USA > Colorado > History of the State of Colorado, Vol. I > Part 5
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The material used was a fine clay-obtainable in any part of the country-tempered with sand, or pulverized shells. "The modeling was done almost exclusively with the hand ; no wheel has been used, and no implement whatever, except for the surface creasings or indent- ings." Nearly all had been baked or burned, evidently by sinking them in the ground and building light fires about them. Most of the vessels were coated with some preparation of mineral paint or varnish, which gave them an attractive finish.
Fragments of pottery of like character to that collected in the San Juan country, have been obtained and preserved by government ex- ploring parties in the South and West, and the best of them placed in the National Museum. A comparison of these with the specimens gathered in the San Juan, shows them to be identical in every respect. This fact has an important bearing upon the declaration that the cliff
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and cave dwellers of ancient times were distributed over an immense area, and leads us nearer and nearer to the conclusion that the Zuni and the Moqui Indians of the present day are the direct descendants of those tribes. We shall discover other connections in the progress of our inquiries, though we may never penetrate far enough into the darkness of past ages to discover the source from which they sprang. Mr. Holmes concludes his report with the following deductions :
" The ancient peoples of the San Juan country were doubtless the ancestors of the present pueblo tribes of New Mexico and Arizona. A comparison of the ancient and the modern architecture, and a considera- tion of the geographical relation of the ancient and modern pueblos, lead very decidedly to this conclusion. They have at one time or other occu- pied a very extensive area, which includes the greater part of the drainage of the Rio Colorado. Their occupation of this region dates back very many centuries, as attested by the extent of the remains, and their advanced stage of decay. The final abandonment of the cliff and cave dwellings has occurred at a comparatively recent date, certainly subsequent to the Spanish conquest. The lowland remains, the extensive pueblos and great towers are generally in a very much more advanced state of ruin than the cliff defences. It is possible that the latter owe their construc- tion to events that immediately preceded the expulsion of the pueblo tribes from this region. The cliff builders were probably not greatly superior to the modern pueblos in any of the arts, and I doubt if they could boast of a state of civilization equally advanced." Finally, it is believed that when properly directed excavations of the more important ruins shall be undertaken by experienced antiquarians, much new light will be obtained.
Here it may be pertinent to interject a suggestion of duty to the State authorities, that these wonderful remains should be protected by law from the vandalism of our own citizens and the multitude of tour- ists who, at no distant day, will make pilgrimage to them. Here are the records of our ancient history ; and unless shielded from further destruction, by statutes faithfully enforced, in a few years they will have
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passed entirely away. Clay models of the better classes of these an- tique dwellings, have already been made by the general government. Duplicates should be secured and placed in the museum of the State Capitol when completed, with the collection of the State Historical So- ciety, and thus preserved for the study of those who are unable to visit the originals.
In W. H. Jackson's* report, which follows that of Holmes, many interesting details respecting the construction of the cliff and cave dwellings are given. About twelve miles below the Montezuma, upon a bluff something over two hundred feet in height above the stream, there is a very large circular cave which occupies nearly the entire face of the bluff. " It runs back in a semi-circular sweep to a depth of one hundred feet; the top is a perfect half dome, and the lower half only less so from the accumulation of debris, and the thick, brushy foliage. The houses occupy the left hand or eastern half of the cave, for the reason, probably, that the ledge was wider on that side, and the wall back of it receded in such a manner as to give considerable additional room for the second floor, or for the upper part of the one-story rooms. It is about fifty feet from the outer edge of the cave to the first building, a small structure, sixteen feet long and three feet wide at the outer end, and four at the opposite end. Then succeeded an open space eleven feet wide and nine deep, that served probably as a sort of workshop. Four holes were drilled into the smooth rock floor about six feet equi distant apart, each from six to ten inches deep and five in diameter, as perfectly round as if drilled by machinery." This sug- gested the probability of looms and weaving, with which we know some of these people were at one time familiar, and that these drill holes served to keep the loom in place. Here also were a number of grooves worn into the rock, which appear to have been used for polishing stone implements. "The main building comes next, occu- pying the widest portion of the ledge, which gives an average width of ten feet inside; it is forty-eight feet long outside, and twelve high,
*Mr. Jackson has for some years been a resident of Denver.
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divided inside into three rooms, the first two 1312 feet each in length, and the third 16 feet, divided into two stories, the lower and upper five feet in height. * * Window-like apertures afforded com- munication between the rooms all through the second story, excepting that which opened out to the back of the cave." In each lower room, looking out to the open country, there was a small window about a foot square, while in the upper the openings were very much smaller. In the large building there were twelve apartments of irregular sizes, all connected by apertures like those mentioned above. No trace of roofing or flooring material was found, as everything of that kind had been thoroughly burned away, or otherwise removed. "In the central room of the main building we found a circular, basin-like depression thirty inches across and ten deep, that had served as a fireplace, being still filled with the ashes and cinders of aboriginal fires, the sur- rounding walls being blackened with smoke and soot." This is sup- posed to have been the kitchen of the primitive mansion, but some of the others appear to have served a like purpose. "The masonry dis- played in the construction of the walls is very creditable; a sym- metrical curve is preserved throughout the whole line, and every portion perfectly plumb ; the subdivisions are at right angles to the front. The stones employed are of the size used in all similar structures, and are roughly broken to a uniform size. More attention seems to have been paid to securing a smooth appearance upon the exterior than the interior surfaces, the clay cement being spread to a perfectly plane surface, something like stucco finish." On much of this work the imprint of the fashioning hand is left, showing even the delicate lines of the thumbs and fingers. Being small and shapely, it is quite clear that the finishing coat was laid by women. " In the mortar between the stones several corn cobs were found embedded, and in other places the whole ear of corn had been pressed into the clay, leaving its impression. The ears were quite small, none more than five inches long." A few implements of stone, arrowheads, and fragments of pottery, were the only remains. According to Mr. Jackson, the
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general appearance of the place and its surroundings indicated that these people were of rather aristocratic pretensions, several degrees above the common herd of their people. Under this impression he weaves the following picturesque vision of the family and the scene as they may have appeared in the olden time: "Looking out from one of their houses, with a great dome of solid rock overhead, that echoed and re-echoed every word uttered with marvelous distinctness, and below them a steep descent of one hundred feet to the broad fertile valley of the Rio San Juan, covered with waving fields of maize and scattered groves of majestic cottonwoods, these old people, whom even the imagination can hardly clothe with reality, must have felt a sense of security that even the incursions of their barbarous foes could hardly have disturbed." And so to sanctify the vision, he christens this ruin " Casa del Eco."
The ruins along the Rio De Chelley are next described, all resem- bling, or at least bearing the same general characteristics of structure, with pottery accompaniments, as along the Hovenweep and other streams. On Epsom Creek there are many cave dwellings; indeed, wherever these indefatigable explorers penetrated were traces of the same people and the same periods of time. Mr. Jackson considers the ruins on the Chaco Canon of Northern New Mexico as pre-eminently the finest examples of the numerous remains of these ancient builders to be found north of the seat of the ancient Aztec empire. The dwellings here are identical in structure, position, and the uses to which they were put with those of the pueblos further south, and now inhab- ited, and were entered in the same manner by means of ladders. "The masonry as it is displayed in the construction of the walls, is the most wonderful feature in these ancient habitations, and is in striking contrast to the careless and rude methods shown in the dwellings of the existing pueblos. Those of Moqui, Taos, and probably Acoma, were in no better condition when first discovered by the Spaniards nearly three hundred and fifty years ago, than they are now, and how much older these perfect buildings were then than the rude piles of
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adobe and uncut stone found by the first conquerors, the past can only tell, and that is dead and buried."
Speaking of the pueblo of Chettro Kettle, or the Rain Pueblo, the largest of the old perfect rectangles, he affirms that in this ruin there was at one time a line of wall running around three sides of the building nine hundred and thirty-five feet in length, and about forty feet in height, giving 37,400 square feet of surface, and as an average of fifty pieces of stone appeared within the space of every square foot, this would give nearly two million pieces for the outer surface of the wall alone; multiplying this by the opposite surface, and also by the interior and transverse lines of masonry, and supposing a symmetrical terracing, we will find that it will swell the total up into more than thirty millions embraced within about 315,000 cubic feet of masonry. Let the modern observer conceive, if he can, what is involved in this well nigh incredible achievement; the enormous labor, the patient energy, the perfect discipline, and withal, the inborn patriotism of these people in raising these vast monuments which testify to all succeeding generations of their civilization, industry and enterprise. All the stones had first to be quarried with the rude implements which only were known to them, and these of stone or wood; brought by hand great distances to the building site, and there each particular block fashioned to fit the place designed for it. Then, too, there were massive timbers to be felled in the forests, hewn to exact measurement, and conveyed by hand, for they had no animals, and then fitted to their places in the great edifice. One can well imagine that hundreds, and perhaps thousands, were employed on this edifice, and that years were consumed in bringing it to completion.
Dr. W. J. Hoffman, the ethnologist of the expedition, in describ- ing and commenting upon the crania discovered by Jackson, in Chaco Cañon, endeavors to find in their structure some traces of the origin of these ancient races. He writes : "It has been supposed by various prominent ethnologists, and old writers, that there had been, in remote times, a migration toward the regions in various directions northward
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from Mexico. In time a return is traced, some assuming Aztlan to have been the point of departure, while a large and long continued influx of people came from a country or kingdom in the Northeast. Lan- guage has left its impression among various existing races, and we find great affinity between that of the Natchez, who formerly occupied the lower portion of the Mississippi Valley, and the Mayas (of Yucatan). Greater affinity is observable among many of the tribes scattered south- ward through Mexico into Central America, and similar customs, to a remarkable degree, can be traced." Among these is head flattening, a custom practiced by many tribes of North American Indians, begin- ning soon after birth, and continuing until the effect desired was pro- duced. He finds a relationship, not only between the ancient cliff dwell- ers and the modern pueblos, but with the Aztecs. "The general de- signs in ornamentation appear traceable in the Aztec pottery and the ruins at Mitla, Mexico, only in a higher state of cultivation. At the lat- ter place the designs have appeared upon the walls of the ruined tem- ple, and upon a grander scale. The Aztec traditions of a northwest origin, are strongly in favor of such a hypothesis, besides numerous arguments which might be brought to bear upon the subject." In a succeeding chapter, the question of origin will be more fully consid- ered. The most remarkable feature of the pottery wares found in the pueblos of Arizona "is that there are numerous fac similes of those found upon the walls of Mitla," and gives rise to the presumption, at least, "that the Moquis, Zunis, and the Pueblos were more closely al- lied in remote times, and that to this alliance belonged the cliff dwell- ers whose identity appears to have merged with the Aztecs."
Since the foregoing was prepared, a New York paper has published the discovery of cliff dwellings, in great numbers, in Morocco, "which are now, and probably have been inhabited from the time of their first construction. These dwellings, in all particulars, are like those found in Arizona and New Mexico. It was not until last year that the Moors would permit any examination of the cliff dwellings, which have long been known to exist, some days' journey to the southwest of the city
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of Morocco. The strange city of the cave dwellers is almost exactly like some of those in New Mexico, and other Territories, which archæologists have explored. The dwellings were dug out of the solid rock, and many of them are over two hundred feet above the bottom of the valley. The face of the cliff is in places perpendicular, and it is believed that the troglodytes could have reached their dwell- ings only with the aid of rope ladders. Some of them contain three rooms, the largest of which are about 17x9 feet, and the walls of the larger rooms are generally pierced by windows. Nothing is known as to who these cave dwellers are."
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CHAPTER IV.
OUR PREHISTORIC RACES-ETHNOLOGICAL REVELATIONS-ANCIENT INHABITANTS ANI THEIR WORKS-SOME HIGHLY INTERESTING DISCOVERIES-OPINIONS OF SCIENTISTS- EACH CONTINENT MAY HAVE PRODUCED ITS OWN RACE-OLD THEORIES OF ORIG. INAL MIGRATIONS OVERTURNED BY THE EXHUMATION OF HUMAN REMAINS AT GREAT DEPTHS-THE LIGHT OF MODERN INVESTIGATION LEADS TO STARTLING CONCLU- SIONS-DISCOVERY OF THE MOUND BUILDERS-EMIGRATION OF THE ANCIENT RACES WESTWARD-DESCENT OF THE AZTECS FROM THE NORTHWEST UPON THE TOLTECS OF MEXICO-THE BUILDERS OF THE SPLENDID TEMPLES IN YUCATAN-ANTIQUITY OF MAN UPON THE CONTINENT OF AMERICA.
Intelligent and vigorously prosecuted research through monu- mental and other remains for the origin of the prehistoric races of our continent by eminent ethnologists, of the Old and New Worlds, has dispelled much of the mystery that formerly enveloped them. The traces found by early explorers have been persistently and patiently followed, and the hieroglyphs deciphered, one by one, until the revela- tion, if not complete, is at least made so clear that all may understand its meaning. One of the more recent and valuable papers on the sub- ject was read before the American Association for the Advancement of Science, in August, 1887, by Daniel G. Brinton, Vice-President and Chairman of the Section of Anthropology, in which it is stated that the prehistoric period of America dates back from the discovery of the several parts of the continent, and to reconstruct the history of the various nations who inhabited both Americas at this period, resort is had, by many writers, to the testimony furnished by legends and tradi- tions. While these often bear a strong resemblance to Semitic or other oriental myths, they prove but little, and are not regarded as trustwor- thy sources of information. The annals of the Mexicans, the Mayas
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of Yucatan, and the Quichuas of Peru, he declares, carry us scarcely 600 years beyond the voyage of Columbus. The more savage tribes, particularly, remember nothing more remote than a couple of centu- ries. The more famous of the monumental remains are the stone build- ings of Mexico, Peru, and Central America. Many give to these an antiquity of thousands of years, but a calm weighing of the testimony places them all well within our era, and most of them within a few cen- turies of the discovery. Pursuing the argument, it is found that the celebrated remains of Tiahuanuco in Peru are no exception. Some of the artificial shell heaps, along the coast, are of greater antiquity. These contain bones and shells of extinct species, in intimate connec- tion with stone implements and pottery, and furnish data to prove that the land was inhabited several thousand years ago. Again, the indus- trial activity of man in America may be traced by the remains of his weapons, ornaments, and tools, made of stone, bone, and shell. In most of the deposits examined, specimens of polished stone and pot- tery testify to a reasonably developed skill; but in the Trenton grav- els, and a few other localities, genuine paleolithic remains have been found, putting man in America at a date coeval with the close of the glacial age, if not earlier. The vast antiquity of the American race is further proved by the extensive dissemination of maize (corn) and to- bacco,-tropical plants of Southern Mexico,-which were cultivated from the latitude of Canada to that of Patagonia.
Turning to the matter of language, it is believed there are about two hundred radically different languages in North and South Amer- ica. Such a confusion of tongues, he thinks, could only have arisen in hundreds of centuries. The study of these languages and of the gradual growth of their dialects, supplies valuable data for the ancient history of the continent.
But here follows the most remarkable declaration of all, that the American race is as distinctively a race by itself as the African, or White race. Although varying in many points, it has a marked fixed- ness of ethnic anatomy, and always had. The oldest American crania,
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collected from the most ancient quaternary deposits, are thoroughly American in type. Finally, as the discovery of implements in the gla- cial deposits locates man on this continent, at least, at the close of the glacial epoch, this carries his residence here to about 35,000 years ago. But there is no likelihood that he came into being on this continent. He could not have been developed from any of the known fossil mam- malia which dwelt here. More probably some colonies first migrated along the pre-glacial land bridge which once connected Northern Amer- ica with Western Europe. Later, others came from Asia. At that time the physical geography of the northern hemisphere was widely different from the present.
The same line of thought and study leads Nadaillac, the eminent French scientist, to exclaim, after long and patient but ineffectual effort to solve the mystery : "Who and what were the first inhabitants of America? Whence did they come? To what immigration was their arrival due? By what disaster were they destroyed ? By what route did they reach these unknown lands ? Must we admit different centers of creation ? And were the primeval Americans born on American soil ? Could evolution and natural selection, those principles so fully accepted by the modern school, have produced on the shores of the Atlantic and the Pacific a type of man resembling the European and the Asiatic, alike in the structure of his frame, and in his intellectual development?" Great and formidable problems these, but men have undertaken to solve them, with what effect we shall discover in the course of this compilation from the discoveries and opinions of many distinguished writers. But, answering his own inquiries cited above, Nadaillac declares that "we are already in a position to assert that the earliest vestiges of man in America and in Europe resemble each other exactly, and by no means the least extraordinary part of the case is, that in the New as in the Old World, men began the struggle for exist- ence with almost identical means." And now comes the veteran Schoolcraft, with many volumes of notes gathered during the greater part of a long life passed among the different tribes of Indians, with
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the tacit yet half-reluctant admission that each continent may have produced, and probably did produce, its own race. He says, "The results of scientific investigation thus far, though incomplete, render it by no means improbable that man is as old here as anywhere else." Professor Agassiz was of the opinion that "so far as her physical history is concerned, America has been falsely denominated the New World. Hers was the first dry land lifted out of the waters, hers the first shore washed by the ocean that enveloped all the earth beside, and while Europe was represented by islands rising here and there above the sea, America already stretched an unbroken line of land from Nova Scotia to the Far West."
H. H. Bancroft asserts that " no theory of foreign origin has been proved, or even fairly sustained. The particulars in which the Amer- icans are shown to resemble any given people of the Old World, are insignificant in comparison with the particulars in which they do not resemble them. If this continent was peopled from the Old World, it must have been at a period far remote." All modern investigators are in full accord upon this point, however widely they may differ as to the main question involved.
Bancroft concludes very properly since nothing definite is known, that "the question must be settled in accordance, not with the old chronology, but with the discoveries of modern science," upon which there is no disagreement. Bunsen claims for the Indian an antiquity of at least twenty thousand years, based on a common origin of language. On the whole, it seems probable that each continent has had its aboriginal stock, peculiar in color and in character, and that each has experienced repeated modifications by immigrating, or ship- wrecked colonists from abroad. All the present distinct types of races were equally well defined when human history begins. No variety has since been originated. "The best of the argument as to this unsettled question-the unity of the human race,"-says Wallace, the naturalist, "is with those who maintain the primitive diversity of man."
The late Prof. J. W. Foster, in contemplating the remains of the
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Mound Builders, was led to believe that " their civilization was of an older and higher order than that of the Aztecs, and that they were of Southern origin." Also that "the ruins of Central America are more recent than the mounds of the Mississippi Valley." His examination of the crania of the Mound Builders induced the inference that they were distinctly separated from existing races, and especially from those of North America. Reasoning from "the distinctive character of these structures (the mounds) and the traditions which have come down to us," Foster says, " they indicate that these people were expelled from the Mississippi Valley by a fierce and barbarous race, and that they found a refuge in the more genial climate of Central America, where they developed their germs of civilization originally planted there, attaining a perfection which has elicited the admiration of every modern explorer." Is it not possible, to say nothing of the probability, that in the migration of these people,-the Mound Builders,-to the west and southward, some remnants may have halted and established themselves in the valley of the San Juan, the Rio Grande, and in New Mexico, while the main body continued on toward Anahuac? Davis" tells us that "the first Spaniards who penetrated into New Mexico, found the Indians in substantially the same con- dition as they are at the present time, and when Cortez entered Southern Mexico he encountered a race of men inhabiting that country almost identical with the Pueblo Indians, in style of living, manners and customs." Gallatin and other well-informed writers declare that the language of the Indian gives no trace of his origin. "No theories of derivation from the Old World," according to Hayden, " have stood the test of grammatical construction. All traces of the fugitive tribes of Israel, supposed to be found here, are again lost. Neither Phoenician, nor Hindoo, nor Chinese, nor Welsh, nor Scan- dinavian, have left any impression of their national syntax behind them." Nearly all races of men have preserved some legend of a deluge which covered the earth and destroyed all save a limited
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