3. Not only do the ruins of this group bear no resemblance to those of the south, but they represent in all respects buildings like those still inhabited by the Pueblo tribes and the Moquis, and do not differ more among themselves than do the dwellings of the peoples mentioned. Every one of them may be most reasonably regarded as the work of the direct ancestors of the present inhabitants of the Pueblo towns, who did not differ to any great extent in civilization or institutions from their descendants, though they may very likely have been vastly superior to them in power and wealth. Consequently there is not a single relic in the whole region that requires the agency of any extinct race of people, or any other nations—using the word in a somewhat wider signification than has sometimes been given to it in the preceding volumes—than those now living in the country. Not only do the remains not point in themselves to any extinct race, but if there were any traditional or other evidence indicating the past agency of such a race, it would be impossible to reconcile the traditional with the monumental evidence except by the supposition that the Pueblos are a foreign people who took possession of the abandoned dwellings of another race, whose institutions they imitated to the best of their ability; but I do not know that such a theory has ever been advanced. I am aware that this conclusion is sadly at variance with the newspaper reports in constant circulation, of marvelous cities, the remnants of an advanced but extinct civilization, discovered by some trapper, miner, or exploring expedition. I am also aware of the probability that many ruins in addition to those I have been able to describe, have been found by military officials, government explorers, and private individuals during the past ten years; and I hope that the appearance of this volume may cause the publication of much additional information on the subject,—but that any of the newly discovered monuments differ in type from those previously known, there is much reason to doubt. Very many of the newspaper accounts referred to relate to discoveries made by Lieut. Wheeler's exploring party during the past two or three years. Lieut. Wheeler informs me that the reports, so far as they refer to the remains of an extinct people, are without foundation, and that his observations have led him to a conclusion practically the same as my own respecting the builders of the ruined Pueblo towns.
THE ANCIENT PUEBLO TOWNS.
4. It follows that New Mexico, Arizona, and northern Chihuahua were once inhabited by agricultural semi-civilized tribes, not differing more among themselves than do the Pueblo tribes of the present time; the most fertile valleys of the region were cultivated by them, and were dotted by fine town-dwellings of stone and adobe, occupied in common by many families, similar but superior to the present Pueblo towns. At least a century, probably much longer, before the Spaniards made their appearance, the decline of this numerous and powerful people began, and it has continued uninterruptedly down to the present time, until only a mere remnant in the Rio Grande and Moqui towns is left. Before the Spaniards came all the southern towns, on the Gila and its tributaries, had been abandoned; since that time the decline of the northern nations, which the Spaniards found in a tolerably flourishing condition, is a matter of history. The reason of the decline this is hardly the place to consider, but it is doubtless to the inroads of outside warlike and predatory tribes like the Apaches that we must look for the chief cause. It is not impossible that natural changes in the surface of the region, such as the drying-up of springs, streams, or lakes, may have also contributed to the same effect. These changes, however, if such took place, were probably gradual in their operation; for the location of the ruins in what are still in most cases among the most fertile valleys, either in the vicinity of water, or at least of a dried-up stream, and their absence in every instance in the absolutely desert tracts, show pretty conclusively that the towns were not destroyed suddenly by any natural convulsion which radically changed the face of the country. It is not difficult to imagine how the agricultural Pueblo communities, weakened perhaps at first by some international strife which forced them to neglect the tillage of their land, and hard pressed by more than usually persistent inroads from bands of Apaches who plundered their crops and destroyed their irrigation-works, visited perchance by pestilence, or by earthquakes sent by some irate deity to dry up their springs, were forced year by year to yield their fair fields to the drifting sands, to abandon their southern homes and unite their forces with kindred northern tribes; till at last came the crowning blow of a foreign invasion, which has well nigh extinguished an aboriginal culture more interesting and admirable, if not in all respects more advanced, than any other in North America.
CHAPTER XII.
ANTIQUITIES OF THE NORTHWEST.
General Character of North-western Remains—No Traces of Extinct or of Civilized Races—Antiquities of California—Stone Implements—Newspaper Reports—Taylor's Work—Colorado Desert—Trail and Rock-Inscriptions—Burial Relics of Southern California—Bones of Giants—Mounds in the Saticoy Valley—New Almaden Mine—Pre-Historic Relics in the Mining Shafts—Stone Implements, Human Bones, and Remains of Extinct Animal Species—Voy's Work—San Joaquin Relics—Merced Mounds—Martinez—Shell Mounds round San Francisco Bay, and their Contents—Relics from a San Francisco Mound—Antiquities of Nevada—Utah—Mounds of Salt Lake Valley—Colorado—Remains at Golden City—Extensive Ruins in Southern Colorado and Utah—Jackson's Expedition—Mancos and St Elmo Cañons—Idaho and Montana—Oregon—Washington—Mounds on Bute Prairie—Yakima Earth-work—British Columbia—Deans' Explorations—Mounds and Earth-works of Vancouver Island—Alaska.
Ruins of the New Mexican Pueblo type, described in the preceding chapter, extend across the boundary lines of New Mexico and Arizona, and have been found by travelers in southern Utah and Colorado; stone and bone implements similar to those used by the natives when the first Europeans came and since that time, are frequently picked up on the surface or taken from aboriginal graves in most parts of the whole northern region; a few scattered rock-inscriptions are reported in several of the states; burial mounds and other small earth-heaps of unknown use are seen in many localities; shell mounds, some of them of great size, occur at various points in the coast region, as about San Francisco Bay and on Vancouver Island, and they probably might be found along nearly the whole coast line; and the mining shafts of California have brought to light human remains, implements wrought by human hands, and bones of extinct animals, at great depths below the surface, evidently of great age. With the preceding paragraph and a short account of the ruins of Colorado, I might consistently dispose of the antiquities of the Northwest.
There has not been found and reported on good authority a single monument or relic which is sufficient to prove that the country was ever inhabited by any people whose claims to be regarded as civilized were superior to those of the tribes found by Europeans within its limits. It is true that some implements may not exactly agree with those of the tribes now occupying the same particular locality, and some graves indicate slight differences in the manner of burial, but this could hardly be otherwise in a country inhabited by so many nations whose boundaries were constantly changing. Yet I have often heard the Aztec relics of California and Oregon very confidently spoken of. It is a remarkable fact that to most men who find a piece of stone bearing marks of having been formed by human hands, the very first idea suggested is that it represents an extinct race, while the last conclusion arrived at is that the relic may be the work of a tribe still living in the vicinity where it was found.
CALIFORNIAN RELICS.
California has within her limits large quantities of native utensils and many burial deposits, some of which doubtless date back to the time when no European had yet set foot in the country. A complete description of such relics, illustrated with cuts of typical specimens from different sections of the state, would be of great value in connection with the account of the Californian tribes given in a preceding volume; but unfortunately the material for such description and cuts are utterly wanting, and will not be supplied for many years. Officers and assistants connected with the U. S. Coast Survey and other government exploring expeditions, are constantly, though slowly, gathering relics for the national collection, and a few individuals acting in an unofficial capacity have examined certain localities and described the aboriginal implements found therein through trustworthy mediums. But most of the discoveries in this direction are recorded only in newspaper accounts, which, in a large majority of cases, offer no guarantee of their authenticity or accuracy. Many are self-evident hoaxes; many others are doubtless as reliable as if published in the narrative of the most trust-worthy explorer or in the transactions of any learned society; but to decide upon the relative merits of the great bulk of these accounts is altogether impossible, to say nothing of the absence of drawings, which, after all, are the only satisfactory description of miscellaneous relics. I therefore deem it not advisable to fill the pages of a long chapter with a compilation of the almost innumerable newspaper items in my possession, useless for the most part to antiquarians, and comparatively without interest to the general reader. Dr Alex. S. Taylor has already made quite a complete compilation of the earlier accounts in Californian newspapers, which he published in the California Farmer in 1860-3. Without, as a rule, going into details, I shall present a brief résumé of what has been written about Californian relics of aboriginal times, giving in full only a few reports of undoubted authenticity.[XII-1]
Brasseur de Bourbourg tells us that in the distant north "was found anciently a city named Tula, the ruins of which are thought to have been found in the valley, still so little explored, of Tulares. The Americans have announced in their newspapers the discovery of these Californian ruins, but can one credit the reports?" Brasseur possibly alludes in the paragraph quoted to certain reports circulated about 1853, which announced the discovery, somewhere in the desert of the Colorado on the California side, of a ruined bridge of stone, where no river had run for ages, together with an immense pyramid, and other grand remains. These reports seem to have originated in the correspondence of a Placerville newspaper; but whether they were manufactured in the office of the paper, or were actually sent in by some roaming prospector of an inventive turn of mind, does not appear.[XII-2]