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 sit[p. 99]ting 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 assured 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 assertion 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 Léon 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 apron of gravelly clay and locas skirting the high mesa. Here Mr. Munn assured 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 piñon 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 apron 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 piñon.
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 cañada, where there is no space 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 cañada is the entrance to a gorge descending directly towards the pueblo of Galisteo.[129] Meanwhile the clouds had accumulated 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 grassy 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[p. 102] pine-trees attracts a large species of buprestis, and lepidopteræ 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 grassy 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 Fé.
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 apron 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 apron, a mile and a half north of Kingman, and half a mile from the railroad track, we struck again several ruins. They were partitioned[p. 103] 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 Fé, 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 archæologist 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 scraps 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 assisted 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[p. 104] assistance free of expense to the Institute 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 classification, 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:—