Historical Introduction to Studies Among the Sedentary Indians of New Mexico Part 9

_B_, wall.

_b_, place where skeleton of child was partly secured, five metres S. of _B_.

_C_, southern barranca; no remains found.

_c_, last sign south of pottery, ashes, and charcoal.

_W_, rock carvings on west bank of the arroyo.

The following are sections at four different places:--

[Ill.u.s.tration: Clay Pit Area]

Specimens of every section have been sent with the collection. It has struck me that the stratum of ashes, charcoal, and pottery, while visible always inside,--that is, to the west of a supposed lateral extension of the wall from _B_,--still appears to run below it. The human remains, however, protrude about at heights where the wall, if in existence, might have been in front of them. There were bones lying on rubbish in front of _C_,--there were also bones within the ashes, even at _A_; but the action of wear and washing being everywhere visible and very complicated, I do not venture any surmise in these cases beyond expressing the conviction that the human remains originally rested above the layers of charcoal, ashes, corncobs, and corrugated pottery.

While at Sr. Ruiz's, I had diligently inquired of the old gentleman about the graves of the Pecos Indians. He finally replied (after he had for a time insisted upon it that they were at the church) that before they became Christians ("antes que fueron cristianos") they buried their dead on the right bank of the Arroyo de Pecos, where he had often seen the skeletons (las calaveras, the corpses) washed out of the cliffs and strewn about. At Mrs. Kozlowski's, this also appeared to be a known fact; but an examination of the creek banks showed no trace of bones, and showed no other structures except the mound already mentioned on the left sh.o.r.e. In the cliffs of the basin which I have now described I met with the first sign of what Sr. Ruiz called "El Campo-Santo de los Indios, antes que fueron Cristianos." Still it is not at all positive, because the surface of the level west of the bluff shows extensive but flat and low mounds, covered with stones used for building, and with painted pottery, showing that at least adjoining the human remains a very large building, if not several, had stood at some very remote time.

The wall would then stand towards that ancient structure in the same relation as the mound or chamber _V_ stands towards the ruin _A_ on the _mesilla_; and it would indicate the custom on the part of their inhabitants of burying their dead around their houses, or at least in sight of the rising sun, and in little chambers of stone. This view is corroborated by the statement of Mr. E. K. Walters, of Pecos, that at a place which I have marked _a_ (therefore to the north of the wall) he dug out, very near the edge of the bluff, a stone grave, and with it a human skeleton. The grave was a rectangle, walled up on four sides, with stones on the top and no floor. The western side was rounded, so as to present the following plan:--

[Ill.u.s.tration: Grave]

In it lay the skeleton, two feet below the soil, the feet pointing eastward. The length of the chamber was about one third of a large man's body; the head lay at the west end, amongst the bones of the chest. It had therefore been buried in a sitting posture facing the rising sun.[127] Along with the body arrow-heads were found, and pieces of tanned deerskin, such as are still worn by the Indians. Of course, all traces of the skull, etc., have since disappeared.

While this conversation was taking place, the partner of Mr. Walters, Sr. Juan Basa y Salazar, came in, and the question of the great bell (which I have already mentioned) came up for discussion. All the parties a.s.sured me that this bell formerly belonged to the church of Pecos, and that after the outbreak of 1680 the Indians carried it up into their winter pueblo, on the top of the high mesa, where it broke and they left it. The positive a.s.sertion that the winter pueblo of the Pecos tribe was about 2,000 feet higher than the great ruins on the _mesilla_--that these ruins themselves were but their summer houses--was very startling.

It appeared incredible that the Indians should have left their comfortable quarters in the coldest season to look for shelter in the highest and coldest places of the whole region. Still, my informants being old residents and candid men, with certainly no intention to deceive me, and there being besides confused reports of the existence of ruins on the mesa current among the people of the valley, I resolved to devote my last day to a rapid reconnoissance of the elevated plateau.

Therefore, after a visit to the Plaza de Pecos, on the 5th of September, where the Rev. Father Leon Mailluchet confirmed the reports about the winter houses on the mesa, I set out (always on foot) on the morning of the 6th, Mr. Thomas Munn having volunteered to be my guide.

We followed the railroad track downwards, and about a mile and a half south of Baughl's, east of the track, met a tolerably large mound. At the station of Kingman, four miles from Baughl's, there is also a ruined stone house, rectangular, but smaller than any one of those on the _mesilla_.[128] I had no time to make any survey. We went along the railroad for one mile farther, then struck to the S. W. across a recently cultivated but abandoned field, and finally reached the ap.r.o.n of gravelly clay and locas skirting the high mesa. Here Mr. Munn a.s.sured me were the remains of stone structures all along for miles, and especially stone graves. Of the latter he had seen "hundreds." He described them exactly as Mr. Walters had, and as I had found the pit in mound V, and described the position of the skeleton also as if sitting with the face to the east. We soon came to a walled ruin 6 m. 6 m. or 20 ft. 20 ft., the walls composed of sandstone,--a range of rubble blocks very much ruined,--a _pinon_ having a diameter of 0.45 m.--18 in.--shooting up from the interior. 50 m.--165 ft.--further north a clearly defined estufa is seen, 4 m.--13 ft.--across, with stone walls 1 m.--3 ft. 3 in.--in width. The ap.r.o.n of the mesa is overgrown with fine pines. Thence, following a tie-shoot, we ascended very nearly vertically, about 1,000 feet at least, to the top. Here already the view to the E. and S. was magnificent; but the air was light and chilly.

Thunder-clouds were hovering N. and E., rain-streaks pouring down on the Sierra de Tecolote, and soon a heavy cloud formed south of us, while others were slowly nearing from the N.E. The mesa dips or slants decidedly to the W. and S.W.; the strata on its surface are tilted up to a high pitch, and appear to be almost vertical. The ground is very rocky, covered with high _pinon_.

Notwithstanding the steadily nearing thunder, we plunged to the S.W., past the tie-camp of Mr. Keno, and soon struck the source of an arroyo in a rocky, desolate hollow, pines shooting up in and around it. There, on its left bank, were the foundations of a stone structure 11 m. 3 m.--36 ft. 10 ft. About three miles from the edge of the mesa, in a still wilder _canada_, where there is no s.p.a.ce nor site for any abode around, the bell was found. There is no trace of any "winter house"

here,--not even on the entire mesa; and the bell was left there, not because its carriers there remained, but because it dropped there and broke. Who these carriers were I shall discuss further on; at all events, they were not the Indians of Pecos. This _canada_ is the entrance to a gorge descending directly towards the pueblo of Galisteo.[129] Meanwhile the clouds had acc.u.mulated over our heads, sharp thunder-claps and icy blasts preceding the storm. It was of short duration, but as the hail fell thickly we were thoroughly pelted and wet before again reaching the camp, glad to enjoy the hospitality and hot coffee of its inmates. At one P.M. the sun shone again, and we started (this time to the north) along the border of the mesa. Vegetation is here more exuberant than in the valley of Pecos. Not only do tall pines grow everywhere, but there is a thick undergrowth of _encina_; the Yucca is large and green, mountain sage covers the soil, and gra.s.sy levels are dotted with flowers. Animal life, also, is more vigorous and more varied. Whereas in the valley crows and turkey-buzzards alone enliven the air, and there are scarcely any beetles; up here there is deer and turkey, and the gray wolf; jays and magpies flutter through the thickets, and the horned lizard is met with occasionally. The pith of the pine-trees attracts a large species of buprestis, and lepidopterae are quite common. But there is not the least vestige of former human dwellings, so far as I could see: the top of the mesa of Pecos is, and was, a wilderness. It may have been the hunting-grounds of the tribe even in winter, but as for their exchanging their large pueblo at the bottom for a residence on the top it is very much as if the good people of New York City should spend Christmas week on the Catskill Range, or the Bostonians take winter quarters on Mount Monadnock. We followed the crest of the mesa for nearly four miles, ascending two of its highest tops. They are steep, denuded, and craggy. Beneath them vertical ledges descend in amphitheatres. From the highest point the horizon to the south appears unbounded. Like a small cone, the peak of Bernal seems to guard the lowest end of the Valley of Pecos. Over this vale rain-clouds still cast their shadows, and distant thunder muttered behind the Owl Mountains and the high Sierras in the north. To the west and south-west are almost unlimited expanses of slope, dark green pineries, and gra.s.sy spots. The bold outline of the Sandia Mountains looms up stately beyond it. Even the distant Sierra de Jemez protrudes. Between it and the northern limits of the mesa lies, far off yet, the city of Santa Fe.

The mesa is mostly yellow sandstone, but its highest points are capped with red; therefore the name of "Cerro amarillo" often applied to it.

Through a gorge worn in the rock, and on an almost perpendicular "burro-trail," we finally descended to the ap.r.o.n of the plateau, surrounded during our descent by scenery as weird and wild as any of the lower Alps of Switzerland. On the lower edge of the ap.r.o.n, a mile and a half north of Kingman, and half a mile from the railroad track, we struck again several ruins. They were part.i.tioned rectangles, very similar in size and in condition to the foundations seen south of the old church of Pecos, and, like those, utterly devoid of fragments of pottery. Along their eastern line, and inside of the walls, there appeared little square heaps of stones. These were the graves of which my guide had spoken, and their position is exactly similar to that of those near and at the pueblo itself.[130]

My time was up, however, and I could not stop to explore them. I therefore returned to Baughl's, and thence to Santa Fe, with the firm determination to revisit Pecos at a future day, and then do what I was compelled reluctantly to leave undone this time. Should, in the mean time, some archaeologist explore the same locality, correct my errors, and unravel the mysteries hovering about the place, I heartily wish him as much pleasure and quiet enjoyment as I have had during my ten days'

work, in which the dream of a life has at last begun its realization.

Before, however, turning to the close of my report, which will embody sc.r.a.ps of history gathered about the place, remarks on the customs and arts of its former inhabitants, and general reflections, I must express my thanks here to a few gentlemen not yet named in this "personal narrative." Besides Mr. J. D. C. Thurston, who kindly a.s.sisted me for the first two days, Mr. G. C. Bennet, the skilful photographer, of whose ability his work is telling, has been for two days a pleasant and welcome companion. Last, but certainly not least, I thank Mr. John D.

McRae, not only for his a.s.sistance free of expense to the Inst.i.tute in many important mechanical matters, but especially for the solicitude with which he has watched my work and looked to my comforts, and for the great store of information I have gathered from his conversation.

HISTORY.

My survey of the grounds occupied by the aboriginal ruins in the valley of the Pecos indicates, as I have already stated, three epochs, successive probably in time, in which they have been occupied by man; that is, I have noticed these, and beyond these I have not been able to go as yet. Subsequent explorers may be more fortunate. This distinction, or rather cla.s.sification, is very imperfect in the two earlier stages, and even arbitrary; but between the second and the last there is a marked break,--not in time, but in ethnological development. I shall term the three epochs as follows:--

1. Pre-traditional. (Indicated by the presence of the corrugated and indented pottery as its most conspicuous "land-mark.")

2. Traditional and doc.u.mentary. (Doc.u.ments in the sense of written records.)

3. Doc.u.mentary period.

THE PRE-TRADITIONAL PERIOD.

I have not been able to detect as yet among the confused traditions current about the pueblo of Pecos any tale concerning occupation of their grounds by human beings prior to the settlement of which the ruins now bear testimony. It is true that the proper traditions of the tribe of Pecos are now preserved only at the pueblo of Jemez, about eighty miles N.W. of Pecos and fifty miles W. of Santa Fe, and that I have not as yet visited that place.[131] But it must be remembered that I now report "up to date," and that subsequent information will, or at least should, come in time.

My reason for admitting a pre-traditional period is, then, simply that I have found human remains at Pecos older than those of the present ruins and different in kind. These remains, as it may already have been inferred from the "personal narrative," are those found on the west side of the arroyo, in the basin (or rather the bank encircling it) opposite the rock carvings.

One fact is certain, the human bones, the walls protruding from the banks, and the grave found by Mr. E. K. Walters, are all above the layer of white ashes, charcoal, corncobs, and corrugated pottery found as a continuous seam along an extent of over 100 m.--327 ft.--from N. to S.

Consequently, the walls and graves must have been built over these remains of a people which appears to have made indented and corrugated pottery alone, and consequently also the latter must be older in time than the former. It does not appear that the sedentary Indians of New Mexico ever made, within traditional and doc.u.mentary times, any other than the painted pottery in greater or less degree of perfection. Even Gaspar Castano de la Sosa, when he made his inroad into New Mexico in 1590, mentions at the first pueblo which he conquered: "They have much pottery,--red, figured, and black,--platters, caskets, salters, bowls.... Some of the pottery was glazed."[132] The corrugated and indented pottery, as I am a.s.sured by Sr. Vigil, is rarely met with over New Mexico, except at old ruined pueblos, and only when digging (en cavando).[133] I feel, therefore, justified in a.s.suming it to have been the manufactured ware of a people distinct from the Pecos tribe or the pueblo Indians of New Mexico in general, and their predecessors in point of time. This pottery, however, is frequently met with among the cliff dwellings of the Rio Mancos and in Utah.[134] Its relation, then, to the painted pottery has, as far as I know, not yet been investigated.

But what could have been the purpose in covering originally a s.p.a.ce of over 100 m.--327 ft.--in length with the products of combustion and fragments of one and the same industry in such a manner as to form an uninterrupted layer of 0.45 m.--18 in.--at least in thickness? Those who subsequently buried their dead over the seam certainly did not collect these ashes and spread them there as a floor on which they rested their structures afterwards. The combustion of a large wooden building would not have given the same uniformity on such a large scale. Sr. Vigil has suggested to me the following very plausible explanation: In order to burn or bake their pottery, the present pueblo Indians of New Mexico build large but low hearths on the ground of small wood, sticks, and other inflammable rubbish and refuse, on which they place the newly formed articles, and then set the floor on fire, until the whole is thoroughly burnt. Fragments of broken objects, etc., are not removed.

The combustible material is thus reduced to ashes, and the broken pieces remain within them; their convex surfaces, of course, falling outwards, and thus resting on the floor. In this manner a thick layer of ashes and charcoal, with pottery, is easily formed. These "hogueras" are still from 20 to 40 feet in diameter; but, as they accommodate themselves to the size of the pueblo, it is certain that they were formerly much larger. The a.n.a.logy between such a "potters'-field" and the layer in question is very striking, and the inference appears likely that the people who made this corrugated and indented pottery made it in the same manner as the pueblo Indians now make their painted ware, and as they made it at the time of the conquest.

These very old manufacturers of indented ceramics were also a horticultural people, for they raised Indian corn. The cob found in the ashes, or rather cut out with the knife at some distance inside the bluff, is charred and small. To what variety of Zea it belongs the specialist must decide.

I hold it to be utterly useless, and even improper, on my part to speculate any further on these "pre-traditional" people. Perhaps I have already said too much. Excavations alone can throw further light on the subject.

THE TRADITIONAL AND DOc.u.mENTARY PERIOD.

The term "traditional" is applied to this period, because the people occupying the site of Old Pecos have left some traditions behind them, and not because we know when it commenced. In fact, I am much inclined to divide it, for the sake of convenience, into two periods again, one of which includes the occupation of the area within the circ.u.mvallation and its necessary annexes (field, etc.), whereas the other includes the area without. Of the former, we have definite knowledge in regard to its inhabitants; of the latter, we have none whatever. It is therefore also pre-traditional as yet. Nevertheless, I have included it in the second epoch, as its ruins indicate that its people possessed arts identical with those of the present pueblo Indians. Their pottery, wherever exposed, was painted, figured, and vitrified in places; its ornamentation is exactly similar to that of the pottery of the interior area, and different from that of Zuni. They used flint, but no trace of obsidian is found. This may be purely accidental; still, why should it occur at three places so totally different in regard to erosion and abrasion as the slope south of the church, the west bank of the creek directly opposite, and, if thorough examination should confirm the results of my cursory observations, the ap.r.o.n of the high mesa? The graves, wherever found, are identical with those of the _mesilla_; the plan of building, and consequently of living,[135] appears similar to that exhibited in houses _A_ and _B_; the material used is the same, but the walls are more ruinous, and apparently of a much older date. The inference is therefore not unreasonable, that the inhabitants of the three areas named, as outside of the great circ.u.mvallation, were of the kind now called "pueblo Indians," who preceded the tribe of Pecos proper in point of time. It is not improbable that one or the other of these ruins may have been erected by the Pecos themselves before they settled on the mesilla. Still, there is neither proof nor disproval of this surmise extant.

There appears to be also a slight difference between the different ruins of this period themselves. The ruins south of the church and those along the mesa are similar, in that they are more ruined, and not covered with _debris_, and in that their surfaces are also devoid of pottery. The s.p.a.ce west of the creek has pottery and also heaps of rubbish, and I therefore conclude that it was the most recent of the three locations,--or at least the one last abandoned. To it must be added the small mound or promontory found further south on the east bank of the arroyo. One fact is certain: all these places were deserted, and perhaps as badly ruined as now, at the time when Coronado first visited Pecos.[136] (The partial removal of the surface material may have been effected by the Pecos Indians themselves in order to build their own houses.)

Referring now to the inhabitants of the two houses, whose ruins are situated on the mesilla, north of the church, it is a thoroughly well-authenticated fact that they spoke the same language as the Indians of the pueblo of Jemez. Jemez lies 80 miles N.W. of Pecos, beyond the Rio Grande. It is possible that the Pecos Indians came to the valley from that direction. But it is singular that, while there are no other settlements speaking this same idiom but Jemez and Pecos, these two pueblos should be separated, as early as at Coronado's time (1540), by three distinct linguistical stocks, different from theirs and lying across, intervening between them. Directly W. of Pecos the Queres, S.W.

the Tanos, N.W. the Tehuas--all at war with the Jemez and the Pecos, and often with each other--lay like a barrier between the latter two. The point is an interesting one, as the pueblo of Pecos defines (together with Taos at the north) the utmost easterly limit to which the pueblo Indians seem to have penetrated.

Who were first in the valley of the Rio Grande? Did the Queres, Tanos, Tehuas, etc., drive out the Pecos, then already settled to the S.W., into the Sierra, or did the Pecos, migrating from Jemez, force their pa.s.sage through the other tribes? I conjecture that the Jemez, etc., were the first; that they migrated down the Rio Grande, and on the same area, between Sandia to the S. and Santa Fe, were gradually displaced by the others successively coming in,--one branch, the Jemez, recoiling into the mountains towards San Diego;[137] the other, the Pecos, driven up the canon of San Cristobal,[138] and finally, when the Tanos moved up into that valley, crossing over to the valley of Pecos.

This is to a great extent conjecture; still there are other singular indications. I give them with due reserve, however, formally protesting against any imputation that they are intended for anything else than to suggest problems for future study.

According to my friend Mr. A. S. Gatchet, of Washington, D. C., an excellent linguist, the Tanos and the inhabitants of Isleta, the most southerly pueblo on the Rio Grande still occupied, speak the same language.[139] The same is a.s.serted here, as a known fact, to be the case with the Taos and the Picuries in the north, and the Isletas at the south. If this be true, then the supposition that the Queres and Tehuas are the latest intrusive stock would become a certainty. More than that: the Tanos prior to 1680, had their chief pueblo at San Cristobal, N. E.

of Galisteo, on the slope of the mesa of Pecos. They also had become dispossessed of the Rio Grande valley, and divided into (originally) two branches,--the Picuries and Taos north, and the Tanos, of Galisteo, east. Isleta itself is a later agglomeration.[140] There being no pueblo E. and S. E. of Pecos, then it appears that the Jemez, or rather Emmes, were the first migration, the Tanos the second, and the Queres and Tehuas the last.

The earliest traditions of the Pecos are preserved to us by Pedro de Castaneda, one of the eye-witnesses and chroniclers of Coronado's "march" in 1540. They told him that, five or six years (?) before the arrival of the Spaniards, a roaming tribe called the "Teyas" (Yutas) had ravaged the surroundings of their pueblo, and even, though fruitlessly, attempted to capture it.[141] This tribe was afterwards met by Coronado in the plains to the N.E. and E.[142]

Another tradition, very well known,--so well, indeed, that it has given to the name of the unlucky "capitan de la guerra" of the ancient Mexicans the honorific t.i.tle of an aboriginal "cultus-hero,"--is that of Montezuma.

I hope, at some future time, to be able to give some further information on this Spanish-Mexican importation. Suffice it to say for the present, that not a single one of the numerous chronicles and reports about New Mexico, up to the year 1680, mentions the Montezuma story! The word itself, Mon-te-zuma, is a corruption of the Mexican word "Mo-tecu-zoma,"--literally, "my wrathy chief,"--which corruption that eminently "reliable gentleman," Bernal Diez de Castillo, is to be thanked for. He wrote in 1568.[143]

What the Indians themselves say of this tale I have not as yet ascertained; but the people of the valley all a.s.sert that the people of the pueblo believe in it,--that they even affirmed that Montezuma was born at Pecos; that he wore golden shoes, and left for Mexico, where, for the sake of these valuable brogans, he was ruthlessly slaughtered.

They further say that, when he left Pecos, he commanded that the holy fire should be kept burning till his return, in testimony whereof the sacred embers were kept aglow till 1840, and then transferred to Jemez.

There is one serious point in the whole story, and that is the ill.u.s.tration how an evident mixture of a name with the Christian faith in a personal redeemer, and dim recollections of Coronado's presence and promise to return,[144] could finally take the form of a mythological personage. In this respect, for the study of mythology in general, it is of great importance. That the sacred fire had, originally, nothing at all to do with the Montezuma legend is amply proven by the earliest reports.

It will also become interesting to ascertain in the future how many pueblos, and which, concede to Pecos the honor of being the birthplace of that famed individual, and how many, as is the case with other great folks in more civilized communities, claim the same honor for themselves.

I cannot, therefore, attach to the Montezuma tale any historical importance whatever,--not even a traditional value.