The conditions of color and barrenness that first suggested the name exist over a large area; you find them in the plateaus of southern Utah and the wild wastes of southern Nevada; they exist in much of New Mexico and southwestern Colorado. In Arizona if you sweep around north, west, south, and east, they are there. Northward—in the cliffs and ravines of the Grand Canyon country, in Blue Canyon, in the red mesas, the coal deposits, and in the lava flows around the San Francisco Mountains; westward—in the wild mountains and wilder deserts that lead to the crossings of the Colorado River, past the craters, lava flows, Calico Mountains, and Mohave Desert of the country adjoining the Santa Fé Route, and the Salton Sea, mud volcanoes, purple cliffs, and tawny sands of the Colorado Desert of the Sunset Route of the Southern Pacific; southward—in the Red Rock country, Sunset Pass, the meteorite beds of Canyon Diablo, the great cliffs of the Mogollon Plateau, the Tonto Basin, the Verdi Valley, and away down, over the Hassayampa, through the Salt River Valley, past the Superstition and other purple and variegated mountains, into the heart of northern Mexico itself; eastward—to the Petrified Forest, across into New Mexico to Mount San Mateo, by the cliffs, craters, lava flows, alkali flats, gorges and ravines of the Zuni Mountain country and as far as the Rio Grande at Albuquerque, where the basalt is scattered about in an irregular way, as if the molten stuff had been washed over the country from some titanic bucket, and left to lie in great inky blots over the bright-colored soils and clays.
To me, all this is Painted Desert region, for much of it is painted and much is desert. Indeed, if one Painted Desert were to be staked off in any one of the above named States, ten others, equally large, could be found in the remaining ones.
It is a wonderful region viewed from any standpoint. Scenic! It is unrivalled for uniqueness, contrasts, variety, grandeur, desolateness, and majesty. Geologic! The student may here find in a few months what a lifetime elsewhere cannot reveal. Artistic! The artist will find it his rapture and his despair. Archæologic! Ruins everywhere, cavate, cliff, and pueblo dwellings, waiting for investigation, and, doubtless, scores as yet undiscovered. Ethnologic! Hopi, Wallapai, Havasupai, Navaho, Apache, and the rest; with mythologies as fascinating and complex as those of old Greece; with histories that lose themselves in dim legend and tradition, and that tell of feuds and wars, massacres and conflicts, that extend over centuries.
In the first chapter I have briefly named some of the wonders and marvels of this fascinating land, and though in barest outline, "the half has not been told."
It will be noticed that I have not rigidly adhered to the subjects as indicated by the heads of the chapters. I have preferred a discursive rather than a rigid style, for I deem it will prove itself the more interesting to the generality of my readers, and I merely call attention to it so that my critics may know it is not done without intent.
Of the Indians of this region I have room to write of four tribes only, viz., the Hopi, the Navaho, the Wallapai, and the Havasupai. Of the former much has been written in late years, owing to the interest centred in their thrilling religious ceremony, the Snake Dance. Of the Navaho considerable is known, but of the Wallapai and Havasupai there is little known and less written. Indeed, of the Wallapai there is nothing in print except the brief and cursory remarks of travellers, and the reports of the teachers of the recently established schools to the Indian Department. No one is better aware than myself of the incomplete and fragmentary character of what I have written, but this book is issued, as others that have preceded it from my pen, in accord with my desire to place in compact form for the general reader reliable accounts of places and peoples in the United States hitherto known only to the explorer and scientist.
To all the writers of the United States Bureau of Ethnology and the Smithsonian Institution, as well as those of other departments of the Government who have written on the region, I gratefully acknowledge many indebtednesses, especially to Powell, Fewkes, Matthews, Stephen, Hodge, Hough, Hrdlicka, Cushing, and Shufeldt.
To those who know the persistency and conscientiousness of my labors in my chosen field, and the pains I take both by observation and from the works of authorities to gain accurate knowledge, and my over-willingness to acknowledge by pen and voice those to whom I am indebted, it will not be necessary to state that I have endeavored to make this book a standard. If I have failed to give credit where it was due, I do so now with an open heart.
For the kindly reception my work in the printed page and on the platform has received in the past I hereby express my grateful acknowledgments.
George Wharton James.