THE CAVE DWELLERS

Otago Witness, Issue 3862, 20 March 1928, Page 80

THE CAVE DWELLERS

By

Explorer.

The present people of the United States of America read their history in a few raw decades ; the earlier Spaniard glances back through gorgeous centuries; and the poor Indian has his myths and traditions, how old no one knows—perhaps back into ages before the Christian era. Th e Indian .has not changed; the others ever change. In the land of the ancient cave dwellers of JNew Mexico, the rush of the present century comes up to pueblo— and passes, leaving an impression here and there on the land, but not apparently on the Indian.

New Mexico, and its capital, historic banta Fe, attracts the visitor, and sends him off up the mountain sides and into the canyons ; reveals to him the cliff ruins and ceremonial cav e of long-dead Indians, rouses his enthusiasm for the beautiful scenery, the peaks and waterfalls, the forests and the forg e of the Rio Grande del Morte ; he will visit the stone hons at Cochite and th e ancient ruins of Yapastic nearby, poke into th e painted cave and look on the Otowi and Trankawi rums, the communal house of the Indians and return* to wonder at the adobe dwellings of the new capital. And the Indian looks on—passive. Once he was not so indifferent, but the invader broke him for ever. Ihe United States of America throughout the length and breadth of tb e land possesses., no public building comparable m any way historically with the old aaope palace in the capital villa of the ancient “ kingdom,” now State of New Constructed by the Spanish settlers who came to New Mexico with Don Juan Onate in 1598, this ancient bullt ..^ or purposes of defence who \ 7 ai l>ke tribes of Indians se, habitat and “hunting grounds” ferri loca " d ln tbe mountain fastnesses, ertile valleys, and boundless prairies of the great South-West. The bunding of the royal presidio at Santa Fe, of which mnA° i d palace WaS the most imposing and mportant structure, was coincident with In °L the Villa °f Santa Fe Pedro 9 de d 'p lng u the r l administration of Don General of th »’^° V r n ° r and Ca P tain * of X*ew mJ’ .-? 1 lngd , Om and Provinces of th- L°C* tne tblrd representative the office Sh Cr ° Wn a t6r Onate t 0 llold

r< n iS . n ° doubt that the Villa of b..Lta Fe in pre-Columbian times, was We site of one or more Indian mieblos. Tins is made apparent by the discovery of ancient walls of Indian construction encountered in excavations of trenches for sewer and water service purposes, deep cellars, basements and wells, as also skeletons, pottery .and shards, and other positive evidence of Indian habitation, but the contention, as made by some, that the palace, as originally constructed, was •’rected on the site of a pueblo, portions f the walls of which were incorporated in the walls of the fortress, is not founded on documentary proof. During the half-century «f Spanish rule preceding the great revolution of 1680 when the Spaniards were driven out of the province, the sala de justicia of the palace was the scene of many state trials of Indians charged with apostasy, witchcraft,. and attempted rebellion against the Spanish authority, the most notable having been during the rule of Governor and Captain-General Trevino in 1675. when a considerable number of Indians were prosecuted by the authorities and executed Dr sold as slaves. Serious revolts of the Indians came subsequently. The decorative features of the old palace, in one respect at least, were unique and quite out of the ordinary, for festoons of the ears of Indians slain in combat with the hostile Apache, Navajo, and Ute were draped over the windows and doors of the apartments dedicated to the public business. Indian - scalp-locks also found prominent installation in the governors office. Another distinguishing arehitectual feature was the glazing of all _the windows of the palace. No other building, public or private, from Chihuahua to the Mississippi, was so equipped. The peculiar ideas in interior decorations were copied from the Indians, who were accustomed to display the scalp-locks of their fallen foes before their lodges and upon their deadly lances. Colonel Narbona, an officer of dragoons, and later a Governor of New Mexico, the Paladin of. Indian fighters of his time, used a bridle and silver-mounted saddle for his favourite mount, decorated with the scalplocks of Indians whom he had killed in combat.

Trophies of this character constituted the principal decorations in many private homes as well as ornaments to the whitewashed interiors of the old palace. It is related of Colonel Narbona that he was the equal, if not the superior, of any Indian in dexterous use of the. deadly lance, the bow and arrow, and the reata, or rope-—one of the most useful, and,, at the same time, most dangerous weapons of the Mexican vaquero.

M ith the building of the new capitol, the palace ceased in housing the Governors of New Mexico, and its several apartments were given over to other uses, the most notable, at first, being the occupation of the eastern end by the Historical Society of New Mexico with its collections and library. Later, with the creation of the State. Museum, the control of the building was. placed wi*ffi the Board of Regents of the museum, with the provision that the eastern one-half of the structure should he occupied by . the Historical Society. ' . Other interesting.places are the Rancho de Bouquet, situate on the Santa Fe-Tjaos highway,.lB miles from the capital, in the

very heart of the Pueblo Indian country the Valle Ranch Apache Inn, on the’ Pecos River, 30 miles from Santa Fe, at the entrance to the areas embraced, within the limits of the Santa Fe National Forest; and Los Cerros, less than two miles from the plaza’ on Canyon road, the main highway adjacent to the Rio Santa Fe, and penetrating the Santa Fe National Forest to Monument Rocks, and points beyond in the picturesque canyon through which courses the limpit stream rippling its merry way from the snowy peaks of the’ Santa Fe Range to . the Rio Grande 30 miles distant

Encircling the city, at varying dis-, tances, are the Sangre de Cristo and Jemez ranges of .mountains, forest clad and snow capped, rising to elevations ofmore than 13,000 ft, from whose heights and slopes start streams abounding in trout.—Weekly Scotsman.