AMERICA SOUTH-WEST

Greymouth Evening Star, 14 November 1930, Page 11

AMERICA SOUTH-WEST

LAND OF CLIFF-DWELLERS. At the time of the discovery of North America by Europeans • nearly 450 years ago, few of its original peoples north of present-day Mexico had ever advanced appreciably beyond the state of drifting, skin-clad nomads. There was one outstanding exception. Before Roman legions fought their way into Gaul, prehistoric Americans in what is now the States of New Mexico, Arizona, Utah, and a corner of Colorado, had become expert agriculturists, developed irrigation, built permanent stone of adobe “apartment house” settlements, manufactured beautiful pottery and woven cotton fabrics oh hand looms. Over nearly 300,000 square miles the dry climate of the south-west;' has preserved literally thousands of ruins that testify graphically to the extent, development and achievements of these early American pueblo civilisations. As a whole, they present one of the richest fields of archaeological research in the world. To the layman their buried .sects have an equal lure, masking undreamed-of American cultures rivalling in antiquity and interest anything found abroad. Scientists have already studied, excavated, and partly restored a' number of the southwest’s great pueblo ruins. Recorded history of the presentday south-western Indian pueblos practically dates from 1540, when the Spaniards under Coronado entered the country from the south. Already the once • numerous prehistoric populations had shrunk to perhaps 20,Q00, living in some seventy towns, in the next 250 years of strife there was further shrinkage. A few new towns were built—many were abandoned or destroyed. To-day the so-called “modern” pueblos —nearly all many centuries old—number twenty-six, inhabited by 10,000 Indians. These fascinating town's are amazingly little changed by long contact with the white man. The unique and characteristic pueblo architecture, the daily life of the inhabitants and there strangely beautiful and interesting religious ceremonials all mirror an America unbelievably ancient.

Of the inhabited pueblos eight comprise the far-famed Hopi villages of North-eastern Arizona. These ' are visited on the annual Snake Dance cruise in August, and on many special long cruises. All the others are in New Mexico. Amongst the many notable examples is the city of Old Santa Fe — the capital of New Mexico—and ‘its surroundings. The city of Santa Fe is reached by a branch line at a place called Lamy. From there the visitor travels by a service of cars connected With railway to the brink of the Canyon of El Rito de los Frijoles, a distance of forty-five miles (off the beaten path of the Great South-west). From El Rilo one may go on foot or horseback to many other places of interest. For instance, the ruins of Otowai and Tsankawi, located on El Santo Fe-Rito de los Frijoles road, may also be reached by car. Pictures show but a few of the scenes of like enchantment which exist in the “most interesting fifty-mile square” in the United States. Many ancient ruins may be explored in this region, both of prehistoric Indian dwellers and of early Spanish residents. Modern pueblos (Indian settlements), with their picturesque life, are numerous along the Rio Grands — native Spanish-American life and architecture abound everywhere.

PRIMITIVE PEOPLE. In New Mexico and Arizona there are tens of thousands of Indians of many tribes. These tribes are of different stocks, and live under a wide variety of conditions. There are those who live in tepees, like the Apaches; those who live in hogans, like the Hav'asupais and Navajos, and the Qeublos, who have always dwelt in picturesque adobe towns. Each of these tribes has its own dances, religious ceremonies that are the dignified, serious, and highlysymbolic prayers of a primitive people. In number and variety, in colour and rhythm, the dancers of the Southwestern Indians are unsurpassed by the aboriginal ceremonial of any country. Among the Pueblos, living a settled community life through the ages, they occur with greater frequency and variety than in any other tribe. Comparatively, few of those ’ intensely interesting ceremonial dances occur on fixed dates. Those that do are bound up with Christian observances, as the celebrating the day of the patron saint of a Pueblo village. Such, ceremonies become a curious combination of the Christian and pagan.