THE DEAD CITIES OF THE SALINES
Southeasterly from Albuquerque some 20 miles the Manzano Mountains lift
their piny crests and drift southward to the Gallinas. From their feet
eastward stretches the wide treeless Estancia Valley, and in the lap of
it lies a noteworthy cluster of saline ponds and lagoons, whose bitter
waters, shining in the blistering sun, are a mockery to the thirsty.
These are “the accursed lakes”[23] of Pueblo tradition—originally fresh
and abounding in fish, they say, but now lifeless and undrinkable,
cursed of the ancient gods because of the sinfulness of a witch who
dwelt there once. If you would know how this change came about, you
should read the tale called “The Accursed Lake” in Mr. Charles F.
Lummis’s delightful book “Pueblo Indian Folk Stories.” These lakes are
all heavily alkaline except one and that is saline—a source of salt from
time immemorial to the Indians of the pueblos. Coming from near and far,
they would plant their prayer plumes by its white margin and sprinkle
its waves with sacred meal in recognition of the divine largesse they
were about to receive. For the Indian tradition is that this lake was
the abode of a divinity whom they called Salt Old Woman or Salt Mother,
and the salt was her free gift to men. She is circumstantially described
as wearing white boots and a white cotton dress, and carrying in her
hand a white abalone shell, which was so soft and pliable that she could
fold it like a handkerchief.[24] It is said the salt of this lake has
found its way through barter to Parral in Old Mexico.
To the tourist the attraction in the Estancia Valley is the presence of
some quaint old plaza villages dating from the days of the Spanish
occupation, and certain imposing ruins of Franciscan Mission churches of
seventeenth century construction standing in the midst of crumbled
Pueblo towns. These are not in the open valley but in the foothills of
the Manzanos and the Gallinas, and are easily visited from Mountainair,
an American town on the “Belén Cut-off” of the Santa Fe Railway. Here is
a small hotel, and automobiles may be hired.
The most famous of the ruins is the Gran Quivira at the edge of the
Gallinas foothills, 24 miles south of Mountainair. They are the remains
of a large pueblo of low, stone houses, covering altogether about 80
acres and once housing perhaps a couple of thousand souls. There are the
ruins of several _estufas_, of irrigation works, and of two Christian
churches. The pueblo occupies the narrow crest of a ridge overlooking a
vast, lonely, cedar- and piñon-dotted plain that reaches to far-off,
dreamy mountain ranges. It is in a solitude of solitudes wrapped in the
silence of death, and as almost everywhere in the plateau region of
northern New Mexico and Arizona, one has the feeling of being alone on
the roof of the world, though the elevation here is really but 6800
feet. The most conspicuous feature of this shattered town is the larger
of the two churches whose gaunt, gray, roofless walls of flat limestone
pieces laid in mortar and rising to a height of 30 feet, are visible to
the traveler long before he reaches the place. Seen “from the northeast,
through vistas of cedars and junipers,” to quote Bandelier, “the ruins
shine in pallid light like some phantom city of the desert.” Adjoining
the church, are the ruins of a _convento_ of several small rooms and a
refectory, built about an interior courtyard. The whole has an
unfinished appearance, and Bandelier believed that work on the building
was suddenly interrupted and never resumed.
Indeed, the whole place is shrouded in mystery—its beginning and its end
are alike in the twilight. No record has been left by the old
chroniclers of any mission called Gran Quivira; but there is frequent
mention by them of Tabirá, whose location fairly corresponds to this.
That was a town of the Piro Pueblos, where an important Mission was
established about 1630 by Padre Francisco de Acevedo. It ceased to be
heard of after half a century, and it is believed that repeated raids of
the barbarous Apaches—the red terror of the peacable Pueblos—caused the
abandonment of the village. In all human probability that Tabirá is this
Gran Quivira, but how the latter name became attached to these ruins has
never been satisfactorily explained; for, as has already been stated,
Quivira was Coronado’s name for the country of the Wichitas, far away in
Kansas. The Piro people, who are believed to have inhabitated this
pueblo (and that of Abó, of which something shortly), are about as
extinct as their towns. Only an insignificant remnant, and these
speaking an alien tongue, exist today, in the Mexican State of
Chihuahua.
The hill which the Gran Quivira ruins occupy is of limestone, and
underlaid, as limestone hills often are, with hollownesses that give
back in places an audible echo to one’s footfalls. Popular fancy has
been caught by these givings-off of the underworld, and all sorts of
fables have attached themselves to this desolate place. These have
mostly to do with buried treasure. It has been thought, for instance,
that here in the caverns of this hill is really the store of gold and
jewels, the hope of which, like a will-of-the-wisp, lured Coronado on
and ever on, to disappointment and a broken heart. Another tradition
(quoted by Mr. Paul A. F. Walter, in “The Cities That Died of Fear”[25])
tells of a hidden cave in the hill where the last Piros are said to have
retreated with their belongings, including vast treasure brought from
Mexico by the Franciscan Fathers,[26] and that an earthquake sealed them
and their treasure up together. Of course, such stories have brought
hither innumerable treasure seekers, who for years have gophered the
hill industriously but have got nothing but sore muscles, arrowheads,
and broken pottery. The most picturesque of these delvers was a blind
woman, a Mrs. Clara Corbyn, who acquired homestead rights on the north
end of Gran Quivira. Lacking the wherewithal to finance excavations, she
traveled the country over from the Pacific to the Atlantic, endeavoring
to procure money backing for her scheme, and to that end even wrote a
musical romance, which she called “La Gran Quivira.” Failing, she died
not long ago in Los Angeles—of a broken heart, it is said—and the Museum
of New Mexico eventually secured her homestead interest.[27] The major
portion of these ruins belongs to the United States, forming the Gran
Quivira National Monument.
Abó, that other dead pueblo of the Piros, is about 12 miles southwest of
Mountainair, or 4 miles west of Abó station on the Santa Fe Railway.
Gran Quivira you see on its hilltop for miles before you reach it, but
of Abó your first view comes with the shock of an unexpected delight.
Your car climbs a hill through a bit of wooded wilderness, and, the
crest attained, there flashes on your sight from below, an exquisite
little sunlit valley. In the midst of it is a hillock, and on and about
this is scattered the desolated, roofless pueblo with its noble church,
ruined too, of San Gregorio de Abó. A thread of living water—the Arroyo
de Abó—cuts its way through the valley which is bounded on the west by
the lovely chain of the Manzanos. Unfortunately, the ruin of the old
church still goes on—the decay hastened, I believe, by the fact that
latter-day settlers have borne off much of its stone and timber for
their private use. As it now stands, the high, jagged walls of the
building resemble as much as anything a gigantic broken tooth, and
standing in this solitary place are picturesque to a degree. The
material is red sandstone and the edifice dates from about 1630—the
founder being the same Padre de Acevedo that is credited with
establishing Gran Quivira. He died here at Abó, and was buried in the
church on August 1, 1644. This pueblo, like Gran Quivira, is believed to
have been abandoned because of Apache raids, and was extinct before the
great rebellion of 1680.[28]
A few miles from the old pueblo, and close to the railway line there are
some low cliffs, forming one side of a gorge once called _El Cañon de la
Pintada_, or the Painted Rocks of Abó Cañon. This spot is a sort of
aboriginal picture gallery worth a visit by the curious in such matters.
The sheltered places on the cliff-face are adorned for a considerable
distance with drawings of evident antiquity in various colors—yellow,
green, red, white. They are mostly representative of human figures, one
or two apparently of the clowns who play prankish parts in many of the
present-day Pueblo ceremonies. Others are symbols that still survive in
the religious rites of the Pueblos.
Eight miles northwest of Mountainair (and a little more due north of
Abó) is Quaraí, another forsaken pueblo, the ruins of whose fine old
Mission church may be seen a mile away. My own first view of it was
dramatic enough, the red, sandstone walls 20 feet high or more, gaunt
and jagged, silhouetted sharply against a sky black with storm clouds
whence rain banners wavered downward, and athwart them now and then
forked lightnings shot and spit. Quaraí was a walled town, and some
excavation work, done recently by the Santa Fe archaeologists, has
brought to light among other things the remains of a round community
building resembling the Tyuonyi in the Cañon Rito de los Frijoles.[29]
Close at hand is a cottonwood grove refreshed by an abundant spring, a
favorite picnic ground for the country folk roundabout. Other ruins in
the vicinity and signs of ancient fields here and there indicate that
Quaraí was a place of importance in its day, and doubtless for a long
time before the Spanish occupation. Its church is believed to have been
built about 1628 and was dedicated to La Inmaculada Concepcion. This was
the Mission of that Padre de la Llana whose remains, after much travel,
are now at rest beneath the altar in the Cathedral at Santa Fe.
About 7 miles northward from Quaraí, nestling at the foot of Manzano
Peak,[30] is an excellent example of the old-fashioned plaza village,
called Manzano, which is Spanish for apple tree. The reason for the name
is the presence there of a couple of ancient apple orchards, which are
believed to date back to the time of the Franciscan Missions, and
doubtless were set out by the Fathers of Quaraí, some 250 years ago. The
village is of the typical adobe architecture of New Mexico, and though
not so old as it looks, having been settled about 1825, it is very
foreign of aspect. With its plaza, its old-fashioned flowers in the
gardens, its houses massed one above another on the side of a hill that
is topped by a great wooden cross, its murmurous _acéquia_, and its fine
old Spanish _torreon_ or tower of defense, Manzano holds features of
picturesqueness enough to be worth a trip in itself. A unique feature of
the place is the Manzano Lake which occupies a depression in the midst
of the village—a charming sheet of water, beautiful and fragrant in
season with water lilies. The source of the Lake is a magnificent spring
hardby. To reach it, one climbs the hillside a quarter-mile or so, and
then descends into a shaded hollow, where the cool water gushes up into
a colossal bowl, and brimming over quickly sinks into the ground to
re-appear below and form the village lake. The spring is locally known
as _El Ojo del Gigante_—the Giant’s Eye—and is famed throughout the
State as a very marvel among springs.
If one have time and inclination, the Estancia Valley, its lakes and
ruins and Mexican villages may be made the objective of a trip by
automobile from Santa Fe or Albuquerque. The roads in good weather are
fair, as unimproved roads go, and in the mountain part pass through a
wooded region of much loveliness—sunny park-like forests of pine and
oak, with numerous rivulets and charming wild gardens. From Albuquerque
to Mountainair by this route is about 75 miles.