each other, but with the neighboring tribes, and through these with all'the aborigines of the eonti- - 18- - This fort is constructed on flat the old walls, artificially, built, arerock, still comparatively good condition. The trance" to this fort is through a hole through the solid' rock; this hole is oyer twenty inches wide. and in a There are many of these houses around Beef Basin that have never been explored, and there is quite a field for those who are cut interested in pzctographic records of the The ancient village of the Canyon De not Indiaiis. Mesa .bottomlor the on cliff, either, Chelly,. """uuKu-ui- u canyon .ie cueiiy is one In Him fi"10 ands are known as the Aztec ruins, The U-s-t offof. the cliff P' ruin regions of the Unite.! Etufas of the Cliff Dwellers correspond with "c not easily accessible and IS In' np lodges of thf naW Un. 1' .. I iULu -- :rVrb .i. - the Indians of r me ixnierv. me practically unknown. Wi,u,v.v colors being perfectly brieht. plains. In 1846-4- 9 vague rumors were current of of the American In the western part of San Juan It is claimed that most County wonderful cities built, in the cliffs,.but- the tribes had advanced to the stage of graphic is a place calledBeef Basin"by cattlemen. positrons of the canyons in the heart of the symbolism, and thus were on the threshold The entrance to this basin is by an old Xavajoe country prevented exploration. Indian trail. The 'basin extends down to of writing when the new world was disIn an expedition was sent out under 1849 The art was rudi- the Colorado River, and covered by Columbus. it are the command of Col. surrounding Washington, then mentary and limited to crude pictography, high mountains with rim'. rock and many Governor of New Mexico. They camped which was painted or sculptured on cliff little canyons extending down into the in Chin Lee and Lieut. Simpson Valley, All the way around this basin, a made a faces, boulders, the walls of caverns and basin. into the trip canyon about ' seven distance of many miles, are evidences of its miles; and other rocks andsurfaces,and even the ruin he described is known having been inhabited by Cliff Dwellers. ly on trees, skins, barks and various artificnowasCassa Blanca. Simpson's descripTheir houses may be found up among tion, ial objects. These crude autographic recalthough brief, formed the basis of all ords cf the Indians of the United States the cliffs, in the condition they left them. accounts for None of the thirty years. have been studied with care, and many 'of This place has been explored but very Hayden' exploration party penetrated the them have been illustrated and interpreted. little. canyon, only W. H. Jackson. .He deMr. Hd Turner, of Indian Creek, is the scribes some Among certain Mexican tribes autograph of the ruins in the Rio De ic records wcic iu ux, uuu cjc jraimeu only person who has attempted any extend- - Chelly, in the lower Chin Lee Valley, thus: on stone and moulded in ed exploration, and he has been well reand The strange newly discovered cities of warded. stucco. the southwest, the picturesque piles of as other the In Kiowa, one of the plain among houses he found a jar and a masonry of an age unknown to Among tradition, Indians, and indeed all the aboriginal blanket which had beenmanufactured from these ruins marked ah area among antitribes, there is a wide spread symbolism by cotton, and in the jar was also found loose quarians. The mysterious mound builders which the arts are influenced and guided, cotton. The blanket and cotton were in a fade into comparative insignificance before under this symbolism, hence shields, ar perfect state of preservation. This blanket the and more ancient Cliff grander rows, pipes, musical instruments, robes and is now owned by Mr. Wheeler, cashier of a Dwellers, whose castles lift their towers other articles are inscribed, painted, or bank in Telluride, Colo.lt is highly colored amid the sands of Arizona, and crown the otherwise marked with designs. and figured, and bears a resemblance to the terrace slopes of the Rio Mancas and the In many cases these designs possess dec- Navajoe blankets now manufactured. Hovenweap." orative value, and they are commonly supMr. V. P. Martin, who represented San Of the Chaco ruins he says, iu size and for used but to'be decoration; two posed Juan Lounty simply years ago in. the Legis- grandeur of conception they equal any of motive and of Indian character the has study lature, many relics taken Irom these the present buildings of the United States, show that the design is not primarily dechouses. Stone hammers with withes if we except the Capitol at Washington, orative but symbolic and fraught with twisted around them for handle;;; flinty and may without discredit be compared to stones, shaped like a hatchet, evidently the Pantheon and the Colliseum of the old meaning to those who understand symbolism. used for skinning knives; mocassins made world. differenfrom the fibre of the soap 'weed; several The plateau of the country is extremely Among the Kiowa Indians it is tiated into a crude, yet highly significant skeins of this fibre highly colored and rugged, and the topographical obstacles to system of heraldry, which throws much twisted together like woolen yarn; pieces travel are greater than in many wild the mediaeval heraldy of of keel showing that they had been used mountain regions. light upon for drawing the many designs on the face Europe. It is a country of cliffs and canyons, of The Xavajoes do not.make any kind of of the cliffs; a piece of cloth resembling considerable magnitude; and although the ; pottery, they confine themselves to blankets linolium a quarter of an inch thick, tightly strata appears to be horizontal they are' and bead work, and exchange these with woven and saturated with some kind of slightly tilted. Each formation appears as ' other tribes for pottery. pitch; a bunch of needles resembling needles a terrace bounded oh one side by a deRigrht here fet me say a few words for from the pinion, pine trees, tightly bound scending cliff carved out of the edges of its x our cliff dwellings in Utah. I could find no together and evidently used as a comb, own strata, and on the other by ascending Ethnological report on it, and rely upon quantities of black human haix. being found cliffs carved out of the strata which overthe cattlemen of that section of country for at the end of the needles, or comb. lie it. The most conspicuous formaton of Mr. Turner has a jar; which he obtained the whole region is a mass of red sandmy information. The Ethnologist could scarcely find i from one of these houses, that will hold stone, out of which has been carved the better field in which to labor, with surer re some three or; four gallons. It is in the most striking and typical features, which suits than Grand and San Juan Counties, is shape of a keg or 'barrel, and decorated will be a subject of wonder and delight to Utah. The most superb : with bright colors which have been burned coming generations. TTi : O ., ,1 in the ...I. l,.. are the Canyon De Chelly and the canyons ttuuAc region uuuimcu uy iuc uiduu pottery. Kiver on the north, the Sari Juan River on Healso has a ladle or dipper that will Del Maerto. the south, the Colorado on- the north and hold about a The lofty pinnacles andtowersof the San quart, which is highly decora west, has at some period been inhabited by ted. Manv of the houses on the sides of Juan County, the finest walls of the greats-uppe- r a chasm of the Colorado, are the vertiprehistoric race which in common parl- the cliffs are inaccessible, but the old ladders ance has been termed the Cliff Dwellers. that were used by the Cliff Dwellers are cal edges of this red sand stone. You cannot travel The mouth of the Canyon De Chelly is many miles in still to be seen. very this A man by the name of Hammond, who sixty mile's south of the Utah boundaryjand' region without finding relics from which certain conclusions miles west of that of fexico. formerly lived at Kane Springs, San Juan twenty-fivmay be drawn. At the junction of the Canyon De Chelly1. The aridity of this region is, and for County, had a wicker basket made of centuries has been such, that certain relics withes bound together with fibres of the and Monument Canyon is abeautiful rock , are found in a state, of preservation that soap weed, and in thib basket, fastened to needle or pinnacle, standing out from- the ' would lead to the conclusion that were it with fibres, was me SKeieion 01 a cniia, cliffs, not more than a huudred and sixty- they of recent on the ground and its height is manufacture, yet no tribes of which at its death was probably a year old. five feet It has been named in , hidians have Down on the San Juan River many eight hundred feet any traditions of these people. "a mediately west of Moab the mountains skeletons have been unearthed and shipped conjunction with)somewhat similar" pinnanse Captains." abruptly to an elevation of 1,500 or to Eastern colleges, some were exhibited at cles, "The tbePcharacteristic features of the of One 2,000 fee.t, the- constituting what is the World's Fair, in almost every instance top tomed a rim rock, and back of this is a the remains were mummified, and some of canyon at the present day is the immense vol peach trees; , in one instanceMesa cr situated on this plateau them indicated a stature, of nearlya six feet. number plateau, ot peach trees, perhaps; as ana looking down the valley, is.an old fort. On some skeletons was uair ngni in coior.. there is a clump en- , . ?? my i-- ""(, ""u . - .. . -- 1 r -- : 1 1 ij - 9 - . e - . - t . -- ... - 1 1 1 : ' |