The Uinta Valley is the ancient and present home of the Uinta Indians, a tribe speaking the Uinta language of the Shoshonean family. Their habits, customs, inst.i.tutions, and mythology are essentially the same as those of the Ute Indians of the Grand River country, already described.
In this valley there are also found many ruins of ancient pueblo-building peoples--of what stock is not known.
The Tavaputs Plateau is one of the stupendous features of this country.
On the west it merges into the Wasatch Mountains; on the north it descends by wooded slopes into the Uinta Valley. Its summit is forest-clad and among the forests are many beautiful parks. On the south it ends in a great escarpment which descends into Castle Valley. This southern escarpment presents one of the most wonderful facades of the world. It is from 2,000 to 4,000 feet high. The descent is not made by one bold step, for it is cut by canyons and cliffs. It is a zone several miles in width which is a vast labyrinth of canyons, cliffs, b.u.t.tes, pinnacles, minarets, and detached rocks of Cyclopean magnitude, the whole dest.i.tute of soil and vegetation, colored in many brilliant tones and tints, and carved in many weird forms,--a land of desolation, dedicated forever to the geologist and the artist, where civilization can find no resting-place.
Then comes Castle Valley, to describe which is to beggar language and pall imagination. On the north is the Tavaputs; on the west is the Wasatch Plateau, which lies to the south of the Wasatch Mountains and is here the west boundary of the Plateau Province; on the south are indescribable mesas and mountains; on the east is Grand River, a placid stream meandering through a valley of meadows. Within these boundaries there is a landscape of gigantic rock forms, interrupted here and there by bad-land hills, dominated with the towering cliffs of Tavaputs, the bold escarpment of the Wasatch Plateau, and the volcanic peaks of the Henry Mountains on the south. It is a vast forest of rock forms, and in its midst is San Rafael Swell, an elevation crowned with still more gigantic rock forms. Among the rocks pools and lakelets are found, and little streams run in canyons that seem like chasms cleft to nadir h.e.l.l.
San Rafael River and Fremont River drain this Castle land, heading in the Wasatch Plateau and flowing into the Grand River. Along these streams a few narrow canyon valleys are found, and in them Ute Indians make their winter homes. The bad lands are filled with agates, jaspers, and carnelians, which are gathered by the Indians and fashioned into arrowheads and knives; along the foot of the canyon cliffs workshops can be discovered that have been occupied by generations from a time in the long past, and the chips of these workshops pave the valleys. South of the Wasatch Plateau we have the Fish Lake Plateau, the Awapa Plateau, and the Aquarius Plateau, which separate the waters flowing into the Great Basin from the waters of the Colorado, which here const.i.tute the boundary of the Plateau Province. Awapa is a Ute name signifying "Many waters."
All three of these plateaus are remarkable for the many lakelets found on them. To the east are the Henry Mountains, a group of volcanic domes that rise above the region. The rocks of the country are limestones, sandstones, and shales, originally lying in horizontal alt.i.tudes; but volcanic forces were generated under them and lavas boiled up. These lavas did not, however, come to the surface, but as they rose they lifted the sandstones, shales, and limestones, to a thickness of 2,000 or 3,000 feet or more, into great domes. Then the molten lavas cooled in great lenses of mountain magnitude, with the sedimentary rocks domed above them. Then the clouds gathered over these domes and wept, and their tears were gathered in brooks, and the brooks carved canyons down the sides of the domes; and now in these deep clefts the structure of the mountains is revealed. The lenses of volcanic rocks by which the domes were upheaved are known as "laccolites," _i. e.,_ rock lakes.
Looking southwestward from the Henry Mountains the Circle Cliffs are seen. A great escarpment, several thousand feet in height and 70 or 80 miles in length, faces the mountain. It is the step to the long, narrow plateau. The streams that come down across these cliffs head in great symmetric amphitheaters, and when first seen from above they present a vast alignment of walled circles. The front of the cliffs, seen from below, is everywhere imposing. On the southwest the Escalante River holds its course. It heads in the Aquarius Plateau and flows into the Colorado. Its course, as well as that of all its many tributaries, is in deep box-canyons of h.o.m.ogeneous red sandstone, often with vertical walls that are broken by many beautiful alcoves and glens. Much of the region is of naked, smooth, red rock, but the alcoves and glens that break the canyon walls are the sites of perennial springs, about which patches of luxuriant verdure gather.
The Kaiparowits Plateau is an elevated table-land on the southwestern side of the Escalante River. It is long and narrow, extending from the northwest to the southeast approximately parallel with the Escalante. It rises above the red sandstone of the Escalante region from 2,000 to 4,000 feet by a front of storm-carved cliffs. From the southeastern extremity of this plateau, at an alt.i.tude of 7,500 feet, an instructive view is obtained. One of the great canyons of the Colorado River can be seen meandering its way through the red-rock landscape. In the distance, and to the north, the Henry Mountains are in view, and below, the canyons of the Escalante and the red-rock land are in sight. Across the Colorado are the canyons of the San Juan, and below the mouth of the San Juan is the great Navajo Mountain. Still to the south the Grand Canyon of the Colorado is in view, and in the west a vast mesa landscape is presented with its b.u.t.tes and pinnacles. Still to the southward Paria River is seen heading in a plateau on the margin of the province and having a course a little east of south into the Colorado.
The region of country which has been thus described, from the Tava-puts Plateau to the Paria River, was the home of a few scattered Ute Indians, who lived in very small groups, and who hunted on the plateau, fished in the waters, and dwelt in the canyons. There was nominally but one tribe, but as the members of this tribe were in very small parties and separated by wide distances the tribal bonds were very weak and often unrecognized. The chief integrating agency was religion, for they worshiped the same G.o.ds and periodically joined in the same religious ceremonies and festivals. A country so dest.i.tute of animal and vegetal life would not support large numbers, and the few who dwelt here gained but a precarious and scant subsistence. To a large extent they lived on seeds and roots. The low, warm canyons furnished admirable shelter for the people, and their habitual costumes were loincloths, paints, and necklaces of tiny arrowheads made of the bright-colored agates and carnelians strung on snakeskins.
When the Mormon people encroached on this country from the west, and when the Navajos on the east surrendered to the United States, a few recalcitrant Navajos and the Utes of this region combined. They had long been more or less intimately a.s.sociated, and a jargon speech had grown up by which they could communicate. Finally, the greater number of these Utes and renegade Navajos took up their homes permanently on the eastern bank of the Colorado River between the Grand and the San Juan rivers.
The Navajos are the dominant race, yet they live on terms of practical equality and affiliate without feuds. These are the great Freebooters of the Plateau Province--the enemies of other tribes and of the white men.
In their canyon fortresses they have been able to hold their ground in spite of their enemies on every hand.
Throughout the region and the plateaus by which it is surrounded and the mountains by which it is interrupted, everywhere ruins of pueblos and many cliff dwellings are found. None of these ancient pueblos are on a large scale. The houses were usually one or two stories high and the hamlets rarely provided shelter for more than two dozen people. Some of the houses are of rather superior architecture, having well-constructed walls with good geometric proportions. Their houses were plastered on the inside, and sometimes on the outside, and covered with flat roofs of sun-dried mud. The real home of the people in their waking hours was on their housetops.
The rocks of the mountain are etched with many picture-writings attesting the artistic skill of this people. The predominant form is the rattlesnake, which is found in the crevices of the rocks on every hand.
It is inferred that the people worshiped the rattlesnake as one of their chief deities, a G.o.d who carried the spirit of death in his mouth.
CHAPTER IV.
CLIFFS AND TERRACES.
There is a great group of table-lands const.i.tuting a geographic unit which have been named the Terrace Plateaus. They ex-tend from the Paria and Colorado on the east to the Grand Wash and Pine Mountains on the west, and they are bounded on the south by the Grand Canyon of the Colorado, and on the north they divide the waters of the Colorado from the waters of the Sevier, which flows northward and then westward until it is lost in the sands of the Great Desert. It is an irregular system of great plateaus with subordinate mesas and b.u.t.tes separated by lines of cliffs and dissected by canyons.
In this region all of the features which have been described as found in other portions of the province are grouped except only the cliffs of volcanic ashes, the volcanic cones, and the volcanic domes. The volcanic mountains, cinder cones, and coulees, the majestic plateaus and elaborate mesas, the sculptured b.u.t.tes and canyon gorges, are all found here, but on a more stupendous scale. The volcanic mountains are higher, the cinder cones are larger, the coulees are more extensive and are often sheets of naked, black rock, the plateaus are more lofty, the cliffs are on a grander scale, the canyons are of profounder depth; and the Grand Canyon of the Colorado, the most stupendous gorge known on the globe, with a great river surging through it, bounds it on the south.
The east-and-west cliffs are escarpments of degradation, the north-and-south cliffs are, in the main, though not always, escarpments of displacement. Let us understand what this means. Over the entire region limestones, shales, and sandstones were deposited through long periods of geologic time to the thickness of many thousands of feet; then the country was upheaved and tilted toward the north; but the Colorado River was flowing when the tilting commenced, and the upheaval was very slow, so that the river cleared away the obstruction to its channel as fast as it was presented, and this is the Grand Canyon. The rocks above were carried away by rains and rivers, but not evenly all over the country; nor by washing out valleys and leaving hills, but by carving the country into terraces. The upper and later-formed rocks are found far to the north, their edges standing in cliffs; then still earlier rocks are found rising to the southward, until they terminate in cliffs; and then a third series rises to the southward and ends in cliffs, and finally a fourth series, the oldest rocks, terminating in the Grand Canyon wall, which is a line of cliffs. There are in a general way four great lines of cliffs extending from east to west across the district and presenting their faces, or escarpments, southward. If these cliffs are climbed it is found that each plateau or terrace dips gently to the northward until it meets with another line of cliffs, which must be ascended to reach the summit of another plateau. Place a book before you on a table with its front edge toward you, rest another book on the back of this, place a third on the back of the second, and in like manner a fourth on the third. Now the leaves of the books dip from you and the cut edges stand in tiny escarpments facing you. So the rock-formed leaves of these books of geology have the escarpment edges turned southward, while each book itself dips northward, and the crest of each plateau book is the summit of a line of cliffs. These cliffs of erosion have been described as running from east to west, but they diverge from that course in many ways. First, canyons run from north to south through them, and where these canyons are found deep angles occur; then sharp salients extend from the cliffs on the backs of the lower plateaus. Each great escarpment is made up more or less of minor terraces, or steps; and at the foot of each grand escarpment there is always a great talus, or sloping pile of rocks, and many marvelous b.u.t.tes stand in front of the cliffs.
But these east-and-west cliffs and the plateaus which they form are divided by north-and-south lines in another manner. The country has been faulted along north-and-south lines or planes. These faults are breaks in the strata varying from 1,000 or 2,000 to 4,000 or 5,000 feet in verticality. On the very eastern margin the rocks are dropped down several thousand feet, or, which means the same thing, the rocks are upheaved on the west side; that is, the beds that were originally horizontal have been differentially displaced, so that on the west side of the fracture the strata are several thousand feet higher than they are on the east side of the fracture. The line of displacement is known as the Echo Cliff Fault. West of this about twenty-five miles, there is another fault with its throw to the east, the upheaved rocks being on the west. This fault varies from 1,500 to 2,500 feet in throw, and extends far to the northward. It is known as the East Kaibab Fault.
Still going westward, another fault is found, known as the West Kaibab Fault. Here the throw is on the west side,--that is, the rocks are dropped down to the westward from 1,000 to 2,000 feet. This fault gradually becomes less to the northward and is flexed toward the east until it joins with the East Kaibab Fault. The block between the two faults is the Kaibab Plateau. Going westward from 60 to 70 miles, still another fault is found, known as the Hurricane Ledge Fault. The throw is again on the west side of the fracture and the rocks fall down some thousands of feet. This fault extends far northward into central Utah.
To the west 25 or 30 miles is found a fault with the throw still on the west. It has a drop of several thousand feet and extends across the Rio Colorado far to the southwest, probably beyond the Arizona-New Mexico line. It also extends far to the north, until it is buried and lost under the Pine Valley Mountains, which are of volcanic origin.
Now let us see what all this means. In order clearly to understand this explanation the reader is referred to the ill.u.s.tration designated "Section and Bird"s-Eye View of the Plateaus North of the Grand Canyon."
Starting at the Grand Wash on the west, the Grand Wash Cliffs, formed by the Grand Wash Fault, are scaled; and if we are but a few miles north of the Grand Canyon we are on the Shiwits Plateau. Its western boundary is the Grand Wash Cliffs, its southern boundary is the Grand Canyon, and its northern boundary is a line of cliffs of degradation, which will be described hereafter. Going eastward across the Shiwits Plateau the Hurricane Cliffs are reached, and climbing them we are on the Uinkaret Plateau, which is bounded on the south by the Grand Canyon and on the north by the Vermilion Cliffs, that rise above its northern foot. Still going eastward 30 or 40 miles to the brink of the Kanab Canyon, the West Kanab Plateau is crossed, which is bounded by the Toroweap Fault on the west, separating it from the Uinkaret Plateau, and by the Kanab Canyon on the east, with the Grand Canyon on the south and the Vermilion Cliffs on the north. Crossing the Kanab, we are on the East Kanab Plateau, which extends about 30 miles to the foot of the West Kaibab Cliffs, or the escarpment of the West Kaibab Fault. This canyon also has the Grand Canyon on the south and the Vermilion Cliffs on the north. Climbing the West Kaibab Fault, we are on the Kaibab Plateau. Now we have been climbing from west to east, and each ascent has been made at a line of cliffs. Crossing the Kaibab Plateau to the East Kaibab Cliffs; the country falls down once more to the top of Marble Canyon Plateau.
Crossing this plateau to the eastward, we at last reach the Echo Cliff Fault, where the rocks fall down on the eastern side once more; but the surface of the country itself does not fall down--the later rocks still remain, and the general level of the country is preserved except in one feature of singular interest and beauty, to describe which a little further explanation is necessary.
I have spoken of these north-and-south faults as if they were fractures; and usually they are fractures, but in some places they are flexures.
The Echo Cliffs displacement is a flexure. Just over the zone of flexure a long ridge extends from north to south, known as the Echo Cliffs. It is composed of a comparatively hard and h.o.m.ogeneous sandstone of a later age than the limestones of the Marble Canyon Plateau west of it; but the flexure dips down so as to carry this sandstone which forms the face of the cliff (presented westward) far under the surface, so that on the east side rocks of still later age are found, the drop being several thousand feet. The inclined red sandstone stands in a ridge more than 75 miles in length, with an escarped face presented to the west and a face of inclined rock to the east. The western side is carved into beautiful alcoves and is b.u.t.tressed with a magnificent talus, and the red sandstone stands in fractured columns of giant size and marvelous beauty. On the east side the declining beds are carved into pockets, which often hold water. This is the region of the Thousand Wells. The foot of the cliffs on the east side is several hundred feet above the foot of the cliffs on the west side. On the west there is a vast limestone stretch, the top of the Marble Canyon Plateau; on the east there are drifting sand-dunes.
The terraced land described has three sets of terraces: one set on the east, great steps to the Kaibab Plateau; another set on the west, from the Great Basin region to the Kaibab Plateau; and a third set from the Grand Canyon northward. There are thus three sets of cliffs: cliffs facing the east, cliffs facing the west, and cliffs facing the south.
The north-and-south cliffs are made by faults; the east-and-west cliffs are made by differential degradation.
The stupendous cliffs by which the plateaus are bounded are of indescribable grandeur and beauty. The cliffs bounding the Kaibab Plateau descend on either side, and this is the culminating portion of the region. All the other plateaus are terraces, with cliffs ascending on the one side and descending on the other. Some of the tables carry dead volcanoes on their backs that are towering mountains, and all of them are dissected by canyons that are gorges of profound depth. But every one of these plateaus has characteristics peculiar to itself and is worthy of its own chapter. On the north there is a pair of plateaus, twins in age, but very distinct in development, the Paunsagunt and Markagunt. They are separated by the Sevier River, which flows northward. Their southern margins const.i.tute the highest steps of the great system of terraces of erosion. This escarpment is known as the Pink Cliffs. Above, pine forests are found; below the cliffs are hills and sand-dunes. The cliffs themselves are bold and often vertical walls of a delicate pink color.
In one of the earlier years of exploration I stood on the summit of the Pink Cliffs of the Paunsagunt Plateau, 9,000 feet above the level of the sea. Below me, to the southwest, I could look off into the canyons of the Virgen River, down into the canyon of the Kanab, and far away into the Grand Canyon of the Colorado. From the lowlands of the Great Basin and from the depths of the Grand Canyon clouds crept up over the cliffs and floated over the landscape below me, concealing the canyons and mantling the mountains and mesas and b.u.t.tes; still on toward me the clouds rolled, burying the landscape in their progress, until at last the region below was covered by a mantle of storm--a tumultuous sea of rolling clouds, black and angry in parts, white as the foam of cataracts here and there, and everywhere flecked with resplendent sheen. Below me spread a vast ocean of vapor, for I was above the clouds. On descending to the plateau, I found that a great storm had swept the land, and the dry arroyos of the day before were the channels of a thousand streams of tawny water, born of the ocean of vapor which had invaded the land before my vision.
Below the Pink Cliffs another irregular zone of plateaus is found, stretching out to the margin of the Gray Cliffs. The Gray Cliffs are composed of a h.o.m.ogeneous sandstone which in some places weathers gray, but in others is as white as virgin snow. On the top of these cliffs hills and sand-dunes are found, but everywhere on the Gray Cliff margin the rocks are carved in fantastic forms; not in b.u.t.tes and towers and pinnacles, but in great rounded bosses of rock.
The Virgen River heads back in the Pink Cliffs of the Markagunt Plateau and with its tributaries crosses one of these plateaus above the Gray Cliffs, carving a labyrinth of deep gorges. This is known as the Colob Plateau. Above, there is a vast landscape of naked, white and gray sandstone, billowing in fantastic bosses. On the margins of the canyons these are rounded off into great vertical walls, and at the bottom of every winding canyon a beautiful stream of water is found running over quicksands. Sometimes the streams in their curving have cut under the rocks, and overhanging cliffs of towering alt.i.tudes are seen; and somber chambers are found between b.u.t.tresses that uphold the walls. Among the Indians this is known as the "Rock Rovers" Land," and is peopled by mythic beings of uncanny traits.
Below the Gray Cliffs another zone of plateaus is found, separated by the north-and-south faults and divided from the Colob series by the Gray Cliffs and demarcated from the plateaus to the south by the Vermilion Cliffs. The Vermilion Cliffs that face the south are of surpa.s.sing beauty. The rocks are of orange and red above and of chocolate, lavender, gray, and brown tints below. The canyons that cut through the cliffs from north to south are of great diversity and all are of profound interest. In these canyon walls many caves are found, and often the caves contain lakelets and pools of clear water. Canyons and re-entrant angles abound. The faces of the cliffs are terraced and salients project onto the floors below. The outlying b.u.t.tes are many.
Standing away to the south and facing these cliffs when the sun is going down beyond the desert of the Great Basin, shadows are seen to creep into the deep recesses, while the projecting forms are illumined, so that the lights and shadows are in great and sharp contrast; then a million lights seem to glow from a background of black gloom, and a great bank of Tartarean fire stretches across the landscape.
At the foot of the Vermilion Cliffs there is everywhere a zone of vigorous junipers and pinons, for the belt of country is favored with comparatively abundant rain. When the clouds drift over the plateaus below from the south and west and strike the Vermilion Cliffs, they are abruptly lifted 2,000 feet, and to make the climb they must unload their burdens; so that here copious rains are discharged, and by such storms the cliffs are carved and ever from age to age carried back farther to the north. In the Pink Cliffs above and the Gray Cliffs and the Vermilion Cliffs, there are many notches that mark channels running northward which had their sources on these plateaus when they extended farther to the south. The Rio Virgen is the only stream heading in the Pink Cliffs and running into the Colorado which is perennial. The other rivers and creeks carry streams of water in rainy seasons only. When a succession of dry years occurs the canyons coming through the cliffs are choked below, as vast bodies of sand are deposited. But now and then, ten or twenty years apart, great storms or successions of storms come, and the channels are flooded and cut their way again through the drifting sands to solid rock below. Thus the streams below are alternately choked and cleared from period to period.
To the south of the Vermilion Cliffs the last series or zone of plateaus north of the Grand Canyon is found. The summits of these plateaus are of cherty limestone. In the far west we have the Shiwits Plateau covered with sheets of lava and volcanic cones; then climbing the Hurricane Ledge we have the Kanab Plateau, on the southwest portion of which the Uinkaret Mountains stand--a group of dead volcanoes with many black cinder cones scattered about. It is interesting to know how these mountains are formed. The first eruptions of lava were long ago, and they were poured out upon a surface 2,000 feet or more higher than the general surface now found. After the first eruptions of coulees the lands round about were degraded by rains and rivers. Then new eruptions occurred and additional sheets of lava were poured out; but these came not through the first channels, but through later ones formed about the flanks of the elder beds of lava, so that the new sheets are imbricated or shingled over the old sheets. But the overlap is from below upward.
Then the land was further degraded, and a third set of coulees was spread still lower down on the flanks, and on these last coulees the black cinder cones stand. So the foundations of the Uinkaret Mountains are of limestones, and these foundations are covered with sheets of lava overlapping from below upward, and the last coulees are decked with cones.
Still farther east is the Kaibab Plateau, the culminating table-land of the region. It is covered with a beautiful forest, and in the forest charming parks are found. Its southern extremity is a portion of the wall of the Grand Canyon; its western margin is the wall of the West Kaibab Fault; its eastern edge is the wall of the East Kaibab Fault; and its northern point is found where the two faults join. Here antelope feed and many a deer goes bounding over the fallen timber. In winter deep snows lie here, but the plateau has four months of the sweetest summer man has ever known.
On the terraced plateaus three tribes of Indians are found: the Shiwits ("people of the springs"), the Uinkarets ("people of the pine mountains"), and the Unkakaniguts ("people of the red lands," who dwell along the Vermilion Cliffs). They are all Utes and belong to a confederacy with other tribes living farther to the north, in Utah.
These people live in shelters made of boughs piled up in circles and covered with juniper bark supported by poles. These little houses are only large enough for half a dozen persons huddling together in sleep.
Their aboriginal clothing was very scant, the most important being wildcatskin and wolfskin robes for the men, and rabbitskin robes for the women, though for occasions of festival they had clothing of tanned deer and antelope skins, often decorated with fantastic ornaments of snake skins, feathers, and the tails of squirrels and chipmunks. A great variety of seeds and roots furnish their food, and on the higher plateaus there is much game, especially deer and antelope. But the whole country abounds with rabbits, which are often killed with arrows and caught in snares. Every year they have great hunts, when scores of rabbits are killed in a single day. It is managed in this way: They make nets of the fiber of the wild flax and of some other plant, the meshes of which are about an inch across. These nets are about three and a half feet in width and hundreds of yards in length. They arrange such a net in a circle, not quite closed, supporting it by stakes and pinning the bottom firmly to the ground. From the opening of the circle they extend net wings, expanding in a broad angle several hundred yards from either side. Then the entire tribe will beat up a great district of country and drive the rabbits toward the nets, and finally into the circular snare, which is quickly closed, when the rabbits are killed with arrows.
A great variety of desert plants furnish them food, as seeds, roots, and stalks. More than fifty varieties of such seed-bearing plants have been collected. The seeds themselves are roasted, ground, and preserved in cakes. The most abundant food of this nature is derived from the sunflower and the nuts of the pinon. They still make stone arrowheads, stone knives, and stone hammers, and kindle fire with the drill. Their medicine men are famous sorcerers. Coughs are caused by invisible winged insects, rheumatism by flesh-eating bugs too small to be seen, and the toothache by invisible worms. Their healing art consists in searing and scarifying. Their medicine men take the medicine themselves to produce a state of ecstasy, in which the disease pests are discovered. They also practice dancing about their patients to drive away the evil beings or to avert the effects of sorcery. When a child is bitten by a rattlesnake the snake is caught and brought near to the suffering urchin, and ceremonies are performed, all for the purpose of prevailing upon the snake to take back the evil spirit. They have quite a variety of mythic personages. The chief of these are the Enupits, who are pigmies dwelling about the springs, and the Rock Rovers, who live in the cliffs. Their G.o.ds are zoic, and the chief among them are the wolf, the rabbit, the eagle, the jay, the rattlesnake, and the spider. They have no knowledge of the ambient air, but the winds are the breath of beasts living in the four quarters of the earth. Whirlwinds that often blow among the sand-dunes are caused by the dancing of Enupits. The sky is ice, and the rain is caused by the Rainbow G.o.d; he abraids the ice of the sky with his scales and the snow falls, and if the weather be warm the ice melts and it is rain. The sun is a poor slave compelled to make the same journey every day since he was conquered by the rabbit. These tribes have a great body of romance, in which the actors are animals, and the knowledge of these stories is the lore of their sages.
Scattered over the plateaus are the ruins of many ancient stone pueblos, not unlike those previously described.
The Kanab River heading in the Pink Cliffs runs directly southward and joins the Colorado in the heart of the Grand Canyon. Its way is through a series of canyons. From one of these it emerges at the foot of the Vermilion Cliffs, and here stood an extensive ruin not many years ago.
Some portions of the pueblo were three stories high. The structure was one of the best found in this land of ruins. The Mormon people settling here have used the stones of the old pueblo in building their homes, and now no vestiges of the ancient structure remain. A few miles below the town other ruins were found. They were scattered to Pipe"s Springs, a point twenty miles to the westward. Ruins were also discovered up the stream as far as the Pink Cliffs, and eastward along the Vermilion Cliffs nearly to the Colorado River, and out on the margin of the Kanab Plateau. These were all ruins of outlying habitations be-longing to the Kanab pueblo. From the study of the existing pueblos found elsewhere and from extensive study of the ruins, it seems that everywhere tribal pueblos were built of considerable dimensions, usually to give shelter to several hundred people. Then the people cultivated the soil by irrigation, and had their gardens and little fields scattered at wide distances about the central pueblo, by little springs and streams and wherever they could control the water with little labor to bring it on the land. At such points stone houses were erected sufficient to accommodate from one to two thousand people, and these were occupied during the season of cultivation and are known as rancherias. So one great tribe had its central pueblo and its outlying rancherias.
Sometimes the rancherias were occupied from year to year, especially in time of peace, but usually they were occupied only during seasons of cultivation. Such groups of ruins and pueblos with accessory rancherias are still inhabited, and have been described as found throughout the Plateau Province except far to the north beyond the Uinta Mountains. A great pueblo once existed in the Uinta Valley on the south side of the mountains. This is the most northern pueblo which has yet been discovered. But the pueblo-building tribes extended beyond the area drained by the Colorado. On the west there was a pueblo in the Great Basin at the site now occupied by Salt Lake City, and several more to the southward, all on waters flowing into the desert. On the east such pueblos were found among mountains at the headwaters of the Arkansas, Platte, and Canadian rivers. The entire area drained by the Rio Grande del Norte was occupied by pueblo tribes, and a number are still inhabited. To the south they extended far beyond the territory of the United States, and the so-called Aztec cities were rather superior pueblos of this character. The known pueblo tribes of the United States belong to several different linguistic stocks. They are far from being one h.o.m.ogeneous people, for they have not only different languages but different religions and worship different G.o.ds. These pueblo peoples are in a higher grade of culture than most Indian tribes of the United States. This is exhibited in the slight superiority of their arts, especially in their architecture. It is also noticeable in their mythology and religion. Their G.o.ds, the heroes of their myths, are more often personifications of the powers and phenomena of nature, and their religious ceremonies are more elaborate, and their cult societies are highly organized. As they had begun to domesticate animals and to cultivate the soil, so as to obtain a part of their subsistence by agriculture, they had almost accomplished the ascent from savagery to barbarism when first discovered by the invading European. All the Indians of North America were in this state of transition, but the pueblo tribes had more nearly reached the higher goal.
The great number of ruins found throughout the land has often been interpreted as evidence of a much larger pueblo population than has been found in post-Columbian time. But a careful study of the facts does not warrant this conclusion. It would seem that for various reasons tribes abandoned old pueblos and built new, thus changing their permanent residence from time to time; but more frequent changes were made in their rancherias. These were but ephemeral, being moved from place to place by the varying conditions of water supply. Most of the streams of the arid land are not perennial, but very many of the smaller streams of the pueblo region discharge their waters into the larger streams in times of great flood. Such floods occur now here, now there, and at varying periods, sometimes fifty years apart. When dry years follow one another for a long series, the channels of these intermittent streams are choked with sand until the streams are buried and lost. Under such circ.u.mstances the rancherias were moved from dead stream to living stream. In rare instances pueblos themselves were removed for this cause. Other pueblos, and the rancherias generally, were abandoned in time of war; this seems to have been a potent cause for moving. When pestilence attacked a pueblo the people would sometimes leave in a body and never return. The cliff pueblos and dwellings, the cavate dwellings, and the cinder-cone towns were all built and occupied for defensive purposes when powerful enemies threatened. The history of some of the old ruins has been obtained and we know the existing tribes who once occupied them; others still remain enshrouded in obscurity.
CHAPTER V.
FROM GREEN RIVER CITY TO FLAMING GORGE.
In the summer of 1867, with a small party of naturalists, students, and amateurs like myself, I visited the mountain region of Colorado Territory. While in Middle Park I explored a little canyon through which the Grand River runs, immediately below the now well-known watering place, Middle Park Hot Springs. Later in the fall I pa.s.sed through Cedar Canyon, the gorge by which the Grand leaves the park. A result of the summer"s study was to kindle a desire to explore the canyons of the Grand, Green, and Colorado rivers, and the next summer I organized an expedition with the intention of penetrating still farther into that canyon country.
As soon as the snows were melted, so that the main range could be crossed, I went over into Middle Park, and proceeded thence down the Grand to the head of Cedar Canyon, then across the Park Range by Gore"s Pa.s.s, and in October found myself and party encamped on the White River, about 120 miles above its mouth. At that point I built cabins and established winter quarters, intending to occupy the cold season, as far as possible, in exploring the adjacent country. The winter of 1868-69 proved favorable to my purposes, and several excursions were made, southward to the Grand, down the White to the Green, northward to the Yampa, and around the Uinta Mountains. During these several excursions I seized every opportunity to study the canyons through which these upper streams run, and while thus engaged formed plans for the exploration of the canyons of the Colorado. Since that time I have been engaged in executing these plans, sometimes employed in the field, sometimes in the office. Begun originally as an exploration, the work was finally developed into a survey, embracing the geography, geology, ethnography, and natural history of the country, and a number of gentlemen have, from time to time, a.s.sisted me in the work.
Early in the spring of 1869 a party was organized for the exploration of the canyons. Boats were built in Chicago and transported by rail to the point where the Union Pacific Railroad crosses the Green River. With these we were to descend the Green to the Colorado, and the Colorado down to the foot of the Grand Canyon.