Forty or fifty miles farther south-east, the Colorado Chiquito receives the waters of the Rio Zuñi, flowing from the north-east in a course nearly parallel to that of the Puerco. Aboriginal inscriptions and pictures are found on the sandstone cliffs which border on the stream wherever a smooth surface is presented, but no buildings occur for a distance of about fifty miles, until we come to within eight miles of the Pueblo town of Zuñi, where the table-lands about Arch Spring are covered with ruins, which were seen, although not described, by Sitgreaves and Whipple. All the ruins of the Zuñi valley seem, however, to be of the same nature—stone walls laid in mud mortar, and in a very dilapidated condition. The cut from Whipple shows also a sample of the rock-inscriptions about Arch Spring.[XI-43] Zuñi is a Pueblo town still inhabited, and I shall have something further to say of it in connection with the Pueblo towns of the Rio Grande and its tributaries, for the purpose of comparing the inhabited with the ruined structures.
Rock-Inscriptions at Arch Spring.
Zuñi Vases.
Two or three miles south-east of Zuñi, on the south side of the river, is an elevated level mesa, about a mile in width, bounded on every side by a precipitous descent of over a thousand feet to the plain below. The mesa is covered with a growth of cedar, and in one part are two sandstone pillars of natural formation, which from certain points of view seem to assume human forms. Among the cedars on the mesa, "crumbling walls, from two to twelve feet high, were crowded together in confused heaps over several acres of ground." The walls were constructed of small sandstone blocks laid in mud mortar, and were about eighteen inches thick. They seemed, however, to rest on more ancient ruins, the walls of which were six feet in thickness. At various points on the winding path, by which only the top can be reached, there are stone battlements which guard the passage. A supposed altar was found in a secluded nook near the ruins, consisting of an oval excavation seven feet long, with a vertical shaft two feet high at one end, a flat rock, and a complicated arrangement of posts, cords, feathers, marine shells, beads, and sticks, only to be understood from a drawing, which I do not reproduce because the whole altar so-called is so evidently of modern origin and use. These ruins are commonly called Old Zuñi, and were doubtless inhabited when the Spaniards first came to the country.[XI-44] The cut from Whipple shows two vases found at what is called a sacred spring near Zuñi. Of the first the discoverer says: "the material is a light-colored clay, tolerably well burnt, and ornamented with lines and figures of a dark brown or chocolate color. A vast amount of labor has been spent on decorating the unique lip. A fine borderline has been drawn along the edge and on both sides of the deep embattled rim. Horned frogs and tadpoles alternate on the inner surface of the turrets, while one of the latter is represented on the outside of each. Larger frogs or toads are portrayed within the body of the vessel." One of these figures is presented in the cut enlarged. The second vase is five inches deep, ten inches in diameter at the widest part, and eight inches at the lips. Both outer and inner surface bear a white glazing, and there are four projections of unknown use, one on each side. The decorations are in amber color, and the horned or tufted snakes, shown above the vase, are said to be almost unique in America.[XI-45]
OJO DEL PESCADO.
At and near some springs called Ojo del Pescado, on the head-waters of this stream, some twelve miles above Zuñi, there are at least four or five ruined structures, or towns. They are similar in character to the other ruins. Two of them near the spring have an elliptical shape, as shown by the lines of foundation-stones, and are from eight hundred to a thousand feet in circumference. The houses seem to have been built around the periphery, forming a large interior court. These towns are so completely in ruins that nothing can be ascertained of the details of their construction, except their general form, and the fact that they were built of stones and mud. About a thousand yards down the river from the springs are ruins covering a space one hundred and fifty by two hundred yards, and in much better preservation than those mentioned, though of the same nature. The material was flat stones and cement, and the walls are standing in places to the height of two stories. Möllhausen tells us that the roofs and fire-places were still standing at the time of his visit. Simpson describes a ruin as being two miles below the spring, and which may possibly be the same last mentioned. The buildings were originally two stories high and built continuously about a rectangular area three hundred by four hundred feet. In the interior of the enclosed court was seen a square estufa, twelve by eighteen feet, and ten feet high, with the roof still perfect. The cut shows some of the rock-inscriptions at Ojo del Pescado.[XI-46]