AMERICAN SOUTH-WEST

Lake Wakatip Mail, Issue 3969, 7 October 1930, Page 7

AMERICAN SOUTH-WEST

LAHB OF THE ANCIENT CLIFF DWELLER j V I At the time el' the discovery u! ! North America by Europeans nearly (450 years ago, lew of its aboriginal j peoples north of present-day Mox.co Iliad ever advanced appreciably beyond : the state of drifting, skin-clad nomads. There was one outstanding exception. Before Roman legions _ I ought their way into Gaul, prehistoric Americans in what is now the States of New .Mexico, Arizona. Utah, and a corner o! Colorado, had become expert agriculturists, developed irrigation, built permanent stone or adobe i “ apartment house ” settlements, 'manufactured beautiful pottery and woven cotton fabrics on hand looms. I Over nearly 800,000 square miles the dry climate of the South-west has preserved literally thousands of ruins r.lmt testify graphically to the extent, development and aclnevements ol these early American pueblo civilisations. As i a whole they present one of the ncli- ■ est fields of archaeological research n; the world. To the layman their buried s cts have an equal lure, masking mi-deumed-of American cultures rivalling in antiquity and interest anything found abroad. Scientists have already studied, excavated, and partly restored a number of the South-west’s greatest pueblo ruins. j Recorded history of the present-day ■ South-western 'lndian 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 20,000, living in some seventy towns. in the next j 250 years of strife there was further shrinkage. A few new towns were i built—many were .abandoned or deI stroved. To-day the so-called “ modern ” pueblos—nearly all many centuries old—-number twenty-six, inhabitated by 10,000 Indians. FASCINATING TOWNS, i These fascinating towns are amaz- ! ingly little changed by long contact with the white man. The unique and i characteristic -pueblo architecture, the ; daily life of the inhabitants and their 'strangely beautiful and interesting religions ceremonials all mirror an America unbelievable ancient. Of the inliabitated pueblos eight I 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 j long cruises. All the others are in | New Mexico. i Amongst the many notable examples is the city of Old Santa Fe—the capital of New Mexico —and its surroundings. The citv 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 the railway to the brink of the Canyon of El Rito do los Frijoles, a 1 distance of forty-,five miles (off the beaten path of the Great South-west). From FI Rito one may go on foot or i horseback to many other places of in- ! terest. For instance, the ruins of Otowai and Tsankawi, located on El Santa Fe-Rito defies 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 Grandenative Spanish-Amerlean life and architecture abound everywhere. PRIMITIVE PEOPLE, i In New Mexico and Arizona there I 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 Havasu pa is and Navajos, and the Pueblos. who have always dwelt in picturesque adobe towns, j Each of those tribes has its own dances, ichgious ceremonies that are H’o*. dignified, serious, and highly-sym-boHc prayers of a primitive people. In number and variety, in colour and rhythm, the dances of the Southwestern Indians arc unsurpassed by the aboriginal ceremonial of any country. Among the Pueblos, living a I settled community life through the ages, they occur with greater frequency and variety than in any other tribe. .... , Comparatively lew of those intensely interesting ceremonial dances occur on fixed dates. Those that do are bound up with Christian observances, as >n ■celebrating the day of the patron saint ;of a Pueblo village. Such ceremonials i become a curious combination of the j Christian and pagan.