Copyright, 1946, by J. W. Hendron
All rights reserved.
Manufactured by The Rydal Press, Inc., Santa Fe, New Mexico, U.S.A.

FRIJOLES,
A Hidden Valley in the New World

THE POTSHERD

By special permission of
New Mexico Magazine.
Printed June, 1936.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

My grateful acknowledgements are due to Dr. H. P. Mera and Mr. Stanley Stubbs of the Laboratory of Anthropology, Santa Fe, for their expert advice and criticism in their respective fields; Dr. Leslie Spier, Professor of Anthropology, University of New Mexico, for his helpful suggestions; the late Professor Lansing B. Bloom, Professor of History, University of New Mexico, for helpful information on history; Mrs. Evelyn C. Frey, Bandelier National Monument; Mrs. M. H. Sharp, for the many hours she gave to patient listening and constructive suggestion; Mr. Wayne Mauzy, Museum of New Mexico, for permission to use photographs and cuts; Mr. Natt Dodge, Region Three Office, National Park Service, for his helpful suggestions and time spent in obtaining cuts; my Mother, Mrs. J. H. Hendron, for her encouragement and assistance; and to all others who rendered services.

For my wife
“MISSIE”
who made this book possible by her patient listening and constructive criticism.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE

I. Some Twenty Years Ago 1

II. The Pueblo Indian Meets The White Man 6

III. Tyuonyi 18

IV. Building In The Great Period 32

V. Living In The Great Period 55

VI. Cliff Dwellers Again 66

VII. The Spanish Era 76

VIII. Present Times 79

  Source Material 83

  Glossary 85

  Index 90

INTRODUCTION

Because of my association with the beautiful Canyon of the Rito de Los Frijoles in Bandelier National Monument, New Mexico, and because of my deep interest in this Monument, the loose ends of a story, about the primitive people who made it their home, have been shaping themselves into a history beginning in America long before either Spaniards or Englishmen came to this country.

The material is based upon the work of many students who have done actual research in Frijoles Canyon and adjacent areas. It is a combination of legendary material, observation, speculation, scientific fact and logic. The text in the following pages is not presented as absolute and unquestionable fact in its entirety, and the author does not intend that it be interpreted that way. There will be some, no doubt, who, for the sake of convenience, will mutter indiscreetly about its content—that it isn’t scientific—as if the book had been intended for the exact scientist. Rather, it is meant for the lay reader who visits the Monument area and who would like to understand some of the customs and ways of life of its ancient inhabitants. This ancient world of the cliff dweller of New Mexico is recreated for the visitor through the firing of his imagination by an understanding of the archæological facts revealed here.

Until a great amount of research is done, a more accurate account of the archæology of this area will not be had. But because of the thousands of visitors to Bandelier National Monument each year, and their interest in its ancient inhabitants, this popular narrative is presented. Throughout the text are many uncommon words and names used frequently in New Mexico. The reader will find a helpful list of these with simplified pronunciations and meanings at the end of the book.

FRIJOLES,
A HIDDEN VALLEY IN THE NEW WORLD

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

FACING PAGE

Looking Up the Canyon From Ceremonial Cave xvi

The Old North Trail 1

Bandelier National Monument and Vicinity 8

The Painted Cave 14

Stone Lions of Cochiti 15

Ruins of Long House 30

A Part of Long House Ruins 31

Artist’s Restoration of Puwige 42

Aerial View of Puwige.—Restored 43

Ceremonial Cave 44

Kiva in Ceremonial Cave 45

A Section of Long House 60

Reconstructed Cliff House 60

Ruins of Puwige 61

Ruins of Large Kiva 61

The Author at an Old Hidden Trail 76

A Party of Visitors at Long House 77

PLATES
(in pocket)

Large Kiva. Ground Plan

Large Kiva. Section Drawings

Ceremonial Cave. Ground Plan

Ceremonial Cave. Section Drawings

Ground Plan of Frijoles Canyon. Ruins Area

Northern Wall of Frijoles Canyon

CHAPTER I
Some Twenty Years Ago

It has been some twenty odd years since I, as a child, first peered over the north rim of Frijoles Canyon. This was not so long ago when one thinks of the hundreds of others, still alive, who passed this way before me. I do not pretend to be an ancient but the number of individuals who saw the Frijoles in those days are microscopic when compared with the multitudes who have seen it since. There is not sufficient room here to discuss those who knew the place in the early days, long before my time, except to mention such personages as Adolph Bandelier, Charles Lummis, H. P. Mera, Edgar L. Hewett, Sylvanus G. Morley, A. V. Kidder, Jesse Nusbaum, Kenneth Chapman and many others who have distinguished themselves in the field of archæology or related fields. They all knew the place in its infancy, so to speak, and have contributed their share to the story of primitive Pueblo Indians who lived in the Valley of the Rito de Los Frijoles in times anterior to the coming of the Spanish.

As I remember it, there was a short-cut road into the Frijoles, little more than a cow path which left the Albuquerque-Santa Fe highway just on top of La Bajada Hill. It must have been fifteen miles across La Bajada Mesa west to the Rio Grande. Over the rolling hills of mesa-land the gears of our car ground a good part of the way in low until the little settlement of Buckman on the banks of the Rio Grande was reached. A man by this name, Buckman, used to cut and haul timber from the high potreros; he built a sawmill, and also a narrow bridge across the river here. It was a rickety old bridge with planks for runners but we got across. The winding, bumpy road led us up a steep climb from the Rio Grande to the forested land extending toward the high mountains. Once on top the mesa we drove between two of many high potreros and on into Water Canyon where the road followed the narrow valley for a few miles. We crossed a winding creek several times and drove through green pastures until the high-walled canyon became narrow.

Presently, the road turned to the left winding up the side of the mountain. Fortunately it was not muddy or we might never have made the steep grade. Once on top of the plateau the road headed south and a little west in the direction of Frijoles Canyon a few miles distant. We wound through majestic yellow pines, piñons and scrubby junipers. Here the road turned again and paralleled the Canyon for a few miles, up and down hills, ever twisting and turning. We drove to the top of an old trail which might have been used by ancient Indians some four hundred years ago. I walked to the brink of the Canyon, my mother constantly reminding me not to go too near. The height was terrific. It must have been six hundred feet to the bottom of the gorge—almost straight down. It made me dizzy. I had never seen such a thing before in all my life. It was to me a Hidden Valley and I wondered why any people wanted to come away out here to live—even prehistoric Indians. Of course, it was awe-inspiring but I was too young to be inspired.

There were saddle horses at the brink of the Canyon for folk who couldn’t or who were too lazy to walk down the trail. And then there were benches and tables underneath the pines for picnickers who wanted to eat either before they began the long descent into the valley, or after they returned from it. For years and years people walked or rode horseback up and down the steep old trail. Perhaps some never reached the bottom. Individuals came from all over the world. Some painted, some viewed, some fished, some wrote and some prayed to God that they might make it back to the top. Others, enthralled by the grandeur of the Canyon, desired to cast themselves off its rim into the mystery of its depth. I myself distinctly remember climbing down that old winding trail from the north rim. It seemed that we would never reach the bottom. The trail was a precipitous one, zigzagging and narrow, to the valley floor far below.

At a short distance across the narrow Rito we could see a little stone ranch house surrounded by huge pine trees and box-elders. A woman was standing on the porch probably wondering if we were to be guests for the night at the famous “Ten Elder Ranch.” But my father and I were fishing for mountain trout, and, if I remember correctly, it was he who caught the limit because he was the fisherman, not I. I might have been included among those unschooled people who had in their blood simply the desire for “pioneering” and “roughing-it,” but who understood little about what they saw.

This excursion of ours took place when roads in New Mexico were almost nil. A buckboard would have been better than an automobile with high pressure tires which blew out about twice a day. We broke an axle on the way home and had to spend the night on La Bajada Mesa between the Rio Grande and the highway in what was locally known as “Old Man Pankey’s Pastures.” The Valley of the Frijoles impressed me, then a little boy, and, I well remember the hundreds of smoke-blackened caves hewn out of the soft cliffs by Indians sometime in the dim past. But I knew not the significance of these caves. I knew nothing of the story of how prehistoric Indians lived four hundred years ago. They were merely blackened holes to me occupied by a people about whom I knew little. I remember the ruins of the big community house. It was located across the little river from the stone ranch house. I thought it foolish for Indians to build houses out in the sun when there were so many shade trees close to the Rito. I now believe that this first visit of my childhood created within me the desire to solve for myself the questions then arising in my mind concerning the Canyon. Since that time hundreds of famous personages have passed this way: artists, archæologists, doctors, botanists, psychologists, statesmen, preachers, governors, engineers, students and romancers, each finding satisfaction in his own particular line of interest.

Life in this place two decades ago can best be described by the owner of the old ranch, Mrs. Evelyn C. Frey, who has made Frijoles Canyon her home for twenty odd years. She can tell some very interesting stories about the early days. She knows the country and the trails, the flowers and the birds; and she still calls folks, who live thirty miles away, her neighbors. She recalls many lonely hours spent with her baby in the stillness of the Canyon. She remembers how the sun would go down over the south cliff at twelve noon and then how the day would change toward cold evenings and bitter winter nights. Ofttimes a howling wind would arise, then followed a calm, and in the morning a foot of deep snow. And there was no way out of the valley except over the old north trail. She tells how deer pranced around in full view, unafraid. Wild turkeys rested upon the wall behind the old ranch place and could be seen from her kitchen window. But she was never afraid and said she knew how to use a six-shooter if she had to. Mrs. Frey had told me many times, how, after a rough and tiresome drive from Santa Fe over fire trails, all supplies were packed on horses and mules and brought down to the floor of the Canyon.

A heavy pack mule, once upon a time, loaded with lumber, just didn’t make one of the sharp turns in the trail. It dropped one hundred fifty feet and went to mule heaven, bumping from first one level to another, lumber and all. The carcass was left for the scavengers of the air to feast upon. Mrs. Frey has described how she often bundled her tiny baby up in blankets to protect it from the cold on bitter winter nights, and, bearing the child in her arms she herself had swung into the saddle at the top of the old trail. The narrow path was covered with snow all the way down, and although she was afraid, the faithful horse had always carried them safely to their home.

The time came when pack horses were replaced by a cable-way strung from the north cliff to the floor of the Canyon. It was a thousand feet long and the tram-car was operated by a gasoline engine. This was the way supplies were brought in for the operation of the dude ranch—even the winter’s supply of wood. It was not until 1933 that the old trail was abandoned. At this time an automobile road was blasted from the side of the steep cliff in the lower end of Frijoles Canyon.

The history, if written, might prove far more interesting to many people than the prehistory. There would be some interesting tales to tell about folk and their affairs, but our main concern is with the prehistory. I do not think I exaggerate the situation when I say, despite a visitor’s interest or profession, most guests have come to Frijoles to visit the hundreds of ruins of homes built by the ancestors of some of our present-day Pueblo Indians. The Canyon and its extensive cliff dwellings and pueblo ruins are well-known the world over. Neolithic people, stone age people with implements of bone and stone and wood, lived here in ancient times and when they deserted their homes in the cliffs and on the valley floor, they left one of the most outstanding and spectacular sites in the southwestern part of America to be preserved for posterity.

CHAPTER II
The Pueblo Indian Meets the White Man

Could there be, in the Southwest, a man or woman who has not heard something of the Spanish expeditions into the New World during the sixteenth century? And, narrowing it down, about Coronado’s famed Seven Cities of Cibola and how they turned out to be six instead of seven poor little pueblos of stone and mud. They are now reduced to but one called Zuñi. Marcos de Nisa, a Franciscan friar, had led the little army of conquerors to nothing here except grief and disappointment in trade for fabulous stories about gold and silver.

New Mexico was a new country and besides extending the domain of His Majesty, King Charles, and forcing Christianity on the Indians, there were many wonders that would stand investigation. Had it not been for an Indian who was named Bigotes by the Spaniards, the conquerors might never have reached the Rio Grande during that expedition. Bigotes means “whiskers” and his appearance must have been a sight to His Majesty’s soldiers when this half-clad native came strolling into their camp with a few companions from Pecos far to the east. Unlike most of his kind, Bigotes wore a long mustache. He had brought buffalo hides to trade to the Spanish and he persuaded them to visit his country. It was on August 29, 1540, that the little band pushed out under the guidance of Bigotes. On September 7 of that year they reached the Province of Tiguex, which was between the present towns of Albuquerque and Bernalillo.

There were twelve Indian villages on the banks of the Rio Grande within a distance of some fifteen miles or so. The Rio Grande was described by the Spanish, at that time, as large and mighty in a spacious valley two leagues wide. Although the valley was broad and fertile, the Spanish description was certainly an over-estimation. Two leagues equalled five or six miles. They also said that the river froze so hard that laden animals and carts could cross over it. Tiguex was the winter camp of the entire Spanish expedition. It was here that Coronado and his band of weary and disappointed explorers spent that miserable and never-to-be-forgotten winter of 1540-1541. Glowing accounts of how Indians lived were told by the romantic Spanish chroniclers. Still, they found only a poor simple people living by the soil and a little hunting—but no gold.

Tiguex was not the only province along the river. There were others whose people had the same ways and peculiar customs as the people at the Tiguex villages. One of these provinces was that of Quirex. It has been determined that this was the district where the Keres language is spoken today by five very primitive Indian Pueblos. They are Cochiti, Santo Domingo, San Felipe, Santa Ana and Sia. Moved by an indomitable spirit and determination, a small band of soldiers pushed far north from Tiguex, past the Keres-speaking villages where another province was discovered on the upper Rio Grande. It was reported that two very fine villages were to be seen. According to some students these were in the vicinity of the present Tewa-speaking village of San Juan. The entire Indian population moved out at the sight of the Spanish. They retreated into the mountains where they said they had four very strong villages in a rough country where it was impossible for the Spanish to follow on horseback. Had they followed these people they would, no doubt, have found almost inaccessible Indian trails. Instead, they returned to Tiguex and left this northern province in peace. Little did the Spanish realize what extensive villages they might have seen in the rough mountains mentioned by the Indians.

Indians also spoke of villages on rivers flowing into the Rio Grande. Could these villages have been on the banks of the Rio Chama or were they on the Pajarito Plateau? They likely were in the Pajarito region and could have been the same villages mentioned by the Indians living near San Juan. But the towns of the Pajarito remained unexplored, unplundered and unstripped of what little they had. How fortunate were these people to have escaped the attentions of the Spanish with their shining armor, pointed lances and firearms. Otherwise, these poor Indians might have found themselves without adequate clothing and food for the approaching winter of 1541-1542 as did the Indians at Tiguex. But the passing of that second uneventful winter by disheartened and spirit-broken Spanish soldiers ended a chapter which was never to be forgotten by the other little pueblo dwellers. In the spring of 1542, the remnants of the Spanish were gathered together and the return to Mexico was begun. This must have been a day of rejoicing for the Indians at Tiguex. They had experienced a great deal. Murder, insincerity on the part of the Spanish, and violation of their living standards were just a few of their trials.

Life went on in the pueblos. Slowly but surely the Indians reorganized. Summers and winters passed and the Indians tilled their fields of corn for two generations before the Spanish came again. This next expedition up the Rio Grande in 1581 was that of Captain Francisco Sanchez Chamuscado with nine soldiers. This combined treasure-hunt and missionary expedition ended in tragedy. Chamuscado died before he returned to Mexico, and two padres, who accompanied the little party, were murdered by the Indians at Tiguex. So elated were the Indians with their success that they drew pictures of the killings.

Dreams of conquest and fabulous empires caused the launching of still another expedition into New Mexico in 1583. It was headed by Antonio de Espejo. Espejo, too, passed northward from the villages of the Province of Tiguex which had been visited by Coronado some forty years before and by Chamuscado in 1581. This little handful went north to a place called Cachiti. This was one of the pueblos of the Keres-speaking group mentioned by Coronado. People who were peaceful came from other pueblos and tried to persuade the Spanish to go with them. They told stories of most of the houses being three stories high. The Spanish named this place Los Confiados because the people were not disturbed. But where was Los Confiados? It has never been determined.

It would be a guess to say where these other Indians came from. It has been suggested that they might have come from villages on the Jemez River when they heard of the arrival of the Spanish. There is still another explanation which is also conjectural but possible. These people could have come from villages in the mountains. Archæologists and historians are unable to give us the exact extent of the Keres villages in those days although careful study and research suggest that only seven remained extant at the time of the Spanish Conquest. Yet, who can say that towns were not still being occupied back in the hills? On the forested mesa tops and in the deep water-worn canyons northwest of Cachiti, the Indian Pueblo known today as Cochiti, are hundreds of Indian villages now in ruins. They were occupied, hundreds of years ago, by Indians who were probably speaking the Keres language like the folks at Cochiti, Santo Domingo, San Felipe, Santa Ana and Sia. These people have told some interesting tales, legends mostly, about how all their present villages came to be: about their wanderings, about their Gods and about their troubles with Indians who spoke different languages.

Why was it that Espejo’s chroniclers did not leave us more information about the town of Los Confiados and its people? Was it not important? They told us about Zuñi and its Seven Cities, about the Tiguex villages and Cochiti. Coronado’s little group, some forty years before, had visited the Province of Hemes, now Jemez, whose people spoke yet another language, the Towa. And history tells us that Espejo made a two-day visit to the town of Los Confiados in 1583. This ended his contact with the Indians at Cochiti and other Keres-speaking villages. Could it be that Espejo’s soldiers looked back up into those forbidden and forested hills against a high range of snow-covered mountains northwest of Cochiti and decided that they had seen enough of the Indian? Or were they told that they would have to leave their horses behind and go afoot if they wanted to visit the villages on streams running into the Rio Grande? The thought of wearing heavy armor might not have been too fascinating. And if these people were from villages in the mountains, what was their motive in attempting to lead the Spanish there? Was it a trap? Did they have some other motive in mind, or was their mission one of peaceful intent? Archæologists now tell us that it probably has been centuries since Keres-speaking people lived in these mountains northwest of Cochiti.

If one had sufficient imaginative ability he might work up a hypothetical case of what could possibly have taken place during this February of 1583. To get at the basis of our story and the things to be talked about hypothesis seems to be our only recourse. Nothing seems exact when dealing with early New Mexican history, but this hypothesis could be as correct, possibly, as some of the accounts given by the Spanish possessed of romanticism. But how close were the explorers to Hidden Valley, the like of which they would never again be able to see! They stayed clear of the mountains and kept to the valleys. In all of their travels and wanderings, the Spanish kept out of the watershed between the Jemez Mountain Range and the Rio Grande Valley. It is today known as the Pajarito (little bird) Plateau. The Cañada de Cochiti is its southern boundary, not far from the pueblo of Cochiti. The Rio Grande bounds it on the east, the Rio Chama on the north and the Jemez Mountains on the west. The entire plateau is made up of deposits of soft volcanic ash, known as tuff, and deposits of black basalt. Geologists tell us that all this happened an inconceivably long time ago—three million years, let us say, in geological times known as the Pliocene and Pleistocene periods.

Today the Pajarito Plateau is a profusion of high potreros (narrow mesas), and deep canyons cut by streams and arroyos which carry off seasonal rains. Some of the canyons have sheer vertical cliffs of volcanic ash, hundreds of feet high in places, and this ash is soft enough to be carved and hewn into various shapes and forms. The cliffs are even soft enough for the wind to carve what appear to be statues which stand out as exceptional works of nature. The mesa tops are beautiful. They are covered with thick growths of pine and juniper, piñon and scrub oak. A profusion of flowers dot the landscape during the summer months.

It was the Pajarito Plateau that both Coronado and Espejo failed to plunder, not because of any lack of desire on their part, perhaps, but because it was a forbidden land to them and was marked by defying cliff boundaries which rose to terrific heights. Could one say that the Spanish did not wonder what these hills possessed when they heard about villages on streams which ran into the Rio Grande? And no doubt, if these peaceful people, whom the Spanish followed to Los Confiados, were of the Keres nation—and they likely were—then they knew every valley, stream, trail and water hole in the Pajarito country. Espejo dispatched some of his men to accompany these Indians. Where were they led? Did they go up into the sandy foothills below the Jemez Mountains and its finger-like plateaus or did they penetrate almost inaccessible territory northwest of Cochiti? Or did they march straight north up the almost inaccessible White Rock Canyon of the Rio Grande? They were gone two days from the pueblo of Cochiti. Where did they go? Where was this town of Los Confiados to which Espejo was invited and about which he gave us no fact?

The Keres-speaking people are possessed with legends of having been driven from the Pajarito by a race of “dwarfs” at some time in the remote past. But no one is sure that this race of “dwarfs” was not the Tewa-speaking people from the northern part of the Pajarito region who descended into Frijoles Canyon and drove the Keres from their Hidden Valley long before the Spanish came to America. Nor can one be certain that Keres people were not still living in Frijoles Canyon with the Tewas during Coronado’s time in 1540 or even some forty years later during Espejo’s time. Could one go so far as to suggest that Keres groups still remembered how their ancestors perhaps had been driven from their homes by “the little strong people” and that now they could have a well-earned revenge by directing the attentions of the Spanish toward the Valley of the Frijoles?

Had Espejo been gullible enough, and had the spirit of adventure been strong enough; had it been summer and not February, and had these peaceful Indians been Keres bent on revenge against the Tewas, his soldiers might have been led northwest up the Cañada de Cochiti. After an hour or so the trail would have become so difficult that the Indian method of travel would have been an issue. Horses would have been left behind and the little party would have ascended to the potrero tops on foot; over snow-covered precipitous trails; up and down canyon walls and deep into ancient Keres land.

It would have been no “picnic” even on foot. So rough is the country it is even doubted that the wily Navaho used these trails as has been so often suggested. The Keres might have picked a more direct route; up the banks of the Rio Grande to the mouth of Capulin Canyon, over high potreros, following a dim rough trail which skirted the Rio Grande for several miles then north to the mesa bordering Frijoles Canyon. And it is quite possible that the Spanish could have gone horseback deep into Keres territory, up Capulin Canyon to La Cueva Pintada, the Painted Cave. The cave gets its name from the many pictographs on its walls. Around it are the ruins of many houses built against the cliff at the top of the talus slope. Some of the Indian legends have it that the Painted Cave was one of six towns occupied when their ancestors were driven from the Valley of the Frijoles.

Travel from the Painted Cave on into Keres land probably would have been on foot. Up the rough Capulin Canyon [** Error: possible line-wrapped glossary phrase]for an hour’s march, over snow-covered potrero tops, they would have passed the ruins of innumerable villages. There they might have rested and drunk the icy water from a running creek during this cold month of February. And from there they made their way up to the potrero tops again, winding and twisting, half walking and half climbing and stopping somewhere, in a cave perhaps, to spend the night. And then they marched on to the pueblo of the Stone Lions, now bleak and desolate and worn by time. The pueblo of the Stone Lions, according to the Cochitenos, was the first village built and occupied by the Keres-speaking people after they were driven from the Valley of the Frijoles. The village is known as Yapashi which means “sacred enclosure.”

Only a half-mile away is the Stone Lions Shrine. Carved out of native tuff are the life-size images of two mountain lions and around them is an enclosure—a low wall of blocks of volcanic tuff. It is said that even the Zuñi Indians made pilgrimages to this shrine because they believed this to be the entrance to Shipapolima, the underworld from which their ancestors emerged. It is important even today to the Cochitenos who visit it frequently and leave bits of their ceremonial paraphernalia. Moving along slowly, Espejo’s little party would have trudged up the slopes to the high potrero tops again and then across the steep-walled Canyon del Alamo. They would have had a long march to Frijoles over trails known only to Indians. No, this could hardly have happened. The Spanish might never have survived.

Had these Keres-led Spanish peered into the Frijoles—known to Indians as Tyuonyi—this Hidden Valley in the New World, they would have seen the unbelievable. They would have looked into a valley six hundred feet deep and several hundred feet across. The opposite or north side was a sheer perpendicular cliff of pinkish rock. There were houses terraced high in the air, three or four stories at the base of the cliff. There were cave openings in the cliff, over some of the houses, which led out to open porches built of poles and brush. Small houses of stone and mud extended up and down the north wall of the Canyon almost as far as the human eye could see. People were walking around, microscopic in size because of the distance, climbing up and down tiny ladders to and from the tops of their houses. They were clothed in cotton cloth, hides and furs.

In the center of the valley, seemingly equidistant from both sides, was a huge circular house comprised of many small rooms, one on top of another, with tiny ladders extending from the ground to the roofs. Indians were going in and out of small roof openings. Their house was a veritable fort of primitive style. Four hundred rooms, or more, were built in the form of a circle. The structure had an opening or hallway through one side which led to an inner court or plaza. A sentry was stationed inside the entrance which was a high, thick wall built in the shape of a semi-circle with a narrow opening. A lone Indian, or maybe two, with bow and arrow in hand, might have been seen carrying a deer down a narrow trail. Queer looking creatures were these Indians with long stringy hair tied down by a band around their foreheads. They wore moccasins of deer skin on their feet. Kilts covered their thighs. They could have been a short muscular sort of people much the same as our modern pueblo dwellers. But they were known as the “pygmies” or “the little strong people.”