Colorado River (Colo.-Mexico); Grand Canyon (Ariz.); United States -- Discovery and exploration
Enupits, who are pigmies dwelling about the springs, and the Rock
Rovers, who live in the cliffs. Their gods are zoic, and the chief among
them are the wolf, the rabbit, the eagle, the jay, the rattlesnake, and
the spider. They have no knowledge of the ambient air, but the winds
are the breath of beasts living in the four quarters of the earth.
Whirlwinds that often blow among the sand-dunes are caused by the
dancing of Enupits. The sky is ice, and the rain is caused by the
Rainbow God; he abraids the ice of the sky with his scales and the snow
falls, and if the weather be warm the ice melts and it is rain. The sun
is a poor slave compelled to make the same journey every day since he
was conquered by the rabbit. These tribes have a great body of romance,
in which the actors are animals, and the knowledge of these stories is
the lore of their sages.
Scattered over the plateaus are the ruins of many ancient stone pueblos,
not unlike those previously described.
The Kanab River heading in the Pink Cliffs runs directly southward
powell-canyons-67.jpg
PERSPECTIVE VIEW OP ROUND-HOUSE STRUCTURE OF LAVA.
and joins the Colorado in the heart of the Grand Canyon. Its way is
through a series of canyons. From one of these it emerges at the foot
of the Vermilion Cliffs, and here stood an extensive ruin not many years
ago. Some portions of the pueblo were three stories
108
CANYONS OF THE COLORADO.
high. The structure was one of the best found in this land of ruins. The
Mormon people settling here have used the stones of the old pueblo
in building their homes, and now no vestiges of the ancient structure
remain. A few miles below the town other ruins were found. They were
scattered to Pipe's Springs, a point twenty miles to the westward.
Ruins were also discovered up the stream as far as the Pink Cliffs, and
eastward along the Vermilion Cliffs nearly to the Colorado River, and
out on the margin of the Kanab Plateau. These were all ruins of outlying
habitations be-longing to the Kanab pueblo. From the study of the
existing pueblos found elsewhere and from extensive study of the ruins,
it seems that everywhere tribal pueblos were built of considerable
dimensions, usually to give shelter to several hundred people. Then the
people cultivated the soil by irrigation, and had powell-canyons-68.jpg
AN ANCIENT CLIFF HOUSE.
109 powell-canyons-69.jpg
A ZUÑI EAGLE CAGE.
110 powell-canyons-70.jpg
A VIEW OF ZUÑI.
111
CLIFFS AND TERRACES.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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