MESAS AND BUTTES.
FROM the Grand Canyon of the Colorado a great plateau extends
southeastward through Arizona nearly to the line of New Mexico, where
this elevated land merges into the Sierra Madre. The general surface of
this plateau is from 6,000 to 8,000 feet above the level of the sea.
It is sharply defined from the lowlands of Arizona by the Mogollon
Escarpment. On the northeast it gradually falls off into the valley
of the Little Colorado, and on the north it terminates abruptly in the
Grand Canyon.
Various tributaries of the Gila have their sources in this escarpment,
and before entering the desolate valley below they run in beautiful
canyons which they have carved for themselves in the margin of the
plateau. Sometimes these canyons are in the sandstones and limestones
which constitute the platform of the great elevated region called the
San Francisco Plateau. The escarpment is caused by a fault, the great
block of the upper side being lifted several thousand feet above the
valley region. Through the fissure lavas poured out, and in many places
the escarpment is concealed by sheets of lava. The canyons in these lava
beds are often of great interest.
On the plateau a number of volcanic mountains are found, and black
cinder cones are scattered in profusion. Through the forest lands are
many beautiful prairies and glades that in midsummer are decked with
gorgeous wild flowers. The rains of the region give source to few
perennial streams, but intermittent streams have carved deep gorges in
the plateau, so that it is divided into many blocks. The upper surface,
although forest-clad and covered with beautiful grasses, is almost
destitute of water. A few springs are found, but they are far apart, and
some of the volcanic craters hold lakelets. The limestone and basaltic
rocks sometimes hold pools of water; and where the basins
40 CANYONS OF THE COLORADO.
are deep the waters are perennial. Such pools are known as "water
pockets."
This is the great timber region of Arizona. Not many years ago it was a
vast park for elk, deer, and antelope, and bears and mountain lions
were abundant. This is the last home of the wild turkey in the
powell-canyons-17.jpg
WINGATE CLIFF.
United States, for they are still found here in great numbers. San
Francisco Peak is the highest of these volcanic mountains, and about
it are grouped in an irregular way many volcanic cones, one of which
presents some remarkable characteristics. A portion of the cone is of
bright reddish cinders, while the adjacent rocks are of black basalt.
The contrast in the colors is so great that on viewing the mountain from
a distance the red cinders seem to be on fire. From this circumstance
the cone has been named Sunset Peak. When distant from it ten or twenty
miles it is hard to believe that the effect is produced by contrasting
colors, for the peak seems to glow with a light of its own.
In centuries past the San Francisco Plateau was the home of
pueblo-building tribes, and the ruins of their habitations are widely
scattered over this elevated region. Thousands of little dwellings
are found, usually built of blocks of basalt. In some cases they were
clustered in little towns, and three of these deserve further mention.
MESAS AND BUTTES.
41
A few miles south of San Francisco Peak there is an intermittent stream
known as Walnut Creek. This stream runs in a deep gorge 600 to 800
feet below the general surface. The stream has cut its way through the
limestone and through series of sandstones, and bold walls of rock are
presented on either side. In some places the softer sandstones lying
between the harder limestones and sandstones have yielded to weathering
agencies, so that there are caves running along the face of the wall,
sometimes for hundreds or thousands of feet, but not very deep. These
natural shelves in the rock were utilized by an ancient tribe of Indians
for their homes. They built stairways to the waters below and to the
hunting grounds above, and lived in the caves. They walled the fronts of
the caves with rock, which they covered with plaster, and divided them
into compartments or rooms; and now many hundreds of these dwellings are
found. Such is the cliff village of powell-canyons-18.jpg
PYRAMID BUTTE NEAR FORT WINGATE.
Walnut Canyon. In the ruins of these cliff houses mortars and pestles
are found in great profusion, and when first discovered many articles of
pottery were found, and still many potsherds are seen. The people were
42
CANYONS OF THE COLORADO.
very skillful in the manufacture of stone implements, especially spears,
knives, and arrows.
East of San Francisco Peak there is another low volcanic cone, composed
of ashes which have been slightly cemented by the processes of time,
but which can be worked with great ease. On this cone another tribe of
Indians made its village, and for the purpose they sunk shafts into the
easily worked but partially consolidated ashes, and after penetrating
from the surface three or four feet they enlarged the chambers so as to
make them ten or twelve feet in diameter. In such a chamber they made
a little fireplace, its chimney running up on one side of the
powell-canyons-19.jpg
ZUÑI CLIFFS.
wellhole by which the chamber was entered. Often they excavated smaller
chambers connected with the larger, so that sometimes two, three, four,
or even five smaller connecting chambers are grouped about a large
central room. The arts of these people resembled those of the people who
dwelt in Walnut Canyon. One thing more is worthy of special notice. On
the very top of the cone they cleared off a space for a courtyard, or
assembly square, and about it they erected booths, and
MESAS AND BUTTES.
43
within the square a space of ground was prepared with a smooth floor, on
which they performed the ceremonies of their religion and danced to the
gods in prayer and praise.
Some twelve or fifteen miles farther east, in another volcanic cone,
a rough crater is found, surrounded by piles of cinders and angular
powell-canyons-20.jpg
GREAT NECK NINE MILES SOUTH OF SALAZAR.
fragments of lava. In the walls of this crater many caves are found,
and here again a village was established, the caves in the scoria being
utilized as habitations of men. These little caves were fashioned into
rooms of more symmetry and convenience than originally found, and the
openings to the caves were walled. Nor did these people neglect the
gods, for in this crater town, as in the cinder-cone town, a place of
worship was prepared.
Many other caves opening into the canyon and craters of this plateau
were utilized in like manner as homes for tribal people, and in one cave
far to the south a fine collection of several hundred pieces of pottery
has been made.
44
CANYONS OF THE COLORADO.
On the northeast of the San Francisco Plateau is the valley of the
Little Colorado, a tributary of the Colorado River. This river is formed
by streams that head chiefly on the San Francisco Plateau, but in
part on the Zuñi Plateau. The Little Colorado is a marvelous river.
In seasons of great rains it is a broad but shallow torrent of mud; in
seasons of drought it dwindles and sometimes entirely disappears along
portions of its course. The upper tributaries usually run in beautiful
box canyons. Then the river flows through a low, desolate, bad-land
valley, and the river of mud is broad but shallow, except in seasons of
great floods. But fifty miles or more above the junction of this
stream with the Colorado River proper, it plunges into a canyon
powell-canyons-21.jpg
CINDER CONE AND NECK NORTHEAST OF GRANT STATION.
with limestone walls, and steadily this canyon increases in depth, until
at the mouth of the stream it has walls more than 4,000 feet in height.
The contrast between this canyon portion and the upper
MESAS AND BUTTES.
45
valley portion is very great. Above, the river ripples in a broad sheet
of mud; below, it plunges with violence over great cataracts and
rapids. Above, the bad lands stretch on either hand. This is
powell-canyons-22.jpg
TWO LARGE NECKS, THE MORE DISTANT ONE BEING THE CABAZON. MESAS IN THE
FOREGROUND.
the region of the Painted Desert, for the marls and soft rocks of which
the hills are composed are of many colors--chocolate, red, vermilion,
pink, buff, and gray; and the naked hills are carved in fantastic
forms. Passing to the region below, suddenly the channel is narrowed and
tumbles down into a deep, solemn gorge with towering limestone cliffs.
All round the margin of the valley of the Little Colorado, on the side
next to the Zuñi Plateau and on the side next to the San Francisco
Plateau, every creek and every brook runs in a beautiful canyon. Then
down in the valley there are stretches of desert covered with sage and
grease wood. Still farther down we come to the bad lands of the Painted
Desert; and scattered through the entire region low mesas or smaller
plateaus are everywhere found.
On the northeast side of the Little Colorado a great mesa country
stretches far to the northward. These mesas are but minor plateaus that
are separated by canyons and canyon valleys, and sometimes by
46
CANYONS OF THE COLORADO.
low sage plains. They rise from a few hundred to 2,000 or 3,000 feet
above the lowlands on which they are founded. The distinction between
plateaus and mesas is vague; in fact, in local usage the term mesa is
usually applied to all of these tables which do not carry volcanic moun-
powell-canyons-23.jpg
NECK SIX MILES NORTHEAST OF JUANTAFOYA.
tains. The mesas are carved out of platforms of horizontal or nearly
horizontal rocks by perennial or intermittent streams, and as the
climate is exceedingly arid most of the streams flow only during seasons
of rain, and for the greater part of the year they are dry arroyos. Many
of the longer channels are dry for long periods. Some of them are opened
only by floods that come ten or twenty years apart.
The region is also characterized by many buttes. These are plateaus or
mesas of still smaller dimensions in horizontal distance, though their
altitude may be hundreds or thousands of feet. Like the mesas and
plateaus, they sometimes form very conspicuous features of a landscape
and are of marvelous beauty by reason of their sculptured escarpments.
Below they are often buttressed on a magnificent scale. Softer beds give
rise to a vertical structure of buttresses and columns, while the harder
strata appear in great horizontal lines, suggesting
MESAS AND BUTTES.
47
architectural entablature. Then the strata of which these buttes are
composed are of many vivid colors; so color and form unite in producing
architectural effects, and the buttes often appear like Cyclopean
temples.
There is yet one other peculiarity of this landscape deserving mention
here. Before the present valleys and canyons were carved and the mesas
lifted in relief, the region was one of great volcanic activity. In
various places vents were formed and floods of lava poured in sheets
over the land. Then for a time volcanic action ceased, and rains and
rivers carved out the valleys and left the mesas and mountains standing.
These same agencies carried away the lava beds that spread over the
lands. But wherever there was a lava vent it was filled with molten
matter, which on cooling was harder than the sandstones and marls
through which it penetrated. The chimney to the region of fire below was
thus filled with a black rock which yielded more
48 powell-canyons-24.jpg
A GROUP OF NECKS NEAR MOUNT TAYLOR.
slowly to the disintegrating agencies of weather, and so black rocks
rise up from mesas on every hand. These are known as volcanic necks,
and, being of a somber color, in great contrast with the vividly colored
rocks from which they rise and by which they are surrounded, they
48 powell-canyons-25.jpg
PANORAMA FROM THE EDGE OF MOUNT TAYLOR MESA.
MESAS AND BUTTES. 49
lend a strange aspect to the landscape. Besides these necks, there are
a few volcanic mountains that tower over all the landscape and gather
about themselves the clouds of heaven. Mount Taylor, which stands over
the divide on the drainage of the Rio Grande del Norte, is one of
the most imposing of the dead volcanoes of this region. Still later
eruptions of lava are found here and there, and in the present valleys
and canyons sheets of black basalt are often found. These are known as
coulees, and sometimes from these coulees cinder cones arise.
This valley of the Little Colorado is also the site of many ruins, and
the villages or towns found in such profusion were of mueh larger size
than those on the San Francisco Plateau. Some of the pueblo-building
peoples yet remain. The Zuñi Indians still occupy their homes, and they
prove to be a most interesting people. They have cultivated the soil
from time immemorial. They build their houses of stone and line them
with plaster; and they have many interesting arts, being skilled potters
and deft weavers. The seasons are about equally divided between labor,
worship, and play.
50
A hundred miles to the northwest of the Zuñí pueblo are the seven
pueblos of Tusayan: Oraibi, Shumopavi, Shupaulovi, Mashongnavi,
Sichumovi, Walpi, and llano. These towns are built on high cliffs. The
people speak a language radically different from that of the Zuñi, but,
with the exception of that of the inhabitants of Hano, closely allied to
that of the Utes. The people of Hano are Tewans, whose ancestors moved
from the Rio Grande to Tusayan during the great Pueblo revolt against
Spanish authority in 1680-96.
Between the Little Colorado and the Rio San Juan there is a vast system
of plateaus, mesas, and buttes, volcanic mountains, volcanic cones, and
volcanic cinder cones. Some of the plateaus are forest-clad and have
perennial waters and are gemmed with lakelets. The mesas are sometimes
treeless, but are often covered with low, straggling, gnarled cedars and
pifions, trees that are intermediate in size between the bushes of
sage in the desert and the forest trees of the elevated regions. On the
western margin of this district the great Navajo Mountain stands, on the
brink of Glen Canyon, and from its summit many of the stupendous gorges
of the Colorado River can be seen. Central in the region stand the
Carrizo Mountains, the Lukachukai
50 powell-canyons-26.jpg
PANORAMA IN THE VALLEY OF THE PUERCO.
MESAS AND BUTTES. 51
Mountains, the Tunitcha Mountains, and the Chusca Mountains, which in
fact constitute one system, extending from north to south in the order
named. These are really plateaus crowned with volcanic peaks.
But the district we are now describing, which stretches from the Little
Colorado to the San Juan, is best characterized by its canyons. The
whole region is a labyrinth of gorges. On the west the Navajo Creek and
its tributaries run in profound chasms. Farther south the Moencopie with
its tributaries is a labyrinth of gorges; and all the streams that run
west into the Colorado, south into the Little Colorado, or north into
the San Juan have carved deep, wild, and romantic gorges. Immediately
west of the Chusca Plateau the Canyon del Muerta and the Canyon de
Chelly are especially noticeable. Many of these canyons are carved in
a homogeneous red sandstone, and their walls are often vertical for
hundreds of feet. Sometimes the canyons widen into narrow valleys, which
are thus walled by impassable cliffs, except where lateral canyons cut
their way through the battlements.
In these mountains, plateaus, mesas, and canyons the Navajo Indians have
their home. The Navajos are intruders in this country. They belong
to the Athapascan stock of British America and speak an Athapascan
language, like the Apaches of the Sierra Madre country. They are a
stately, athletic, and bold people. While yet this country was a part
of Mexico they acquired great herds of horses and flocks of sheep,
and lived in opulence compared with many of the other tribes of North
America. After the acquisition of this territory by the United States
they became disaffected by reason of encroaching civilization, and the
petty wars between United States troops and the Navajos were in the
main disastrous to our forces, due in part to the courage, skill, and
superior numbers of the Navajos and in part to the character of the
country, which is easily defended, as the routes of travel along the
canyons present excellent opportunities for defense and ambuscade. But
under the leadership and by the advice of Kit Carson these Indians were
ultimately conquered. This wily but brave frontiersman recommended a
new method of warfare, which was to destroy the herds and flocks of the
Navajos; and this course was pursued. Regular troops with volunteers
from California and New Mexico went into the Navajo country and shot
down their herds of half-wild horses,
52
CANYONS OF THE COLORADO.
killed hundreds of thousands of sheep, cut down their peach orchards
which were scattered about the springs and little streams, destroyed
their irrigating works, and devastated their little patches of corn,
squashes, and melons; and entirely neglected the Navajos themselves, who
were concealed among the rocks of the canyons. Seeing the destruction
wrought upon their means of livelihood, the Navajos at once yielded.
More than 8,000 of them surrendered at one time, coming in in straggling
bands. They were then removed far to the east, near to the Texas line,
and established on a reservation at the Bosque Redondo. Here they
engaged in civilized farming. A great system powell-canyons-27.jpg
RUINS AT THE HEAD OF MCELMO CANYON.
of irrigation was developed; but the appropriations necessary for the
maintenance of so large a body of people in the course of their passage
from savagery to civilization seemed too great to those responsible
for making grants from the national treasury, and just before 1870 the
Navajos were permitted to break up their homes at the Bosque Redondo and
return to the canyons and cliffs of their ancient land. Millions were
spent in conquering them where thousands were used to civilize them, so
that they were conquered but not civilized. Still, they are making good
progress, and have once more acquired large flocks and herds. It is
estimated that they now have more than a million sheep. Their experience
in irrigation at the Bosque Redondo has
MESAS AND BUTTES.
53
not been wholly wasted, for they now cultivate the soil by methods
of irrigation greatly improved over those used in the earlier time.
Originally they dwelt in hogans, or houses made of poles arranged with
much skill in conical form, the poles being covered with reeds and the
reeds with earth; now they are copying the dwelling places of civilized
men. They have also acquired great skill in the manufacture of silver
ornaments, with which they decorate themselves and the trappings of
their steeds.
Perhaps the most interesting ruins of America are found in this
region. The ancient pueblos found here are of superior structure, but
powell-canyons-28.jpg
A NAVAJO HOGAN.
they were all built by a people whom the Navajos displaced when they
migrated from the far North. Wherever there is water, near by an ancient
ruin may be found; and these ruins are gathered about centers, the
centers being larger pueblos and the scattered ruins representing single
houses. The ancient people lived in villages, or pueblos, but during
the growing season they scattered about by the springs and streams to
cultivate the soil by irrigation, and wherever there was a little farm
or garden patch, there was built a summer house of stone. When times
of war came, especially when they were invaded by the Navajos, these
ancient people left their homes in the pueblos and by the streams and
constructed temporary homes in the cliffs and canyon
54
CANYONS OF THE COLORADO.
walls. Such cliff ruins are abundant throughout the region, intimately
the ancient pueblo peoples succumbed to the prowess of the Navajos and
were driven out. A part joined related tribes in the valley of the Bio
Grande; others joined the Zuñi and the people of Tusayan; and stall
others pushed on beyond the Little Colorado to the San Francisco Plateau
and far down into the valley of the Gila. powell-canyons-29.jpg
AN ANCIENT COILED VASE FROM TUSAYAN.
Farther to the east, on the border of the region which we have
described, beyond the drainage of the Little Colorado and San Juan and
within the drainage of the Rio Grande, there lies an interesting plateau
region, which forms a part of the Plateau Province and which is worthy
of description. This is the great Tewan Plateau, which carries several
groups of mountains. The western edge of this plateau is known as the
MESAS AND BUTTES. 55
Nacimiento Mountain, a long north-and-south range of granite, which
presents a bold facade to the valley of the Puerco on the west.
Ascending to the summit of this granite range, there is presented to the
eastward a plateau of vast proportions, which stretches far toward Santa
Fe and is terminated by the canyon of the Rio Grande del Norte. The
eastern flank of this range as it slowly rose was a gentle slope, but as
it came up fissures were formed and volcanoes burst forth and poured out
their floods of lava, and now many extinct volcanoes can be seen. The
plateau was built by these volcanoes--sheets of lava piled on sheets
of lava hundreds and even thousands of feet in thickness. But with the
floods of lava came great explosions, like that of Krakatoa, by which
the heavens were filled with volcanic dust. These explosions came at
different times and at different places, but they were of enormous
magnitude, and when the dust fell again from the clouds it piled up in
beds scores and hundreds of feet in thickness. So the Tewan Plateau has
a foundation of red sandstone; upon this are piled sheets of lava and
sheets of dust in many alternating layers. It is estimated that there
still remain more than two hundred cubic miles of this dust, now
compacted into somewhat coherent rocks and interpolated between sheets
of lava. Everywhere this dust-formed rock is exceedingly light. Much of
it has a specific gravity so low that it will float on water. Above the
sheets of lava and above the beds of volcanic dust great volcanic cones
rise, and the whole upper region is covered with forests interspersed
with beautiful prairies. The plateau itself is intersected with many
deep, narrow canyons, having walls of lava, volcanic dust, or tufa, and
red sandstone. It is a beautiful region. The low mesas on every side are
almost treeless and are everywhere deserts, but the great Tewan Plateau
is booned with abundant rains, and it is thus a region of forests and
meadows, divided into blocks by deep, precipitous canyons and crowned
with cones that rise to an altitude of from 10,000 to 12,000 feet.
For many centuries the Tewan Plateau, with its canyons below and its
meadows and forests above, has been the home of tribes of Tewan Indians,
who built pueblos, sometimes of the red sandstones in the canyons, but
oftener of blocks of tufa, or volcanic dust. This light material can be
worked with great ease, and with crude tools of the
56
CANYONS OF THE COLORADO.
harder lavas they cut out blocks of the tufa and with them built pueblos
two or three stories high. The blocks are usually about twenty inches in
length, eight inches in width, and six inches in thickness, though they
vary somewhat in size. On the volcanic cones which dominate the country
these people built shrines and worshiped their gods with offerings of
meal and water and with prayer symbols made of the plumage of the birds
of the air. When the Navajo invasion came, by which kindred tribes were
displaced from the district farther west, these Tewan Indians left their
pueblos on the plateau and their dwellings by the rivers below in the
depths of the canyon and constructed cavate homes for themselves;
that is, they excavated chambers in the cliffs where these cliffs were
composed of soft, friable tufa. On the face of the cliff, hundreds of
feet high and thousands of feet or even miles in length, they dug out
chambers with stone tools, these chambers being little rooms eight or
ten feet in diameter. Sometimes two or more such chambers connected.
Then they constructed stairways in the soft rock, by which their cavate
houses were reached; and in these rock shelters they lived during times
powell-canyons-30.jpg
A TYPICAL CLIFF DWELLING.
57 powell-canyons-31.jpg
A ROOM IN A PUEBLO.
58
CANYONS OF THE COLORADO.
of war. When the Navajo invasion was long past, civilized men as Spanish
adventurers entered this country from Mexico, and again the Tewan
peoples left their homes on the mesas and by the canyons to find safety
in the cavate dwellings of the cliffs; and now the archaeologist in the
study of this country discovers these two periods of construction and
occupation of the cavate dwellings of the Tewan Indians.
North of the Rio San Juan another vast plateau region is found,
stretching to the Grand River. The mountains of this region are the La
Plata Mountains, Bear River Mountains, and San Miguel Mountains on the
east, and the Sierra El Late, the Sierra Abajo, and the Sierra La Sal on
the west, the latter standing near the brink of Cataract Canyon, through
which the Colorado flows immediately below the junction of the Grand and
Green. Throughout the region mountains, volcanic cones, volcanic necks,
and coulees are found, while the mountains themselves rise to great
altitudes and are forest-clad. Some of the plateaus attain huge
proportions, and between the plateaus labyrinthian mesas are found.
Buttes, as stupendous cameos, are scattered everywhere, and the whole
region is carved with canyons.
Grand River heads on the back of Long's Peak, in the Front Range of the
Rocky Mountains of central Colorado. At the foot of the mountain lies
Grand Lake, a sheet of emerald water that duplicates the forest
standing on its brink. Out of the lake flows Grand River, gathering on
powell-canyons-32.jpg
A NAVAJO READY FOR A JOURNEY.
MESAS AND BUTTES.
59
its way the many mountain streams whose waters fill the solitude with
perennial music--a symphony of cascades. In Middle Park boiling springs
issue from depths below and gather in pools covered with con-fervae.
Leaving Middle Park the river goes through a great range known as the
Gore's Pass Mountains; and still it flows on toward the Colorado, now
through canyon and now through valley, until the last forty miles of its
course it finds its way through a beautiful gorge known as Grand River
Canyon. In its principal course this canyon is a bright red homogeneous
sandstone, and the walls are often vertical and of great symmetry.
Farther down, its walls are rugged and angular, being composed of
limestones.
The principal tributaries from the south are the Blue, which heads in
Mt. Lincoln, and the Gunnison, which heads in the Wasatch Mountains.
These streams are also characterized by deep canyons and plateaus, and
mesas abound on every hand. Between the Grand River and the White River,
farther to the east, the Tavaputs Plateau is found. It begins at the
foot of Gore's Pass Range and extends down between the rivers last
mentioned to the very brink of Green River, which is in fact the upper
Colorado. Between the Grand River and the powell-canyons-33.jpg
A NAVAJO BOY.
60
CANYONS OF THE COLORADO.
foot of this plateau there is a low, narrow valley with mesas and
buttes. Then the country suddenly rises by a stupendous line of cliffs
2,000 or 3,000 feet high. These cliffs are composed of sand stones,
limestones, and shales, of many colors. The stratification in many
places is minute, so that they have been called the Book Cliffs.
powell-canyons-34.jpg
GARDENS OF ZUÑI.
From the cliffs many salients are projected into the valleys, and within
deep re-entering angles vast amphitheaters appear. About the projected
salients many towering buttes, with pinnacles and minarets, are found.
The long, narrow plateau is covered with a forest along its summit, and,
though it rises abruptly on the south side from Grand River Valley, it
descends more gently toward the White River, and on
MESAS AND BUTTES.
61 powell-canyons-35.jpg
A TUSAYAN LADDER.
this slope many canyons of rare beauty are seen. Plateaus and mesas
and canyons and buttes characterize the region north of White River and
stretch out to the Yampa. The Yampa itself has an important tributary
from the northwest, known as Snake River. Just below the affluence of
the Snake with the Yampa a strange phenomenon is observed. Right athwart
the course of the river rises a great dome-shaped mountain, with valley
stretches on every side, and through this mountain the river runs,
dividing it by a beautiful canyon, through which it flows to its
junction with the Green. This canyon is in soft, white sandstone,
usually with vertical walls varying from 500 to 2,000 feet in height,
and the river flows in a gentle winding way through all this stretch.
To the east of this plateau region, with its mesas and buttes and
its volcanic mountains, stand the southern Rocky Mountains, or Park
Mountains, a system of north-and-south ranges. These ranges are huge
billows in the crust of the earth out of which mountains have been
carved. The parks of Colorado are great valley basins enclosed by these
ranges, and over their surfaces moss agates are scattered. The mountains
are covered with dense forests and are rugged and wild. The higher peaks
rise above the timber line and are naked gorges of rocks. In them the
Platte and Arkansas rivers head and flow eastward to join the Missouri
River. Here also heads the Rio Grande del Norte, which flows southward
into the Gulf of Mexico, and still to the west head many streams which
pour into the Colorado waters destined for the Gulf of California.
Throughout all of this region drained by the Grand, White, and
Yampa rivers, there are many beautiful parks. The great moun-
powell-canyons-36.jpg
A ZUÑÍ STOOL.
62
CANYONS OF THE COLORADO.
tain slopes are still covered with primeval forests. Springs, brooks,
rivers, and lakes abound, and the waters are filled with trout. Not many
years ago the hills were covered with game--elk on the mountains, deer
on the plateaus, antelope in the valleys, and beavers building their
cities on the streams. The plateaus are covered with low, dwarf oaks
and many shrubs bearing berries, and in the chaparral of this region
cinnamon bears are still abundant.
From time immemorial the region drained by the Grand, White, and
Yampa rivers has been the home of Ute tribes of the Shoshonean
powell-canyons-37.jpg
A TUSAYAN FIELD SHELTER.
family of Indians. These people built their shelters of boughs and bark,
and to some extent lived in tents made of the skins of animals. They
never cultivated the soil, but gathered wild seeds and roots and were
famous hunters and fishermen. As the region abounds in game, these
tribes have always been well clad in skins and furs. The men wore
blouse, loincloth leggins, and moccasins, and the women dressed in
short kilts. It is curious to notice the effect which the contact of
civilization has had upon these women's dress. Even twenty years ago
they had lengthened their skirts; and dresses, made of buckskin, fringed
with furs, and beaded with elk teeth, were worn so long that they
trailed
MESAS AND BUTTES.
63
on the ground. Neither men nor women wore any headdress except on
festival occasions for decoration; then the women wore little basket
bonnets decorated with feathers, and the men wore headdresses made of
the skins of ducks, geese, eagles, and other large birds. Sometimes they
would prepare the skin of the head of the elk or deer, or of a bear or
mountain lion or wolf, for a headdress. For very cold weather both men
and women were provided with togas for their protection. Sometimes
the men would have a bearskin or elkskin for a toga; more
powell-canyons-38.jpg
ANOTHER TUSAYAN FIELD SHELTER.
often they made their togas by piecing together the skins of wolves,
mountain lions, wolverines, wild cats, beavers, and otters. The women
sometimes made theirs of fawnskins, but rabbitskin r,obes were far more
common. These rabbitskins were tanned with the fur on, and cut into
strips; then cords were made of the fiber of wild flax or yucca plants,
and round these cords the strips of rabbitskin were rolled, so that
they made long ropes of rabbitskin coils with a central cord of vegetal
fiber; then these coils were woven in parallel strings with cross
64 powell-canyons-39.jpg
VIEW OF HANO, ONE OF THE SEVEN PUEBLOS OF TUSAYAN. powell-canyons-40.jpg
MESA VERDE.
MESAS AND BUTTES. 65
strands of fiber. The robe when finished was usually about five or six
feet square, and it made a good toga for a cold day and a warm blanket
for the night.
The Ute Indians, like all the Indians of North America, have a wealth of
mythic stories. The heroes of these stories are the beasts, birds, and
reptiles of the region, and the themes of the stories are the doings
of these mythic beasts--the ancients from whom the present animals have
descended and degenerated. The primeval animals were wonderful
beings, as related in the lore of the Utes. They were the creators and
controllers of all the phenomena of nature known to these simple-minded
people. The Utes are zootheists. Each little tribe has its Shaman, or
medicine man, who is historian, priest, and doctor. The lore of this
Shaman is composed of mythic tales of ancient animals. The Indians
are very skillful actors, and they represent the parts of beasts or
reptiles, wearing masks and imitating the ancient zoic gods. In temples
walled with gloom of night and illumed by torch fires the people gather
about their Shaman, who tells and acts the stories of creation recorded
in their traditional bible. When fever prostrates one of the tribe
the Shaman gathers the actors about the stricken man, and with weird
dancing, wild ululation, and ecstatic exhortation the evil spirit is
driven from the body. Then they have their ceremonies to pray for
the forest fruits, for abundant game, for successful hunting, and for
prosperity in war.
66 powell-canyons-41.jpg
MOUNT MORAN, TETON RANGE, WYOMING.
67