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:[p. 97]—
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 fuéron cristianos") they buried their dead on the right bank of[p. 98] 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 shore. 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 fuéron 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:—
