Read Ebook: Frijoles: A Hidden Valley in the New World by Hendron J W Jerome William Thomas Dorothy Editor Taylor Jocelyn Illustrator

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INTRODUCTION

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.

The material is based upon the work of many students who have done actual research in Frijoles Canyon and adjacent areas. It is a combination of legendary material, observation, speculation, scientific fact and logic. The text in the following pages is not presented as absolute and unquestionable fact in its entirety, and the author does not intend that it be interpreted that way. 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 archaeological facts revealed here.

Until a great amount of research is done, a more accurate account of the archaeology of this area will not be had. But because of the thousands of visitors to Bandelier National Monument each year, and their interest in its ancient inhabitants, this popular narrative is presented. Throughout the text are many uncommon words and names used frequently in New Mexico. The reader will find a helpful list of these with simplified pronunciations and meanings at the end of the book.

FRIJOLES, A HIDDEN VALLEY IN THE NEW WORLD

FACING PAGE Looking Up the Canyon From Ceremonial Cave xvi The Old North Trail 1 Bandelier National Monument and Vicinity 8 The Painted Cave 14 Stone Lions of Cochiti 15 Ruins of Long House 30 A Part of Long House Ruins 31 Artist's Restoration of Puwige 42 Aerial View of Puwige.--Restored 43 Ceremonial Cave 44 Kiva in Ceremonial Cave 45 A Section of Long House 60 Reconstructed Cliff House 60 Ruins of Puwige 61 Ruins of Large Kiva 61 The Author at an Old Hidden Trail 76 A Party of Visitors at Long House 77

PLATES

Large Kiva. Ground Plan Large Kiva. Section Drawings Ceremonial Cave. Ground Plan Ceremonial Cave. Section Drawings Ground Plan of Frijoles Canyon. Ruins Area Northern Wall of Frijoles Canyon

As I remember it, there was a short-cut road into the Frijoles, little more than a cow path which left the Albuquerque-Santa Fe highway just on top of La Bajada Hill. It must have been fifteen miles across La Bajada Mesa west to the Rio Grande. Over the rolling hills of mesa-land the gears of our car ground a good part of the way in low until the little settlement of Buckman on the banks of the Rio Grande was reached. A man by this name, Buckman, used to cut and haul timber from the high potreros; he built a sawmill, and also a narrow bridge across the river here. It was a rickety old bridge with planks for runners but we got across. The winding, bumpy road led us up a steep climb from the Rio Grande to the forested land extending toward the high mountains. Once on top the mesa we drove between two of many high potreros and on into Water Canyon where the road followed the narrow valley for a few miles. We crossed a winding creek several times and drove through green pastures until the high-walled canyon became narrow.

Presently, the road turned to the left winding up the side of the mountain. Fortunately it was not muddy or we might never have made the steep grade. Once on top of the plateau the road headed south and a little west in the direction of Frijoles Canyon a few miles distant. We wound through majestic yellow pines, pi?ons and scrubby junipers. Here the road turned again and paralleled the Canyon for a few miles, up and down hills, ever twisting and turning. We drove to the top of an old trail which might have been used by ancient Indians some four hundred years ago. I walked to the brink of the Canyon, my mother constantly reminding me not to go too near. The height was terrific. It must have been six hundred feet to the bottom of the gorge--almost straight down. It made me dizzy. I had never seen such a thing before in all my life. It was to me a Hidden Valley and I wondered why any people wanted to come away out here to live--even prehistoric Indians. Of course, it was awe-inspiring but I was too young to be inspired.

There were saddle horses at the brink of the Canyon for folk who couldn't or who were too lazy to walk down the trail. And then there were benches and tables underneath the pines for picnickers who wanted to eat either before they began the long descent into the valley, or after they returned from it. For years and years people walked or rode horseback up and down the steep old trail. Perhaps some never reached the bottom. Individuals came from all over the world. Some painted, some viewed, some fished, some wrote and some prayed to God that they might make it back to the top. Others, enthralled by the grandeur of the Canyon, desired to cast themselves off its rim into the mystery of its depth. I myself distinctly remember climbing down that old winding trail from the north rim. It seemed that we would never reach the bottom. The trail was a precipitous one, zigzagging and narrow, to the valley floor far below.

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. But I knew not the significance of these caves. I knew nothing of the story of how prehistoric Indians lived four hundred years ago. They were merely blackened holes to me occupied by a people about whom I knew little. I remember the ruins of the big community house. It was located across the little river from the stone ranch house. I thought it foolish for Indians to build houses out in the sun when there were so many shade trees close to the Rito. I now believe that this first visit of my childhood created within me the desire to solve for myself the questions then arising in my mind concerning the Canyon. Since that time hundreds of famous personages have passed this way: artists, archaeologists, doctors, botanists, psychologists, statesmen, preachers, governors, engineers, students and romancers, each finding satisfaction in his own particular line of interest.

Life in this place two decades ago can best be described by the owner of the old ranch, Mrs. Evelyn C. Frey, who has made Frijoles Canyon her home for twenty odd years. She can tell some very interesting stories about the early days. She knows the country and the trails, the flowers and the birds; and she still calls folks, who live thirty miles away, her neighbors. She recalls many lonely hours spent with her baby in the stillness of the Canyon. She remembers how the sun would go down over the south cliff at twelve noon and then how the day would change toward cold evenings and bitter winter nights. Ofttimes a howling wind would arise, then followed a calm, and in the morning a foot of deep snow. And there was no way out of the valley except over the old north trail. She tells how deer pranced around in full view, unafraid. Wild turkeys rested upon the wall behind the old ranch place and could be seen from her kitchen window. But she was never afraid and said she knew how to use a six-shooter if she had to. Mrs. Frey had told me many times, how, after a rough and tiresome drive from Santa Fe over fire trails, all supplies were packed on horses and mules and brought down to the floor of the Canyon.

A heavy pack mule, once upon a time, loaded with lumber, just didn't make one of the sharp turns in the trail. It dropped one hundred fifty feet and went to mule heaven, bumping from first one level to another, lumber and all. The carcass was left for the scavengers of the air to feast upon. Mrs. Frey has described how she often bundled her tiny baby up in blankets to protect it from the cold on bitter winter nights, and, bearing the child in her arms she herself had swung into the saddle at the top of the old trail. The narrow path was covered with snow all the way down, and although she was afraid, the faithful horse had always carried them safely to their home.

The time came when pack horses were replaced by a cable-way strung from the north cliff to the floor of the Canyon. It was a thousand feet long and the tram-car was operated by a gasoline engine. This was the way supplies were brought in for the operation of the dude ranch--even the winter's supply of wood. It was not until 1933 that the old trail was abandoned. At this time an automobile road was blasted from the side of the steep cliff in the lower end of Frijoles Canyon.

The history, if written, might prove far more interesting to many people than the prehistory. There would be some interesting tales to tell about folk and their affairs, but our main concern is with the prehistory. I do not think I exaggerate the situation when I say, despite a visitor's interest or profession, most guests have come to Frijoles to visit the hundreds of ruins of homes built by the ancestors of some of our present-day Pueblo Indians. 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.

Could there be, in the Southwest, a man or woman who has not heard something of the Spanish expeditions into the New World during the sixteenth century? And, narrowing it down, about Coronado's famed Seven Cities of Cibola and how they turned out to be six instead of seven poor little pueblos of stone and mud. They are now reduced to but one called Zu?i. Marcos de Nisa, a Franciscan friar, had led the little army of conquerors to nothing here except grief and disappointment in trade for fabulous stories about gold and silver.

New Mexico was a new country and besides extending the domain of His Majesty, King Charles, and forcing Christianity on the Indians, there were many wonders that would stand investigation. Had it not been for an Indian who was named Bigotes by the Spaniards, the conquerors might never have reached the Rio Grande during that expedition. Bigotes means "whiskers" and his appearance must have been a sight to His Majesty's soldiers when this half-clad native came strolling into their camp with a few companions from Pecos far to the east. Unlike most of his kind, Bigotes wore a long mustache. He had brought buffalo hides to trade to the Spanish and he persuaded them to visit his country. It was on August 29, 1540, that the little band pushed out under the guidance of Bigotes. On September 7 of that year they reached the Province of Tiguex, which was between the present towns of Albuquerque and Bernalillo.

There were twelve Indian villages on the banks of the Rio Grande within a distance of some fifteen miles or so. The Rio Grande was described by the Spanish, at that time, as large and mighty in a spacious valley two leagues wide. Although the valley was broad and fertile, the Spanish description was certainly an over-estimation. Two leagues equalled five or six miles. They also said that the river froze so hard that laden animals and carts could cross over it. Tiguex was the winter camp of the entire Spanish expedition. It was here that Coronado and his band of weary and disappointed explorers spent that miserable and never-to-be-forgotten winter of 1540-1541. Glowing accounts of how Indians lived were told by the romantic Spanish chroniclers. Still, they found only a poor simple people living by the soil and a little hunting--but no gold.

Tiguex was not the only province along the river. There were others whose people had the same ways and peculiar customs as the people at the Tiguex villages. One of these provinces was that of Quirex. It has been determined that this was the district where the Keres language is spoken today by five very primitive Indian Pueblos. They are Cochiti, Santo Domingo, San Felipe, Santa Ana and Sia. Moved by an indomitable spirit and determination, a small band of soldiers pushed far north from Tiguex, past the Keres-speaking villages where another province was discovered on the upper Rio Grande. It was reported that two very fine villages were to be seen. According to some students these were in the vicinity of the present Tewa-speaking village of San Juan. The entire Indian population moved out at the sight of the Spanish. They retreated into the mountains where they said they had four very strong villages in a rough country where it was impossible for the Spanish to follow on horseback. Had they followed these people they would, no doubt, have found almost inaccessible Indian trails. Instead, they returned to Tiguex and left this northern province in peace. Little did the Spanish realize what extensive villages they might have seen in the rough mountains mentioned by the Indians.

Indians also spoke of villages on rivers flowing into the Rio Grande. Could these villages have been on the banks of the Rio Chama or were they on the Pajarito Plateau? They likely were in the Pajarito region and could have been the same villages mentioned by the Indians living near San Juan. But the towns of the Pajarito remained unexplored, unplundered and unstripped of what little they had. How fortunate were these people to have escaped the attentions of the Spanish with their shining armor, pointed lances and firearms. Otherwise, these poor Indians might have found themselves without adequate clothing and food for the approaching winter of 1541-1542 as did the Indians at Tiguex. But the passing of that second uneventful winter by disheartened and spirit-broken Spanish soldiers ended a chapter which was never to be forgotten by the other little pueblo dwellers. In the spring of 1542, the remnants of the Spanish were gathered together and the return to Mexico was begun. This must have been a day of rejoicing for the Indians at Tiguex. They had experienced a great deal. Murder, insincerity on the part of the Spanish, and violation of their living standards were just a few of their trials.

Life went on in the pueblos. Slowly but surely the Indians reorganized. Summers and winters passed and the Indians tilled their fields of corn for two generations before the Spanish came again. This next expedition up the Rio Grande in 1581 was that of Captain Francisco Sanchez Chamuscado with nine soldiers. This combined treasure-hunt and missionary expedition ended in tragedy. Chamuscado died before he returned to Mexico, and two padres, who accompanied the little party, were murdered by the Indians at Tiguex. So elated were the Indians with their success that they drew pictures of the killings.

Dreams of conquest and fabulous empires caused the launching of still another expedition into New Mexico in 1583. It was headed by Antonio de Espejo. Espejo, too, passed northward from the villages of the Province of Tiguex which had been visited by Coronado some forty years before and by Chamuscado in 1581. This little handful went north to a place called Cachiti. This was one of the pueblos of the Keres-speaking group mentioned by Coronado. People who were peaceful came from other pueblos and tried to persuade the Spanish to go with them. They told stories of most of the houses being three stories high. The Spanish named this place Los Confiados because the people were not disturbed. But where was Los Confiados? It has never been determined.

It would be a guess to say where these other Indians came from. It has been suggested that they might have come from villages on the Jemez River when they heard of the arrival of the Spanish. There is still another explanation which is also conjectural but possible. These people could have come from villages in the mountains. Archaeologists and historians are unable to give us the exact extent of the Keres villages in those days although careful study and research suggest that only seven remained extant at the time of the Spanish Conquest. Yet, who can say that towns were not still being occupied back in the hills? 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.

Why was it that Espejo's chroniclers did not leave us more information about the town of Los Confiados and its people? Was it not important? They told us about Zu?i and its Seven Cities, about the Tiguex villages and Cochiti. Coronado's little group, some forty years before, had visited the Province of Hemes, now Jemez, whose people spoke yet another language, the Towa. And history tells us that Espejo made a two-day visit to the town of Los Confiados in 1583. 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. And if these people were from villages in the mountains, what was their motive in attempting to lead the Spanish there? Was it a trap? Did they have some other motive in mind, or was their mission one of peaceful intent? Archaeologists now tell us that it probably has been centuries since Keres-speaking people lived in these mountains northwest of Cochiti.

If one had sufficient imaginative ability he might work up a hypothetical case of what could possibly have taken place during this February of 1583. To get at the basis of our story and the things to be talked about hypothesis seems to be our only recourse. Nothing seems exact when dealing with early New Mexican history, but this hypothesis could be as correct, possibly, as some of the accounts given by the Spanish possessed of romanticism. But how close were the explorers to Hidden Valley, the like of which they would never again be able to see! They stayed clear of the mountains and kept to the valleys. In all of their travels and wanderings, the Spanish kept out of the watershed between the Jemez Mountain Range and the Rio Grande Valley. It is today known as the Pajarito Plateau. The Ca?ada de Cochiti is its southern boundary, not far from the pueblo of Cochiti. The Rio Grande bounds it on the east, the Rio Chama on the north and the Jemez Mountains on the west. The entire plateau is made up of deposits of soft volcanic ash, known as tuff, and deposits of black basalt. Geologists tell us that all this happened an inconceivably long time ago--three million years, let us say, in geological times known as the Pliocene and Pleistocene periods.

Today the Pajarito Plateau is a profusion of high potreros , and deep canyons cut by streams and arroyos which carry off seasonal rains. Some of the canyons have sheer vertical cliffs of volcanic ash, hundreds of feet high in places, and this ash is soft enough to be carved and hewn into various shapes and forms. The cliffs are even soft enough for the wind to carve what appear to be statues which stand out as exceptional works of nature. The mesa tops are beautiful. They are covered with thick growths of pine and juniper, pi?on and scrub oak. A profusion of flowers dot the landscape during the summer months.

It was the Pajarito Plateau that both Coronado and Espejo failed to plunder, not because of any lack of desire on their part, perhaps, but because it was a forbidden land to them and was marked by defying cliff boundaries which rose to terrific heights. Could one say that the Spanish did not wonder what these hills possessed when they heard about villages on streams which ran into the Rio Grande? And no doubt, if these peaceful people, whom the Spanish followed to Los Confiados, were of the Keres nation--and they likely were--then they knew every valley, stream, trail and water hole in the Pajarito country. Espejo dispatched some of his men to accompany these Indians. Where were they led? Did they go up into the sandy foothills below the Jemez Mountains and its finger-like plateaus or did they penetrate almost inaccessible territory northwest of Cochiti? Or did they march straight north up the almost inaccessible White Rock Canyon of the Rio Grande? They were gone two days from the pueblo of Cochiti. Where did they go? Where was this town of Los Confiados to which Espejo was invited and about which he gave us no fact?

The Keres-speaking people are possessed with legends of having been driven from the Pajarito by a race of "dwarfs" at some time in the remote past. But no one is sure that this race of "dwarfs" was not the Tewa-speaking people from the northern part of the Pajarito region who descended into Frijoles Canyon and drove the Keres from their Hidden Valley long before the Spanish came to America. Nor can one be certain that Keres people were not still living in Frijoles Canyon with the Tewas during Coronado's time in 1540 or even some forty years later during Espejo's time. Could one go so far as to suggest that Keres groups still remembered how their ancestors perhaps had been driven from their homes by "the little strong people" and that now they could have a well-earned revenge by directing the attentions of the Spanish toward the Valley of the Frijoles?

Had Espejo been gullible enough, and had the spirit of adventure been strong enough; had it been summer and not February, and had these peaceful Indians been Keres bent on revenge against the Tewas, his soldiers might have been led northwest up the Ca?ada de Cochiti. After an hour or so the trail would have become so difficult that the Indian method of travel would have been an issue. Horses would have been left behind and the little party would have ascended to the potrero tops on foot; over snow-covered precipitous trails; up and down canyon walls and deep into ancient Keres land.

It would have been no "picnic" even on foot. So rough is the country it is even doubted that the wily Navaho used these trails as has been so often suggested. The Keres might have picked a more direct route; up the banks of the Rio Grande to the mouth of Capulin Canyon, over high potreros, following a dim rough trail which skirted the Rio Grande for several miles then north to the mesa bordering Frijoles Canyon. And it is quite possible that the Spanish could have gone horseback deep into Keres territory, up Capulin Canyon to La Cueva Pintada, the Painted Cave. The cave gets its name from the many pictographs on its walls. Around it are the ruins of many houses built against the cliff at the top of the talus slope. Some of the Indian legends have it that the Painted Cave was one of six towns occupied when their ancestors were driven from the Valley of the Frijoles.

Travel from the Painted Cave on into Keres land probably would have been on foot. Up the rough Capulin Canyon for an hour's march, over snow-covered potrero tops, they would have passed the ruins of innumerable villages. There they might have rested and drunk the icy water from a running creek during this cold month of February. And from there they made their way up to the potrero tops again, winding and twisting, half walking and half climbing and stopping somewhere, in a cave perhaps, to spend the night. And then they marched on to the pueblo of the Stone Lions, now bleak and desolate and worn by time. The pueblo of the Stone Lions, according to the Cochitenos, was the first village built and occupied by the Keres-speaking people after they were driven from the Valley of the Frijoles. The village is known as Yapashi which means "sacred enclosure."

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 Zu?i 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. Moving along slowly, Espejo's little party would have trudged up the slopes to the high potrero tops again and then across the steep-walled Canyon del Alamo. They would have had a long march to Frijoles over trails known only to Indians. No, this could hardly have happened. The Spanish might never have survived.

Had these Keres-led Spanish peered into the Frijoles--known to Indians as Tyuonyi--this Hidden Valley in the New World, they would have seen the unbelievable. They would have looked into a valley six hundred feet deep and several hundred feet across. The opposite or north side was a sheer perpendicular cliff of pinkish rock. There were houses terraced high in the air, three or four stories at the base of the cliff. There were cave openings in the cliff, over some of the houses, which led out to open porches built of poles and brush. Small houses of stone and mud extended up and down the north wall of the Canyon almost as far as the human eye could see. People were walking around, microscopic in size because of the distance, climbing up and down tiny ladders to and from the tops of their houses. They were clothed in cotton cloth, hides and furs.

In the center of the valley, seemingly equidistant from both sides, was a huge circular house comprised of many small rooms, one on top of another, with tiny ladders extending from the ground to the roofs. Indians were going in and out of small roof openings. Their house was a veritable fort of primitive style. Four hundred rooms, or more, were built in the form of a circle. The structure had an opening or hallway through one side which led to an inner court or plaza. A sentry was stationed inside the entrance which was a high, thick wall built in the shape of a semi-circle with a narrow opening. A lone Indian, or maybe two, with bow and arrow in hand, might have been seen carrying a deer down a narrow trail. Queer looking creatures were these Indians with long stringy hair tied down by a band around their foreheads. They wore moccasins of deer skin on their feet. Kilts covered their thighs. They could have been a short muscular sort of people much the same as our modern pueblo dwellers. But they were known as the "pygmies" or "the little strong people."

Smoke emerged from tiny openings in the roofs. Occasionally an Indian woman would appear, black hair stringing and her body draped with a manta of cotton cloth or animal skins. The bark of a dog or the gobble of a turkey which the Indians had domesticated might have broken the silence. The waters of the little river far below could be heard rolling over and onward toward the Rio Grande. The occasional thud of a boulder was heard as it bumped down stream.

Only one side of the valley was occupied--the north side. The south side was covered with trees, bare now because winter was here. The south wall of the Canyon was not as conducive to habitation as the north because it was worn down at a sharp angle. There were no vertical cliffs from which to carve out caves and no talus slopes on which to build little houses of stone and mud. No sun directed its rays toward the south cliff. The snow lay there all winter and helped cut it down at a sharp angle from top to bottom. The north side was sunny and dry--a perfect place for habitation.

There were not many people here during these last years of the sixteenth century. Great numbers had gone: but where, and why? A few cronies could have been seen crouching against stone houses at the base of the cliff, basking in the afternoon sun. 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 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. It was a valley over which most any group of primitive people would fight and was a place where the water supply was constant except in times of intense drought. Tyuonyi is a Keres word which signifies a treaty or contract and was so-called because of a treaty made with Tewa-speaking people years before, marking it as the boundary between Keres and Tewa territory. But who was to occupy Tyuonyi, the Hidden Valley and the most ideal spot on all the Pajarito Plateau? It seems that the Tewas were the ones who occupied it until the very last. This was perhaps the reason why the Keres became envious and that is why to this day they retain a feeling of criticism for the Tewa-speaking people. Legend has it that relations between the two groups in prehistoric times were normally unfriendly.

No Spanish expedition ever reached Hidden Valley, or at least, archaeologists have never found anything to indicate such a visit. And I repeat, the Spanish expeditions clung to the low valleys and kept away from the mountains. Tyuonyi then, is our subject. The Spanish never visited it and if they ever heard of its extensive settlement by Pueblo Indians direct mention was never made of it. It was a Hidden Valley in the New World occupied before recorded history began in America. And today its ruins are mellowed with age. It has yet to give up all its secrets about the cliff dweller who hewed three hundred caves from its north cliff with stone axes and knives, and built over twice as many small houses at its base. They constructed five community villages on its floor, and raised corn and beans and squash and pumpkins. And in so doing, these prehistoric pueblo and cave dwellers, and I might say historic, too, left in Hidden Valley so much material evidence about the way they lived that in 1916 the entire area, including some of the ancient Keres land to the south, was created a National Monument. Later, a detached section of ancient Tewa territory, a few miles to the north, was added to the area. It is known today as Bandelier National Monument and is comprised of some 27,000 acres.

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.

Could one be so bold as to say that the Moslem Invasion of Spain in the eighth century A.D. took place after the first occupation of the Rio Grande Valley by prehistoric Indians? Archaeologists, who tell us stories based on the remains of things they have found, broken pottery mostly, say that Indians might have known the Rio Grande before this time. We believe that they have occupied it continuously since about the eleventh century A.D.

Such a condition seems to have existed in the entire San Juan area of northwestern New Mexico, northeastern Arizona and southwestern Colorado. The greatest of the large centers of Indian population, which may have numbered hundreds or even thousands of people, were the towns of Chaco Canyon in northwestern New Mexico and the Mesa Verde cliff dwellings in southwestern Colorado. Many of these towns, it seems, were abandoned when the great drought was at its height between 1276-1299, a period of twenty-three years. And so we find shifts in population. It is believed that some of these shifts were toward the Valley of the Rio Grande.

Before this time small individual groups or migrant bands took to wandering. Other Indians could have remained even after the time of the twenty-three year drought period, dreading to leave their homes as we would ours today. No, there was no great exodus of population. The people from the great towns in the west did not move out all at one time and completely abandon their homes and desiccated lands. They moved out in small bands, or even families. In some way, a traveler might have reported high mountain ranges, water and fertile lands to the east--the next best to the places they knew as home which they and their ancestors had occupied for hundreds of years.

It is possible that even in the 1000's A.D., small groups pushed out over dry desert wastes, following sandy arroyo beds--thought of water ever paramount. They were people struggling again for existence. Some likely stopped along the way and built temporary homes. They broke pottery vessels which they had brought along. The archaeologist found some of the broken pieces nine hundred years later to help tell the story. Whether these migrant bands had a goal or not is questionable but the Valley of the Rio Grande was finally reached and scant evidence of these early people has been found. More and more Indians moved out of the San Juan area and drifted in a southeasterly direction. Some clung to the valleys, others took to the mountains, but all settled in the general locality where we find most of our colorful and picturesque Indian Pueblos so well-known the world over--northern New Mexico.

It is evident that by constant roaming, and penetrating unknown and fascinating country, some of these primitive Indians stumbled into the deep valleys and upon the high forested mesa tops of the Pajarito Plateau, about twenty miles west of the present city of Santa Fe. The spot on which Santa Fe is located was then nothing but arid mesa land and low foothills ascending to the Sangre de Cristo Range of Mountains. Four things were paramount in the minds of these primitive people. They were water, food, protective shelter and clothing. These were the things the Pajarito offered. Anyone journeying through the deep canyons and over the high mesa tops today could easily see why prehistoric Indians settled here.

For centuries the wind pounded tiny sharp particles against cliff surfaces. It whipped up close to the ground and hollowed out shallow caves. Very likely, these places were not large enough for Indians to crawl in out of the weather but the cliff composition was so soft that these natural caves could easily be made larger. A crude stone of basalt with a sharp edge made a perfect hand axe. 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. Some bedded small stones into the walls before they were dry. This helped to hold them together. Others preferred to use larger stone, picked up at random, in building their house walls. The adobe huts were undoubtedly unsatisfactory because of their low resistance to weather. Since older styles of pottery have been found in the ruins of these houses, it is logical to suppose that Indians migrating onto the Pajarito built adobe houses first. Later they dug themselves out homes in the cliffs which gave them greater protection from the weather and from any invaders.

In this wilderness a mule deer could have fed in a little valley or drunk from a creek. This would mean food for the entire family or group if a crude arrow would hit its mark. Small razor-sharp fleshers of chalcedony or basalt were used to remove the hide from the carcass. The hide could be used for making clothing or moccasins. Some of the smaller bones might have been used as drills and awls until better ones could be obtained. A flock of wild turkeys would have solved this problem. Turkey bones made excellent awls. Just what the people used for arrow points during these early times is questionable. Maybe they brought them along from the west. They could have used chipped chalcedony or basalt which was readily found, and quite common in this area. An occasional nodule of black volcanic glass, called obsidian, washed down the creek and was found bedded in its soft sandy bottom. Obsidian might have been more popular during later times as the early dweller in this country may not have discovered the ledges of black glass immediately upon his arrival. 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. A little river, the Rito de Los Frijoles, ran for seventeen miles from its source in the high mountains to the west and emptied into the Rio Grande. This Canyon was the best in the entire Pajarito--the most coveted of all habitable places. The water supply was apparently constant and the valley was broad and open at the lower end, most suitable for agriculture. The floor was densely covered with growths of scrub oak, pi?on and pine. This was all that primitive groups needed for successful living. And so we find that some of these wandering Indians from a world a hundred miles to the west, which was to become a thing of the past, penetrated the Valley of the Frijoles over eight hundred years ago. But Frijoles Canyon was not the only place occupied. There were other canyons nearby. There was plenty of room for all. But was there enough water in these other canyons?

Indian families cut their crude shelters deep enough for occupation by several individuals. Caves were uncomfortable, but certainly better than no shelter at all. This was a strange sort of stone which nature had provided. It was very poor to build with, thought the Indian. It was soft and bulky. But years of living would eventually solve the problem. Why worry about it! In time necessity would produce some means of shelter more satisfactory. Later on, more people moved into the area. These people occupied adjacent canyons and mesas as well as Frijoles. During many years population increased and the dwellers on the Pajarito became settled in their locality.

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