J. W. Hendron

“ A tenseness of nerve and muscle envelops a person. An Indian father crept noiselessly down the steep slope to the valley far below—stopped, listened—not a sound but the whining of the wind through the high tops of pines or the caw of a raven flying high above, or the rolling waters of the little river. Following again and picking each step, bow and arrow in hand, ready to draw, he stopped. ”

“ All the man-power in the northern part of the Pajarito Plateau could never have rescued their kin who might have been caught in these cave homes. Those rocks had rolled from the top to stay and there they remain today. One wonders what stories those buried caves hold—if, by chance, the skeletons of the occupants are still there. Indians perhaps have died scratching at the boulders which covered the entrances to their caves or tearing their hair and clutching their throats as they suffocated and fell extended on the hard plaster floors in their rooms. Those caves have never been opened. ”

“ A woman or two could have been grinding corn on flat stone slabs inside a cliff house, keeping time to a weird monotonous chant sung by old men as they pounded drums. Things were hanging from the ends of roof poles protruding through the front walls of houses—perhaps a piece of highly prized venison. House tops were 16 strewn with corncobs. A weather-beaten corn field had spent itself.
This was the valley known to the Keres as “Tyuonyi.” It was the place where their people had lived only a few generations before. ”

“ Hideous looking creatures with flying black hair, bow and arrow and war club in hand, went whooping and yelling to the Tyuonyi and entered the Canyon at half a dozen places over the north cliff. Two groups of Indians speaking different languages simply could not live in the same valley, farm the same fields, live in the same caves and drink the same water. This was the last of the Keres. They could not hold their own because they were outnumbered and out-fought by “the little strong people.” They were driven off and the Valley of the Frijoles was Tewa from then on. ”

“ The thousands of interested visitors, who go to Bandelier every year to prowl through the ruined homes located in the Valley of the Frijoles, spend an hour or so turning the clock back to Neolithic times when man had only bone, stone and wood tools with which to work. They relax in Hidden Valley—and in imagination try to reconstruct the story connected with these ruins which hold so closely the secrets of the past. ”

“ The Canyon and its extensive cliff dwellings and pueblo ruins are well-known the world over. Neolithic people, stone age people with implements of bone and stone and wood, lived here in ancient times and when they deserted their homes in the cliffs and on the valley floor, they left one of the most outstanding and spectacular sites in the southwestern part of America to be preserved for posterity. ”

“ A mountain sheep was occasionally drawn, or a squirrel, or a rabbit; perhaps a bear or a katsina—a supernatural being. They might have tried to depict their ancestors emerging from the darkness and climbing up a high pole from the underworld of Sipapu. The awanyu or “plumed serpent” was quite common. It was the guardian spirit of springs. In one cave there was a drawing of a horse and certainly this was not an ancient drawing for the Spanish brought the horse to New Mexico. Some wandering Tewa could have seen the Spanish on horseback—on creatures which Indians thought devoured people. ”

“ This excursion of ours took place when roads in New Mexico were almost nil. A buckboard would have been better than an automobile with high pressure tires which blew out about twice a day. We broke an axle on the way home and had to spend the night on La Bajada Mesa between the Rio Grande and the highway in what was locally known as “Old Man Pankey’s Pastures.” The Valley of the Frijoles impressed me, then a little boy, and, I well remember the hundreds of smoke-blackened caves hewn out of the soft cliffs by Indians sometime in the dim past. ”

“ Any night might have witnessed hundreds of tiny smokes emerging from smoke holes in roofs. The glow from tiny fires inside the cliff rooms lighted the doorways in the front walls. A sentry, perhaps, with bow and sharp-pointed arrow was posted at the entrance to Puwige, the big community house, or on some nearby high point where he could comb 63 the landscape with sharp eyes and would warn the pueblo dwellers that warriors were approaching. A summer day would suggest men basking in the sun or attempting to net out fish from the little river below. Women had jars on their heads. ”

“ It is quite possible that the most popular dwelling places in Frijoles Canyon were the dwellings at the Long House, so well protected by the sheer vertical cliff wall. These could have been over-crowded. Indians might have cared little about living in other sections of the cliff. It might have been that some of the cliff dwellers had experienced terrible slides when hundreds of tons of loose rock and boulders came tumbling down on their little houses, crushing them like pasteboard boxes and burying the occupants alive. ”

“ A new modern highway replaces the old trail from the north cliff. The visitor now drives down to the valley floor to spend an hour or so on a tour conducted by the National Park Service, to hear the story of how Indians lived in the cliff homes and in pueblos long before Columbus discovered America. They wonder about cliff dwellers while ravens soar above the valley floor and caw just as they did four hundred years ago. They see the visible remains of the great kiva on the Canyon floor and stroll on to Puwige, the big community house. ”

“ Only a half-mile away is the Stone Lions Shrine. Carved out of native tuff are the life-size images of two mountain lions and around them is an enclosure—a low wall of blocks of volcanic tuff. It is said that even the Zuñi Indians made pilgrimages to this shrine because they believed this to be the entrance to Shipapolima, the underworld from which their ancestors emerged. It is important even today to the Cochitenos who visit it frequently and leave bits of their ceremonial paraphernalia. ”

“ On the forested mesa tops and in the deep water-worn canyons northwest of Cachiti, the Indian Pueblo known today as Cochiti, are hundreds of Indian villages now in ruins. They were occupied, hundreds of years ago, by Indians who were probably speaking the Keres language like the folks at Cochiti, Santo Domingo, San Felipe, Santa Ana and Sia. These people have told some interesting tales, legends mostly, about how all their present villages came to be: about their wanderings, about their Gods and about their troubles with Indians who spoke different languages. ”

“ This ended his contact with the Indians at Cochiti and other Keres-speaking villages. Could it be that Espejo’s soldiers looked back up into those forbidden and forested hills against a high range of snow-covered mountains northwest of Cochiti and decided that they had seen enough of the Indian? Or were they told that they would have to leave their horses behind and go afoot if they wanted to visit the villages on streams running into the Rio Grande? The thought of wearing heavy armor might not have been too fascinating. ”

“ Time developed the terraced community apartment house for the prehistoric Pueblo Indian in the cliff as well as in the open flats on the floor of the Canyon. Second stories, it seems, came quite late in the evolution of house types at Frijoles. Narrow mud walls of such poor quality as were built in earlier times at Tyuonyi would never have held two stories but the new walls of fashioned rock would hold them because they were more stable. It stands to reason that when stone and mortar were laid into a wall, the process of drying out transformed the wall into a unit. ”

“ There will be some, no doubt, who, for the sake of convenience, will mutter indiscreetly about its content—that it isn’t scientific—as if the book had been intended for the exact scientist. Rather, it is meant for the lay reader who visits the Monument area and who would like to understand some of the customs and ways of life of its ancient inhabitants. This ancient world of the cliff dweller of New Mexico is recreated for the visitor through the firing of his imagination by an understanding of the archæological facts revealed here. ”

“ The raccoon, however scarce, likely formed part of the diet of the cliff dweller. And although Indians knew the birds of the forest, they probably did not digest the meat of hawks very well. As a matter of fact, most birds were too fast for the ever-seeking valley dweller with his crude weapons.
Few Indian ruins are excavated in which the remains of 56 corn are not found. The ancient inhabitants raised corn—much corn. It was the most important item in their diet. The fields in the lower end of the Canyon were fertile. The valley was a paradise for primitive people. ”

“ Such could have been life on the Pajarito Plateau eight hundred years ago.
More groups of people came in. Hand-hewn caves could have dotted the soft workable walls of every canyon which would support human life. The well-known canyon of today, the Frijoles, was one such place. The lower part of the valley formed a sort of a bulb for about two miles. Its sheer cliffs on the north side rose to terrific heights. And throughout the countless years, as boulders and dust fell from the cliffs, a talus slope or base had formed. ”

“ Indian women ground corn on old worn metates left there a century before and the men again chanted away in time with the beat of a drum which echoed between steep canyon walls. Baskets were made of juniper and yucca. Blankets of fur and feathers were sewn together. Stout cord was twisted from the fibers of yucca. Indian women made brooms of grass tied with corn husks and yucca fiber to sweep their sooty rooms, while brown-skinned babies rolled in the dust. ”

“ They see the narrow passage through the east side and the remains of obstructions used to slow down the attackers of old. And then they climb to the base of the weathered and sun-drenched cliffs where many an Indian woman swept rubbish from her kitchen out on to the steep slope and ground many an ear of corn on crude metate. ”

“ Indian men again cut pine timbers for roof poles with crude stone axes. They rebuilt walls and laid the poles over the tops. Indian women mixed mud—good hard Tewa mud. They brought in clay from nearby arroyos or from the Rio Grande and raised their talus houses two stories high. Some of the caves, after a hundred years, had eroded beyond use. Doorways and fronts had fallen. Indians gathered fallen building blocks strewn along the base of the cliff which had been fashioned by their ancestors. They built artificial fronts to the caves and plastered them over with mud. ”

“ The large plaza inside Puwige was swept clean, if customs of yesteryear parallel those of today, and the corn was brought therein. Corn, they believed, had life like people and would be glad to be brought in and housed and protected. It was placed in piles and everybody from the pueblo helped with the husking—men, women and children. And when they finished they might have gone to the cliffs to help their relatives with their husking. As fast as the ears were husked they were thrown on the flat mud roofs of the houses to dry. These Indians did not use all the corn at once. ”

“ But students know that five different languages are spoken among the Pueblo Indians of New Mexico today. They are: Tiwa, Tewa, Towa, Keres, and Zuñian. To be on the safe side, one should not touch too heavily upon languages spoken by Indians, especially in a writing of this kind. But languages and dialects do play an important part in our story. When those early people drifted from Chaco Canyon and Mesa Verde toward the Rio Grande, they spoke a language. ”

“ Because of my association with the beautiful Canyon of the Rito de Los Frijoles in Bandelier National Monument, New Mexico, and because of my deep interest in this Monument, the loose ends of a story, about the primitive people who made it their home, have been shaping themselves into a history beginning in America long before either Spaniards or Englishmen came to this country. ”

“ But these villages were not built in a day or a year. It took many years. Although there are the ruins of enough houses and caves along the north wall to have housed two thousand primitive Indians, no more than a few hundred ever lived here at one time. There simply wasn’t land enough to farm, or game enough to supply food for a greater number. It would seem that Tyuonyi never had a static occupation but an ever moving one.
The cliff dwellers at Frijoles, like their kin to the north, 38 knew that the only safe method of living was in communities. ”

“ A well directed arrow would mean meat for the whole family. That the Indian used only the feathers of the turkey is an idea of the past. The broken food bones are 74 found in the ruins of ancient homes. Besides using the meat of the turkey for food, the Indian used the feathers for ceremonial purposes and strips of turkey feather spines made excellent wrappings for making arrow guides.
Such was life in Hidden Valley after the conquest of New Mexico by the Spanish. Living in the Tyuonyi at this time was apparently a necessity. ”

“ These people must have learned by experience how uncomfortable caves were, because they stuck to houses with stone walls and roofs of poles and brush and grass and mud. And they built these homes solid against the cliff and even carved recesses in the cliff so that the ends of the building stones would fit perfectly. ”

“ Indian men hacked out caves large enough for a little family group to enter. Rain and cold created the necessity for heat. Drills of wood were used to start fires in these crude cave dwellings. Fires made them warm—suffocatingly so. There was no way for the smoke to escape except through a wide front opening. This lack of ventilation created a very serious problem for the early cave dweller on the Pajarito Plateau.
There were other Indians who preferred to build their homes on the high mesas during these early times. Adobe was used almost exclusively to build the low walls of rooms. ”