Author Amphitheatre,
Bass Camp,
Grand Canyon, Arizona.
THE INDIANS OF THE
Painted Desert Region
CHAPTER I
THE PAINTED DESERT REGION
Civilization and barbarism obtrude themselves delightfully at every turn in this Wonderland of the American Southwest, called the Painted Desert Region.
Ancient and modern history play you many a game of hide-and-seek as you endeavor to trace either one or the other in a study of its aboriginal people; you look upon a ceremony performed to-day and call it modern. In reality it is of the past, so old, so hoary with antiquity that even to the participants it has lost its origin and much of its meaning.
History—exciting, thrilling, tragic—has been made in the Painted Desert Region; was being made centuries before Leif Ericson landed on the shores of Vinland, or John and Sebastian Cabot sailed from Bristol. History that was ancient and hoar when the band of pilgrims from Leyden battled with the wild waves of the Atlantic's New England shore, and was lapsing into sleepiness before the guns of the minute-men were fired at Lexington or Allen had fallen at Bunker Hill.