532 ARCHEOLOGY 



Among its most interesting results was the fact that in the Hui- 

 chol tribe Lumholtz found and was able to study a people that 

 was still living in, or had relapsed into, almost primitive condi- 

 tions. I read at the time with great interest, as did every one else, 

 the account which Lumholtz gave of this tribe; but it was plain to 

 me at the first glance that a large number of customs, signs, and 

 symbols really could not be understood without comparison with 

 the exact descriptions of the old Mexican sources and a knowledge 

 of old Mexican symbolism. 



The same is true of the peculiar province of the Pueblo civiliza- 

 tion. In regard to this the investigations have not yet gone very 

 far. The first attempt was made by my friend, Dr. Walter Fewkes, 

 who tried to explain the famous snake-dance of the Hopi Indians 

 by the cognate ceremony of the old Mexican atamalqualizili. On 

 the other hand, it is equally true that the meaning of the old Mexi- 

 can festal ceremonies, figures, and symbols can only be reached 

 when we have succeeded in determining that of the various festi- 

 vals of the Pueblo Indians, of the ornamentation which is still 

 used by them, and of the decorations which we are able to study 

 on their utensils and fragments as found by excavators. I have 

 purposely made this distinction between what they use to-day 

 and what we see on the old pieces; for the whole curious world 

 of the Pueblo Indians of New Mexico and Arizona, which has aroused 

 the special interest of investigators and travelers, is itself only 

 intelligible when we study it in the light of archeological dis- 

 coveries. The cliff dwellings are not only the precursors of the 

 pueblos of to-day, with their houses built up one above another, 

 like fortresses, in curved lines, but they explain them. The pecul- 

 iar subterranean chamber for worship, the kibva, is understood 

 when we see the narrow space there is in the overhanging rock- 

 shelters. We cannot, of course, dig up the festivals and dances 

 whose survival, like a curious fossil, gives us so instructive a pic- 

 ture of the primitive conception of the world and primitive relig- 

 ious practices adapted to the special daily needs of the commun- 

 ity; but the types which appear in them are to be found in many 

 of the ancient rock-sculptures of the district or on the singular 

 painted plates which have been found in some of the deserted 

 pueblos. Their system of ornamentation, again, will only be fully 

 understood when we can subject to a thorough comparative ex- 

 amination the old models, as they may be so admirably seen, e. g., 

 in the vessels and platters dug up in Awdtobi. 



An example of the way in which only the data furnished by 

 archeology supply us with the solution of a problem is given by 

 the development of our knowledge concerning the hieroglyphic 

 writing of the Maya tribes of Central America. Through Bishop 



