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Page 36
In the search for evidence of their antiquity it is believed that
data has been found which denotes great age. In the construction
of some of their houses, notably those in the Mancos Canon, is
displayed a technical knowledge of architecture and a
mathematical accuracy which savages do not possess; and the fine
masonry of dressed stone and superior cement seem to prove that
Indians were not the builders. On the contrary, to quote a
recent writer, "The evidence goes to show that the work was done
by skilled workmen who were white masons and who built for white
people in a prehistoric age." In this connection it is singular,
if not significant, that the natives when first discovered
believed in a bearded white man whom they deified as the Fair God
of whose existence they had obtained knowledge from some source
and in whose honor they kept their sacred altar fires burning
unquenched.
The relics that have been found in the ruins are principally
implements of the stone age, but are of sufficient variety to
indicate a succession of races that were both primitive and
cultured and as widely separated in time as in knowledge.
The cliff dwellings were not only the abodes of their original
builders, but were occupied and deserted successively by the
chipped stone implement maker, the polisher of hard stone, the
basket maker and the weaver.
Among the relics that have been found in the ruins are some very
fine specimens of pottery which are as symmetrical and well
finished as if they had been turned on a potter's wheel, and
covered with an opaque enamel of stanniferous glaze composed of
lead and tin that originated with the Phoenicians, and is as old
as history. Can it be possible that the cliff dwellers are a
lost fragment of Egyptian civilization?
The cliff ruins in Arizona are not only found in the canons of
the Colorado river, but also in many other places. The finest of
them are Montezuma's Castle on Beaver creek, and the Casa Blanca
in Canon de Chelly. Numerous other ruins are found on the Rio
Verde, Gila river, Walnut Canon and elsewhere.
The largest and finest group of cliff dwellings are those on the
Mesa Verde in Colorado. They are fully described in the great
work[5] of Nordenskiold, who spent much time among them. The
different houses are named after some peculiarity of appearance
or construction, like the Cliff Palace, which contains more than
one hundred rooms, Long House, Balcony House, Spruce Tree House,
etc.
[5] The Cliff Dwellers of the Mesa Verde, by F. Nordenskiold,
Stockholm. 1893.
He obtained a large quantity of relics, which are also fully
described, consisting of stone implements, pottery, cotton and
feather cloth, osier and palmillo mats, yucca sandals, weaving
sticks, bone awls, corn and beans.
Many well-preserved mummies were found buried in graves that were
carefully closed and sealed. The bodies were wrapped in a fine
cotton cloth of drawn work, which was covered by a coarser cloth
resembling burlap, and all inclosed in a wrapping of palmillo
matting tied with a cord made of the fiber of cedar bark. The
hair is fine and of a brown color, and not coarse and black like
the hair of the wild Indians. Mummies have been exhumed that
have red or light colored hair such as usually goes with a fair
skin. This fact has led some to believe that the cliff dwellers
belonged to the white race, but not necessarily so, as this
quality of hair also belongs to albinos, who doubtless lived
among the cliff dwellers as they do among the Moquis and Zunis at
the present day, and explains the peculiarity of hair just
mentioned.
These remains may be very modern, as some choose to believe, but,
in all probability, they are more ancient than modern. Mummies
encased in wood and cloth have been taken from the tombs of Egypt
in an almost perfect state of preservation which cannot be less
than two thousand years old, and are, perhaps, more than double
that age. As there is no positive knowledge as to when the cliff
dwellers flourished, one man's guess on the subject is as good as
another's.
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