1898] Tradition Justified 



no evidence of former occupancy, and the usual 

 daily afternoon thunderstorm being imminent, he 

 hurried down to telegraph to the press from the 

 nearest station that ; 'the Enchanted Mesa" was 

 now disenchanted! 



A lively controversy followed, and a more thorough Hodge's 

 investigation was arranged by Frederick Webb ex P edltwn 

 Hodge of the United States Bureau of Ethnology. 

 Hodge's party contained (besides himself) Major 

 Pradt of Laguna, United States deputy surveyor, 

 A. C. Vroman of Pasadena, photographer, and H. C. 

 Hoyt of Chicago. By scrambling up the 224 feet 

 of broken talus thrown down from above, they 

 reached the foot of a perpendicular wall about 

 thirty feet in height. From that point, by means 

 of special interlocking six-foot ladders and suitable 

 ropes, though not without serious difficulty, in a 

 little more than two hours they attained the summit, 

 where they spent the night. On the bare rock Evidences 

 (from which practically all surface soil has been / abitaion 

 washed away) they found abundant and unmis- 

 takable evidence of former habitation flints, ar- 

 rowheads, stone axes, agate chips, beads, and, most 

 important of all, fragments of very ancient pottery 

 decorated with a vitreous glaze, "an art now un- 

 known to Pueblo potters." Similar artifacts, more- 

 over, had previously been picked up by them in 

 the talus below. There were also traces of an ancient 

 house foundation. As Hodge observed: 'Katzimo 

 is still enchanted. The lore of a millennium is not 

 to be undone by a few hours of careless iconoclasm." l 



Lummis' plans involved the ascent of the Mesa 



1 "Katzimo, the Enchanted" ; F. W. Hodge, The Land of Sunshine, No- 

 vember, 1897. 



