From Zuni dispatches were sent back to Count Galvas by a line of swift
runners reaching to Mexico. Perhaps a letter to Seville from the
faithful knight, who now had time for sweet thoughts of love, without
which this were the wilderness without the manna. I hope the reader
does not forget my young hero; for I love him dearly, and mean to stand
up for him to the last, through evil as well as through good report.
Skillful furbishers did what they could to restore the original luster
to dulled and dinted armor, and in the idlesse of camp the secretary
must often have looked up at two enormous pillars of sandstone towering
high on the sides of the _mesa_, appearing chiseled into human figures
of colossal size, fixed, immortal as the statues of Aboo Simbel. At
evening, while my Rosita walked through the drowsy Spanish city,
“Guarded by the old duenna,
Fierce and sharp as a hyena,
With her goggles and her fan
Waving on each wicked man,”
and Antonia Eusebio was smoothing his draggled plumes, he probably
heard from friendly Indians the wild legend still told there by the red
light of the camp-fires. The tradition runs that Zuni is the only city
on the earth which bore the weight of the Flood. Ages ago, an eternity
before white men came, rain fell in streams from the sky; adobe houses
melted away, and the whole world and everything in it was fast sinking
from sight. The neighboring tribes escaped from the rushing waters
to the top of this _mesa_; but the waves rose so fast nearly all
perished before reaching the summit of the cliff. In the midst of their
distress a black night (_noche triste_) fell on the land. Their God had
forgotten them, the sun turned his face away from his children, and
“darkness was the universe.” Still the waters rose higher and higher,
incessant, undiminished; still the people in blind panic pressed to the
topmost foothold, threatened with the fast-rising overflow. Above the
black abyss no light of sun or star, sign of promise, dove or olive.
In desperate extremity, they sought to avert the curse by sacrifice.
No time was there for song or prayer, altar-fire or incantation. They
snatched the children of the _cacique_ (a daughter lovely as light, a
smile of the Great Spirit, and a son beautiful as morning), adorned
them with a few gay feathers, and hurled them from the steep into
the boiling abyss--an offering to an offended Deity. The waters were
surging within a few feet of the top of the _mesa_. There the proud
waves were stayed. The victims were changed to the stone columns, a
sign from Heaven marking the mountain of refuge where the propitiatory
offering was accepted, and everlastingly commemorating the Deluge.
The _mesa_ is a mile across; an irregular figure, defined by abrupt
bluffs, almost perpendicular. On it are the remains of two pueblos,
whose outlines are clearly traceable--the dimensions of rooms and inner
walls. Like all ancient towns, they were fortified with an outer wall
in the shape of the letter V, to resist invasions of warlike tribes,
and watch-towers were placed at regular intervals. Crumbling walls,
made of little blocks of stone laid in mud-mortar, are scattered over
the ground in heaps from two to ten feet high. Here the fox and coyote
prowl by night, and the antiquarian haunts it by day. After careful
investigation, with Indian guides, they report the standing walls
rest on ruins of still greater age. The primitive masonry must have
been about six feet thick. In the more recent buildings the walls are
not over eighteen inches thick. The small sandstone blocks are laid
with neatness and regularity. Broken pottery is strewn about, and
arrow-heads of obsidian, flint, and jasper.
After the Deluge, when the waters abated off the face of the earth,
the tribes abandoned the hill city, and lived in the pleasant valley
till the Spanish invasion, when they again fled to the top of the
_mesa_. They turned at every place possible and fortified strongly
the two approaches by which the outworks could be assaulted, and held
out against the foe a long time. At last the heights were scaled. The
mail-clad warriors, with their swords of matchless temper, triumphed
over the rude arms of the feeble natives. From the highest watch-tower
the banner of the Cross was unfurled against the brilliant sky,
unflecked by cloud or shadow; and sun-lighted spears glittered in the
narrow streets of the devoted, the Holy City.
Imprinted in the solid rock, as in clay, is shown and may be seen this
day the foot-print of the first white man who reached the summit. When
you visit Zuni, the old guide, if you happen to get the right one, will
repeat this story, for a slight consideration.
The Zunis are the Yankees of the Pueblos--self-supporting, keen at a
bargain, thrifty, orderly, clean; that is, clean _for Indians_. I
presume every head in the Holy City could furnish numberless offerings
such as Diogenes (oldest of tramps) cracked on the pure altar of the
chaste Diana.
What Cholula was to the Aztec, Zuni is to the Pueblos; sacred as the
City of David to the sons of Israel. Touching the religion of this
people opens a subject so broad and so charming I am tempted to give
it more than a passing glance, but space forbids. They are pantheists
in the fullest sense of the word, and, though missions have been
established among them three hundred years, they, like all aborigines,
set their face as a flint against change, and still keep to the ancient
beliefs and customs. They worship the Supreme One, whose name it is
death to utter; Montezuma, his brother and equal; and the Sun to whom
they pray and smoke, because his eye is always open and his ear attends
the prayers of the red men. The Moon is the Sun’s wife, and eclipses
are family quarrels, that will result in disaster to the world if they
are not soon reconciled. The stars are their children; the largest is
the oldest.
Besides these superior deities, there is the great snake, to which they
look for life, by command of Montezuma.
Like our sea-serpent on the Atlantic Coast, he glideth at his own sweet
will, is seen at unexpected places, as suits his pleasure, is longer
than the tallest pine, and “thick as many men put together.”
[Illustration: Zuñi Basketry, and Toy Cradles.]
It has been well said the barbarian is the most religious of mortals.
His dependence on the elements for food and comfort makes the primitive
man regard Nature with eager interest. Powerless against her forces,
if there be something mysterious, threatening, the untutored soul
supplicates it in prayer, with the inborn faith down deep in every
breast that behind the visible lies close the Invisible, the Creator,
who rules the world he made.
They adore the rainbow, bright headband of the sky, rivers,
mountains, stones, trees, bears, and other animals. Their fables
appear meaningless to us; but we must not despise them, for many of
our beliefs are equally so to them. The aboriginal brain can never
comprehend why white men worship a sheet of bunting--white, red,
spangled blue, with the eagle totem--suffer for it, fight for it in
armies numberless as the sands of the desert, and die for it without
murmur.
The myths of the furthest West are wonderfully like the myths of the
furthest East. Studying them, one cannot fail in the conviction that
humanity, in all the ages and races, is the same, formed on one model,
unfolding under the influence of the same inspiration; that, left to
their own will, men do like things under like conditions, and that
certain religious ideas are born in every heart, sage or savage, making
worship a human necessity. Here, as in ancient Thessaly, the powers of
Heaven have haunts in the echoing mountain-sides, by pebbly springs, in
the gloomy shades of the whispering pines, and under the rushing river
and cataract.
In New Mexico, where the food supply depends so largely on the winds
and the uncertain rainfall, the savage is most anxious to conciliate
the gods who preside over these forces. There are altars for their
worship, mystic stones among the gnarled cedars of the Zuni _mesa_,
and a spring of sweet water, sacred to the rain god, rimmed with
pebbles precious as the oracular jewels on the breast of the Jewish
high priest. No animal is allowed to drink of the holy waters, and they
are purified every year, with vessels dedicated to the service--most
ancient jars, handed down through the generations since the evening and
the morning were the first day. No Zuni drinks from the consecrated
_ollas_, for the spirit of the spring is always watching, and will
avenge the indignity with instant death. Once a year, in August, the
_cacique_, with his chief counselors, visits the spring, and washes its
walls, with the elaborately-tinted vases, which were hallowed by the
first high priest. The jars are ranged in order on the rim of the well.
The frog, the rattlesnake, the tortoise are painted on them, animals
sacred to the presiding deity. Woe to the offender who shall profane
them by a touch! A fate awaits him like that of Uzza, when he put
forth his hand to hold the ark in the threshing-floor of Chidon. The
lightning of the dread god of storms will strike the sinner dead.
Somewhere near is a mysterious divine bird, kept in a secret shrine. As
Herodotus says of the Phœnix: “I have never seen it myself, except in a
picture.”
Like the old Greek, the Pueblo looks up and sees the dead among the
stars. When the Aurora flashes a strange, flickering light along
the northern sky, it is the mustering of the spirits of the mighty
warriors, whirling their spears and marching with proud steps, as
the shade of Agamemnon strode across the fields of Asphodel. The
earthquake’s rumble is the groaning and turning in sleep of a big old
giant, with voice of thunder, eyes of fire, and breath of flame. He was
so immense that he sprawled across the whole plain, and so powerful the
immortal gods, finding they could not kill him, tore up a high mountain
and laid it on him, to keep him quiet. What is this but Enceladus?
“Under Mount Etna he lies.
It is slumber, it is not death;
For he struggles at times to arise,
And above him the lurid skies
Are hot with his fiery breath.
“The crags are piled on his breast,
The earth is heaped on his head;
But the groans of his wild unrest,
Though smothered and half-suppressed,
Are heard, and he is not dead.”
[Illustration: Zuñi Water Vases.]
The best hope and strongest faith of the Pueblos are in the second
coming of the great King, who is to raise the dead, judge the world,
and reign in peace and righteousness. Struggling with shadows and weird
imaginings, working out their destiny with many a bitter failure, in
anguish of heart they instinctively reach through the darkness for the
almighty hand of the unseen helper. The sons of Montezuma, as they
love to call themselves, believe the fullness of time is come, and the
return of their Messiah at hand. He will leave his bright sun-house, to
right the wrongs and heal the woes of the race so mercilessly stricken
down by the Spaniards. Then there will be no more death, neither
sorrow, nor crying; neither shall there be any more pain. Their ideas
are vague and dim. Legends treacherous as memory, and growing fainter
from generation to generation, for their wise men are without open
vision, and their sagamores have neither written prophecy nor guiding
stars.
The view from the top of the _mesa_ is unspeakably beautiful. Twined
among multitudes of peaks, like tangled ribbons, are streakings
of azure and purple, beneath which, as we know by experience, are
outspread valleys, broad, treeless, scorched with a tropic heat, which
at noonday seems like quivering flame. The pre-historic ruins cover
about thirty acres, and are scattered in confusion on the level plateau
under the wind-whipped cedars. Here, until within a few years, was kept
the consecrated fire burning for centuries--the Montezuma fire; but
time fails to tell it all. Another day we will come again, and hear
the fanciful traditions, the misty old superstitions which hover about
the neglected shrines. They are given with an opulence of fancy which
throws mists before your eyes. In the hush of solitude, the effect of
the place is mysterious, and reflection drops easily into belief. Few
worshipers now sacrifice in the primeval temples, where of old they
must have flocked by hundreds, cherishing the promise of the second
coming of Montezuma from the pleasant land where the sun rises. The
chiefs crouch with faces toward the east as the morning star goes
softly out, and the gray dawn melts into the light of day, yearning as
human hearts have yearned in all ages, seeking a sign from Heaven. The
legend runs that he who shall first behold the King in his beauty shall
receive some great favor at his hand. Sometimes they wait in silence;
again they chant a hymn to their god, watching till he shakes his
“plumes of fire” above the mountain-tops and shoots his radiant spears
across the roseate sky. But the oracles are dumb. Well are they keeping
the mighty secret!